I have always over exceeded in school. I remember being offered to get skipped when I was in the sixth grade. Eventually I declined due to wanting to socially stay with my peers. I don’t regret my decision I still graduated Junior High with top honors, I was the Valecdictorian of my school. While in High School I was attending Pace University on Saturdays that helped with PSAT/SAT prep and a college course. In the summer you continued the course for six weeks with the last week being spent on their campus in Weschester as a retreat. I graduated at the age of 17.

Fast foward who would’ve known that my child would be classified as having a learning disability. Naturally as a concerned parent you listen to what the your child’s teacher is telling you and agree to subject your child to all these tests and phycological classifications. Since I didn’t have any professional background on a child’s learning habits I went along with their recommendations and have my child switched Special Education where he would receive a more individualized curriculum to fit his learning needs with a para professional for extra help.

My second child is now attending school, he is till this day a calm soul. He never spoke to anyone other than family. As he progressed in school they once again called me in to basically state that he too has a learning disability and because of his lack of interaction socially that he must be put into speech therapy as well. Naturally you blame yourself, you ask yourself what am I not doing? Why does the fact that my child chooses to be to his self raises a red flag to you!!!  So once again I signed off to have my second child be put into an individualized setting.

My third child is in school and she like any other child is reading at her pace because let’s face not every child are great readers some need more help than other. Normal shit right! No not when we are dealing with the Board of Education. I was taken aback when I was called in to have a meeting with the school’s phycologist. The meeting basically went like this:

• your child has a learning disability
• she isn’t reading at her grade level
• her brother’s have an IEP and we recommend that she has one as well
• let’s introduce her to speech therapy as well
• we are only concerned with her ability to learn and we believe we can give her those tools

I ask you what would you do ? You don’t want to take it personal and deny any resources being provided to your child. Two comments at the end of that meeting always haunted me after.

• I can tell you are an educated woman by the way you speak.
• Maybe your children are getting their learning disabilities from their father.

Let’s keep it all the way real all of my meetings where with Caucasian professionals. Where I myself don’t care about their race Im only concerned with their credentials as a child phycologist, I must factor in that maybe they just saw my child’s race. I have brushed this feeling to the side, but there’s always that possibility as I think back to my experience.

It wasn’t until my daughter started her speech therapy and extra help where she was taken out of her class for her individual help with reading that that teacher informed me she believes she didn’t belong there. My daughter knows how to read, she can explain to you what she just read, she speaks very well. My daughter has an IEP because her brother had one and my second son has an IEP because his older brother has one and my oldest has an IEP because he has a teacher not willing to teach HIM the way he needed to learn. My son is an individual which common sense tells you not all children learn at the same pace. Does that give you the right to classify them as having a disability because they didn’t pick up on your lesson the first time, or are you a person who shouldn’t be teaching our youth.

This teacher has abandoned her responsibility as an educator. She has forever molded my child’s education resulting in my other children’s educational classification. Sadly this has followed my other children into High School and will probably follow my daughter into Junior High.

They didn’t care enough about my children, they where considered unteachable, so let’s remove them from General Ed and place them in Special Ed where they can be someone else’s problem.

The inspiration for this post was because the cycle continues my sister is now facing the same struggles the only difference is her children are babies. They want to classify her child as having Autistic characteristics. The problem we face is that our brown and black babies are being subjected to what a text book says, and if a caucasian baby did this at six months and your child hasn’t forget it there’s something wrong with your child. This is BS!!! Don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made and just listen to what the first phycologist said, do your research. And never feel that because they have a degree that they are diagnosing your child correctly.

How can our children experience Higher Learning if they are looked at as Paychecks to some Educators.

How can we trust our School System if we have Teachers not willing to make sure your child Succeeds By Any Means Necessary!!!

Our Youth Are at A Major Disadvantage If this type of thinking Continues in Our Public Schools