I went to a private Catholic school for many years and because of that, many  of the things I learnt there still stick with me today.  Let me tell you about my experience in a Catholic school as a student with a learning disability.  I should preface by saying that I didn’t get a math learning disability diagnosis until I was 20 but my parents and I always knew I couldn’t do math even when I tried my hardest.  I’m not going to name the school because it wasn’t all bad, just mostly.

I’ll never forget the teachers who made me feel stupid and less than.  There was a math and science teacher who was rather intimidating to begin with as she was notably strict with an ever present serious expression on her face.  Mrs. B, we will call her, cared about the students but patience wasn’t quite her forte.  She didn’t understand that I just didn’t understand and she would ask me, what don’t you understand and I would answer, I don’t know…I don’t even know what I don’t know.  What frustration.  One time, she sat next to me trying to explain some concept to me and she looked at me and asked, “Weren’t you taught this last year?”  I felt my face get red, “No?” I said in a small voice that made me sound like a mouse.  She got up and said she was going to ask my teacher from the previous year.  She left the classroom and to this day, I don’t know if she just stood outside of the classroom for ninety seconds or if she actually asked the teacher but she came back and sat beside me and told me my math teacher from the previous year said she did teach us said concept.  Did it really matter though?! I didn’t know how to go about this math problem so why couldn’t she just explain it to me again (not that I would have understood it had it been explained to me a hundred times)?

In the fifth grade, my math teacher, Mrs. L was more understanding and a bit more patient…with me anyway.  She even tutored me a few years after and I think she understood that I struggled with math but I don’t know if she knew the extent.  There was a day when we had a substitute teacher for her class and this lady was notorious for yelling and just being a miserable human.  We were doing long division and I couldn’t remember a step or I couldn’t part of it in my head, I don’t recall, but she just looked at me and said, “You don’t know how to divide, do you?” I didn’t know what to say.  I don’t know why but that memory has always stayed with me and it still stings a bit.  

These are two minute examples but the point I wish to convey is that this institution was not equipped to help students who could not grasp a concept the first or second time around.  I would always look around at my peers to see if they were as lost as I was and they all seemed to get it.  Uh-oh.  I can’t ask for clarification; I wouldn’t even know what to ask, it would be a waste of the teacher’s time, I’ll just quietly sit here.  

My teachers used to get so frustrated when I’d say “I can’t” and I said that all the time but I really meant it.  I didn’t know I had a math learning disability but I was certain there was something about my brain that prohibited me from comprehending it.  I tried telling people I wasn’t being dramatic, I wasn’t trying to get out of doing the work, and I wasn’t just being hard on myself.  I really, truly could not do it.  One time, on a math test, I was so frustrated with not knowing what the heck I was looking at or where to begin, I just wrote IDK for every answer.  The teacher of course made me retake the test and only then did someone start to take me seriously when I said it’s a bigger problem than they would like to believe.  

I am really lucky to have had my parents advocate for me when I was too embarrassed or scared to.  I had a math teacher in high school who recognized and accepted that I had a learning disability.  She would sometimes tell me when I got frustrated with myself, “You just suck at math but you’re so good at other areas like writing and Spanish.”  She was kind and patient with me.  It has taken a very long time for me to learn to advocate for myself and to speak up but I have started doing so very recently.  I still need to learn to be a little more forgiving towards myself.