Can you believe that most people live to learn? It makes them who they are, and in turn, it makes everything easier to understand. My education has always been a part of who I am. It shows what I went through and how I’ve overcome everything that stood in my way. Even moving forward in my career education will always be a part of that. An individualized Education Program or IEP for a student in each public school that receives special education must be designed for that student and an individualized document. That is the definition of an IEP, that is the definition of my education. When I was in elementary school I was known as “the quiet kid”, I didn’t want to take part in anything, and the subjects that my teachers taught were always difficult to understand. When I was in first grade I was taken out of class and given a lot of tests, I failed almost all of those. That’s how one teacher became many.
I had a teacher for math, speech, reading, and pronunciation. I can say that it was fun having all those teachers. With these teachers I had little to worry about, my speech was better when I reached fourth grade I no longer needed that teacher. But I was still failing at everything else. At the beginning of Fourth grade, I went to school with my aunt, since my cousins went to the same school. When we got there she found my siblings and cousins’ class immediately, but it took almost 30 minutes to find mine. My reading teacher saw us, came over, and explained to my aunt that I was placed in Special Ed. My aunt was furious and took me to my grandmother’s house. I didn’t go to school for that whole week. I stayed in Special Ed for 3-4 months, I don’t remember when I left, I just know that I was scared. Growing up kids weren’t always nice to the kids that learned slower than they did, but none of those kids even notice that I hadn’t been with them all year. I grew up with a large majority of those kids yet they all acted as if I was a new kid.
Math and reading was always hard subject in school for me, and even now I still don’t understand them. I always had a problem with moving the numbers or adding numbers that weren’t there. I consistently got stuck on words and couldn’t remember how to pronounce the words after reading them. Dyslexia: I love that word it’s easy to pronounce and I have a cousin named Alexis so that is how I learned the word. I found out that I have Dyslexia when I was 8. Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty with reading due to problems identifying speech sounds. Then on top of that, I have Dyscalculia “math dyslexia” which impairs an individual’s ability to learn number-related concepts.
Going to high school my IEP transferred as well. I didn’t have that much trouble with reading when I got to high school. I did still have trouble with words and didn’t understand anything unless it was read to me. My math took a huge hit, let me say math is the subject of a demon. I stayed in a good position with everything grade-wise to my junior year. Junior year was my hardest year of school, I had dropped my IEP and Covid was in full effect. My high school didn’t allow in-class learning everything was over zoom. Which did not pair well with any of my learning disabilities, I regretted not having an IEP anymore, and wanted it back but was told that I no longer met the requirements for it. My GPA dropped so much without the help from my IEP and if I could go back I wouldn’t have dropped it at all. Junior year came and passed very quickly. I did have to go to summer school before my senior year to catch back up with my class. I ended up going above and beyond with summer school. My Senior year was stressful at first but eventually, I got the hang of it and only had 4 classes 2nd semester.
My IEP will always be a part of my education, as well as my other disabilities. I still haven’t gotten the hang of my Dyslexia but I don’t care anymore. I know that I have it and it can go away if I work hard enough on it but it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I like how my education went growing up and appreciate all the people that took a chance helping me or giving me the resources that I needed.
