Learning difficulties | Teen Ink

Learning difficulties

December 12, 2022
By Anonymous

Elementary school was the most challenging time for my education; other than 8th grade but that's my fault. I couldn't comprehend a thing that was going on and I was so lost during class all the time. Every Wednesday, they would take me out of class and sit me down in a closet-like room with one or two other students for speech therapy. This continued for approximately 1-2 years. I don't think much happened but then again I don't remember much from then. However, I remembered I learned the difference between "m" and "n". We got a different teacher for each grade level, and they were nice but not very helpful looking back at it. My most challenging subject was math Math. I frequently cried at the dining table while my dad or brother tried to help me with math homework. He always complained about the "new way" of math since he only knew the ‘old version”. He never helped either, he just got my papers all wet. Our grade system was 1-4, 4 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. I got 2's on everything.


   People may say I was dumb for not being able to pick stuff up easily, but it’s not really my fault that non of my teachers tried to help me. Well, they obviously tried but not much. The most they would do is take me to a table at the back of the class with all the other people who don’t know what they were doing.


     Well, if they didn’t think I was dumb before then they surely will now. It was December 2018, the first semester of 8th grade. It’s been a month since I started playing a popular game named “Fortnite”. I readied up for a squads match with someone I was playing I met earlier that day. I met two people, one who is still good friends now and another who was a couple of years younger than me(they were both already friends). After that game, we became friends fast and the more I played with them the more my grades declined. Soon the second semester started and my grades were worse at the start of the semester than they were at the end of the first semester. I had all C’s and D’s and carelessly played with my friends all day and night. I wasn’t very productive during class either as my friends were in my classes, except for English but I would be distracted by one of my tablemates and the music he blasted 24/7 through his headphones. I had to eventually go to Saturday school a lot of times, mostly because of English. But it's not my fault she never graded late assignments, even if they were a minute late. I ended up barely being able to be a part of middle school promotion since I had a D in math; my worst subject. 


     High school started and I went to a different school from all of my friends (A school I didn’t want to go to). I was expecting to go through high school barely passing but I ended up doing a lot better than I did in middle school. I was still playing a lot of video games and talking with my online friends but for some reason, I was doing better. Maybe I just finally got good teachers or the fact we barely had any homework. I also joined the Cross Country team which made me pretty busy and caused me to play with them less. 


    Covid finally hit the U.S. and our school closed down a day before spring break. I ended up starting to play/talk to them even more. However, my grades never decreased; they actually increased. From mostly B’s to all A’s. It made me happy knowing that I could talk and play with the people I wanted to the most while maintaining good grades. I even started helping one of them with his math homework because he wasn’t able to understand what was going on. Some people said online learning was the worst for them but I think that's when my grades peaked. I was really nervous going back in person since I liked online but I ended up doing just as well in person. I'm not sure if long lectures weren't my thing but when we did them online it was fine. 



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