Disabilty or difference? It's all in how you look at it.
me helped me learn how to do these things. It did not happen over night, but it happened. Just like my college degree finally happened.
Now I teach special education classes in a middle school in San Antonio. My attention deficit always keeps one eye on each kid (one of my classes has 26 kids in it) to make sure they are all paying attention. I KNOW when they aren't! They all look like I did when I was in school not paying attention to the teacher. I've warned them. If I think they aren't paying attention I'm going to call on them. A couple of them have the gift that I do. I can look at a catalog and still know what's going on in a meeting. The catalog keeps me from talking too much. I am very fortunate that my direct supervisor at my school appreciates this, and he knows I am paying attention because I always have to ask him to clarify what something he said means. He also appreciates my differences and in that I am also very fortunate. He doesn't yell at me when I lose memos - he just prints me another one. I force myself to immediately file any legal paper work because I can't lose that. I'm not as scattered as I used to be, and some days are worse than others.
Disability or difference? I would not wish this on anyone. Yes, it has made me who I am, but there are days I wish I just didn't have to forget or lose one more thing. On the other hand, when I get a student referred to me that is LD, ADHD and down on school, I've been there. There's a chance I can reach this kid somehow.
There are positives and negatives to everything. It's all in How you look at it.
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