Dear educational system,
My name is Elad Ness and I am a student with many learning differences. I use the word “difference” and not the word that society seems to use, “disability” because I don’t see what I have as disabilities. I see them as differences because I just learn things differently, but you wouldn't know that because you have never tried different for the most part. The number of times I have come home from elementary school crying because the teachers told everyone what they were good at and nothing was told to me so I stayed up all night wondering what I was good at has surpassed way too many. The number of times I ran out of class because of being embarrassed by my teachers calling me stupid and that I was never going to make it in life in front of the whole class has surpassed way too many. I could go on and on about these kinds of situations and events, however, it would be selfish just to talk about things that happened to me, as I am just one of millions that have learning differences.
The "policies" and “rules" put in place are all tailored to a very certain small group of people. REALIZE EVERY PERSON LEARNS IN A DIFFERENT WAY, THEY ARE DIFFERENT, AND YOU CANNOT GENERALIZE HOW PEOPLE SHOULD LEARN. Out of the many different schools that I have attended, I was very fortunate to go to a middle school that specialized in working with kids with learning differences. They realized and knew that each student was different and learned in a different way, so they worked with the student to see what works best for them. My smallest class included another girl and myself and my biggest class was 10 other kids, and myself. For the first time in my life, I was not failing in school. I really felt cared for and learned many different ways for me to learn that worked for me. I could go on and on about the beyond amazing things I learned at that school, however, this letter would then go on infinitely.
Unfortunately, that is just one school out of the many.
Just because I learn differently doesn't give you the right to leave me out of the system. It's funny because so many of the world's most successful people of all time have learning differences. Albert Einstein, Picasso, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, and Jay Leno just to name a few.
I am willing to bet that if you worked with and really showed that you cared about people with learning differences, then the differences in their grades, how they feel about themselves, school, their future, and everything else will be way more positive than they are now. Although this has been the case for a long time, I truly believe that it is not too late to turn this around and change the way students are taught. Our generation is a generation of new ideas and change. Times are changing. We cannot have the same system as we did 50 years ago. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT AND EVERYONE IS UNIQUE.
