Accomodations

I just walked my girls over to school this morning and it turns out that Horse Girl has a writing prompt and History Girl has NWEA testing today. When I dropped the girls off I over heard some parents complaining about accomodations some of the kids get. Well Horse Girl gets to do her writting prompts in the Resorse Room and she is allowed to have extra time to do them. Which seems fine to me. All through college I took my tests on computers because I can type faster then I can write so my brain and my hands don't stumble over each other trying to get my thoughts out. Plus in college I got double time for my tests. When I took my GREs and GMATs I also used a computer and got double time. So to me accomodations aren't something I think about if someone says they need them then fine they should get them.

What suprises me more then anything are the very smart people that I know who seem to think that accomodations aren't fair to the people who have to take the test "normally." First of all I want to scream and say "For Pete's Sake I would love to give up my accomodations to be able to read and write like other people." I would give up Horse Girl's accomodations for to be able to read and write like other people.

Extra time doesn't make the test easier. If you don't have the information in your brain no matter how long you look at that test it will not magically appear. That is just the way it is. The extra time is just so people who have problems with reading and writing can have the time to process things. I personally think time tests are just stupid in the first place. As I said if a person doesn't know the info then they have nothing to put down for an answer so it doesn't matter how long testing period is.

I am not sure if this has made it into the news other places, but there is a man who has learning differances and he has graduated from law school and the Bar will not let him have accomodations for Bar exam. That makes me so angry....because the Law School let him have accomodation at school and now he can't seem to become a practicing lawyer because of issues around accomodations. I have had people say to me about this case that lawyers have to think on their feet so that is why it needs to be a timed test and it wouldn't be fair to the clients of a person who only past the Bar because of accomodations. WHAT?!?!? For Pete's Sake this is 2007, we aren't living in the dark ages, there is no reason to protect the disabled people from themselves. People with Learning Differences know they have issues, if these people talked to the guy or any person with learning issues they would find out that they knows what they are good at and what they aren't and they steer away from the stuff they aren't good at.

I most likely won't ever be going back to college again, even though I would love to. I love college I love higher learning....heck I just love school. I went to see about taking the Praxis test to see about going back to school to become a special ed teacher. Well ETS says that even though I have had accomodation with them in the past because it was more then 5 years ago, I need to be retested to prove that I still have learning disablities. Gee....they must know something that I don't. I guess in their world people can grow out of having learning disablities. You don't know how much I wish that was true, because it would give me some hope for Horse Girl's future that she might not have all the issues I have had and won't need to fight the same battles I have, but I know that that is not the case and ETS is just a self serving company.

ETS worries about how people view their tests. If they didn't make people jump through hoops to get accomdations then schools might not view the tests as accurate. If schools didn't see the tests ass accurate then they would stop requiring people to take the tests to apply for admitions and if that happens then ETS would lose money.

It just strikes me a bit ironic that if some of the best minds ever.....for example: Einstein, Churchill, Disney, DeVinci, Edison, Faraday, etc. asked for accomodations to process the test they would be told they couldn't have it unless they went through testing in the last 5 years to prove they have a "problem".

I just finished reading a Biography on Einstein....I read his biographies when I am down and want to remember the gifts of being dyslexic. In the biography they quoted stuff he wrote saying how some of his best theries came to him as pictures in his brain. Which makes total sence to me.

The reason it makes sence is because I know I don't read like other people, I don't sound out words. Sounding out words just confuses me. I sight read, ever word I read is a word I have memorized the shape of and that is how we are working on teaching Horse Girl to read. Dyslexics think with pictures not words. Which works ok most of the time, but does cause problems. When I am reading and there is a name that I don't know and is hard to memorize....happens often in Russian History books and in Fantasy books....I ended up "reading" the name by saying ok this is the person with the long name that starts with A and ends with i and his patranimic is Ivan....so that is how I "read" the person's name through the whole book. It only becomes a problem if there is a lot of long names that start and end with the same letters. Which is the case with Lord of the Rings (LOTR). I love Fantsy books, but I have never been able to read LOTR because of the people's names. I get confused and give up. I am thinking I should get it on an audiobook since I know Horse Girl loves the movies so I bet she will want to read them at some point and I don't want her to deal with the frustration I have had. This might be one of the reasons I like the Harry Potter books so much, they are fantasy books, but all the names in the book are either ones that I know from day to day life or they are easy for me to memorize.

Well I got off my topic about accomodations. I know I could be tested again to prove that I still have my LDs, but in reality it isn't worth my time or money right now at this point in my life, when I know I already have the paperwork to prove my issues.....just they won't except them. I need to pour my time and money into getting Horse Girl her paperwork to prove her issues and maybe once I am done with that. I can work on me again.