<p>I rest my case.</p>
<p>People with learning disabilities should be granted degrees automatically by the university if they put in a good effort to pass their classes.</p>
<p>Scenario: Big trees runs into a bushwacker while on a teen shunpiking tour and looses two legs. Happily, he makes a full recovery, and becomes very adept at using his wheel chair. Since he is under 18, the government says: give Big trees a ramp to get into the public building. Society says: Great idea!
Now Big trees can play with all the other kids and contribute his esteemed ideas to society. He’s not asking to be a dance instructor. He just wants the same chance to be in the building.</p>
<p>Then Big trees turns 18. By his own logic, he says “Take away that ramp. I’m an adult now. No need to whine about having a ramp to a publicly-funded institution.” Then, he is never heard from again, because guess what – he can’t get into the freaking building without a ramp.</p>
<p>This is the equivalent, in very simple terms, of the Big Tree Interpretation of Social Responsibility for Access for College Students with Disabilities.</p>
<p>More food for thought:
There is a headset you can get from an audiologist that can show you what a person with central auditory processing disorder HEARS. I would like to see you study four terms of a language to a conversational degree with the capacity to process less than 30% of what you hear in real time. Go try it out, and maybe you will understand why accommodations are necessary. There is nothing wrong with substituting sign language or a dead language such as Latin for conversational language proficiency. However, many smaller schools find it impractical to offer such curricular options. </p>
<p>Further, are you aware that there is an amendment to 504 presently in the process of federal endorsement that includes the right to “attend” – as in compensate attentional disorders? This is why research supports loop sound systems in classrooms, which benefit ALL students, according to the research, not just students who have a deficit in terms of attention or processing.</p>
<p>It takes many kinds of minds to make a world. Many, if not most students with disability have an equal or greater “super” ability, such as super verbal fluency (my own son is a verbal genius (they call it “poetic genius” in neuropsych), for example, in the 99.5th percentile) et al. Should his contributions be eschewed?</p>
<p>I wonder what big trees would have us do about that thorny Stephen Hawkings issue. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Big Trees. You rest your case? What kind of non-responsive answer is this? You made no case. In fact, you proved mine!</p>
<p>My previously described brother has a BA and an MBA in international commerce. He has no auditory issues and learned to speak fluently in at least three languages - Chinese, Russian and of course, English. He can get by in Japanese and Italian as well, which is a good thing considering his big wig job. Nothing was ever handed to him (quite the opposite - not even financial aid). And I guarantee you he worked exceptionally hard to achieve all he has in his 45 years. In fact, he thinks people who just show up just to get by have absolutely no heart. Look, it is clear that compassion is not your strong suit. But I’d caution you a tad… here is a guy who could very well be your boss some day.</p>
<p>[Inventors</a> & scientists | Happy Dyslexic](<a href=“http://www.happydyslexic.com/node/15]Inventors”>Inventors & scientists | Happy Dyslexic)</p>
<p>From the link, though I will note that these are not the two most important dyslexics on the list…this one seems particularly apt to the subject at hand.</p>
<p>•James Clerk Maxwell<br>
•Michael Faraday: physics, the discoverer of electro-magnetic induction, electro-magnetic rotations, the magneto-optical effect, diamagnetism. Biography. Books on Michael Faraday and his work.
“I found that … Faraday’s methods … begin with the whole and arrive at the parts by analysis, while the ordinary mathematical methods were founded on the principle of beginning with the parts and building up the whole by synthesis.” - James Clerk Maxwell
“Faraday and Maxwell were two of the brightest people of the 19th century. Faraday was virtually uneducated, but he had an ace up his sleeve. Thomas West, who writes on dyslexia, points out that Faraday showed a full set of typical symptoms. He had terrible trouble with spelling and punctuation. His memory played tricks on him. He couldn’t handle mathematics.
He had one more typical dyslexic trait: a powerful visual sense. He forged a finished image in his mind’s eye, then he broke that image down into parts that people could understand. Maxwell tells us that Faraday built a mental picture of lines of force, filling space, shaping themselves into lovely arrays.” - John H. Lienhard, author and voice of The Engines of Our Ingenuity</p>
<p>Moda, love the story about your brother. BigTrees, here’s a story about my sister, about whom I’ve posted before.</p>
<p>My sister is brilliant verbally and is terrible at math - no diagnosed disorder, but testing for that kind of thing really wasn’t common in the '60s. She didn’t get her undergrad degree until she was 47. Before that, she was chronically unemployed - received public assistance, her kids got free lunch, she had several major surgeries for which she did not pay because she had no assets and no insurance, her daughter went to a state U totally on need based aid - you get it - what my parents didn’t pay for, the taxpayers of America did.</p>
<p>When she finally went to college, she had an easy time completing her degree requirements, except that one pesky general algebra class. Students were allowed three tries - she failed the first two and was then placed in the class with all the other “last ditch effort” students. The teacher used very unconventional teaching methods, the class was spoon fed, she passed and got her degree.</p>
<p>If the school hadn’t had this last ditch class, no degree for her, and I assume she’d still be living off the taxpayers of the country. Instead, she now has two degrees and is teaching at a CC…she loves her students (because she can identify with them). She is not only improving the lives of others, she is paying taxes and when she goes to the doctor, the bill gets paid.</p>
<p>Isn’t it better for all of us that she was able to get her degree, even if the school had to bend over backwards to help her pass algebra?</p>