17: Shoutout to learning support
Looking back on high school there are a wide array of emotions that I feel: from the joy of selling ice cream at the school play, to the despair of having to do the same maths course in Year 10 because I failed in Year 9. This is more about maths than ice cream.
Students with different learning needs require more academic support and most importantly, compassion. Without it, these students are often set up to fail.
Students come to school with different needs and circumstances. Although there is debate about how to describe, define, and categorise different conditions like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, and ADHD, there can be similarities in classroom experiences. For example, students with such conditions may be seen to perform less well at school (more detentions, lateness to class, trouble writing). According to the Access Alliance, 15% of New Zealand’s population are dyslexic, and dyslexic learners are overly represented in negative statistics.
There are outdated expectations in a lot of schools, which influence students like myself falling through the cracks. There is a belief that we just simply aren't smart enough, rather than the reality that the system itself is overwhelmingly limiting.
The first port of call shouldn’t be that someone is incapable, but figuring out why they’re struggling. It should be about empowering students to learn in different ways or at least help them understand why they’re not finding a reading assignment as easy as the next kid. Otherwise, students leave high school with no idea that they have conditions such as dysgraphia or dyscalculia, and feeling like they’ve consistently failed. “I didnt know, I just thought I was dumb”, says a Salient staff member with dyscallcula. It can be a very bewildering environment.
With the lockdown happening last year, I felt incredibly isolated. I didn't know what to do because I hadn't actually written an exam since I was 14. I never had the experience of queuing up outside of the hall for exams, alphabetical order and all. I had a reader-writer.
If it wasn’t for Mrs Magnussen and Whaea Viv on the school's learning support team, I can imagine that my high school experience would’ve been a lot worse. I wouldn't have had the support to help me reach university in the first place. I need to shout out to my mum for noticing something was up, because when I finally got diagnosed everything started to make sense. The reason that I couldn't organise any of my school work, the reason that looking at the whiteboard just did not calculate in my head, the reason my essay writing was quite poor because what was going on to paper wasn’t what was in my head. I could only be partially eloquent if I verbalised it. It just made everything endlessly clearer.
When I moved to Wellington, I had a meeting with Matt from the Disability Services team who helped me access info to get a grant for software that had a reader-writer, and line up a reader-writer for my tests. People like Matt are huge assets to this uni who have helped myself and countless other students through what can be a pretty scary place.
If there was more support at school level, I can imagine a lot of us would’ve had a better time with our academic work and so much more. This is dedicated to those who make that huge difference, from teacher aides to subject teachers. If it wasn't for these people, I definitely would not be writing this in a university student magazine.
Matthew Casey (he/him), with Sally Ward (she/her)