Why my learning disabilities make me a better teacher 

I can feel their eyes on me as I stare at a math problem on the board — it’s a problem I’ve seen many times before, yet it’s no easier for me to solve now than it was the first time I saw it. After what feels like an eternity, my 10th-grade math teacher walks up to me. I assume he’s going to help me solve the problem like he has done in the past. Instead, he says something that has stuck with me to this day. Loud enough for a classroom full of my peers to hear, he says, “You’re stupid and are never going to amount to anything.”  

As a student, I had struggled academically because of multiple learning disabilities. I could have decided that day to drop out of high school. I could have accepted every negative assumption ever made about me because of my dyslexia and dyscalculia. But rather than dropping out or giving in, I decided at that moment that I wanted to be a teacher — and not just any teacher but a special education teacher.  

Fast-forward seven years. I became that special education teacher I set out to be — ensuring that students like me are never made to feel the way I did in that moment about something we have no control over. My personal experiences as a student and now a teacher who has learning disabilities have made me uniquely aware and skilled at supporting students with disabilities. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.