#22 "Jimmy Shares His LD Story"

Today's episode guest is a former college student who talks about some of his experiences at both the community college and university as a student with a learning disability.  Jimmmy talks about his academic struggles and how he worked to succeed in his classes.  He describes his experiences with several professors, and the importance of reaching out regularly to both the disability services and the faculty.  Jimmy's story is a "must listen to" episode for any student with a disability who is planning college.

Transcript

Jimmy  0:00 
Those test grades look like a winter in Cincinnati. It was 45,35, 55.

Mickie 0.08
Today, you're in luck. We have a guest former student that worked with me back in the days when I worked at the college. His name is Jimmy and Jimmy is going to talk about getting accommodations at college for a learning disability and some of the struggles with a learning disability and he's going to share his insights on the world of hidden disabilities for students. Welcome to College, Disabilities, and Success. Episode 22, "Jimmy Shares his LD Story" by Mickie Hayes. The opinions in this podcast are my own, but please reach out to your college, to your physician or to legal services for any additional information.

Mickie 0:54 
Jimmy, hi!

Jimmy  0:56 
hello,

Mickie  0:56 
When you and I knew each other back in the day, we worked a lot with accommodations for you for your disability. And when you were listening to some of my previous podcasts, you said a couple of things struck a chord with you a familiarity of things that you experienced. Can you yes about that?

Jimmy 1:14 
The most important thing that I remember was being proactive in my studies, making sure that when I went out to get my schedule to go over with you, and we would work with what accommodations I could receive for each course. And then what I would do is make a meetings with the professors to go over my accommodation letters and try to make a plan for the semester

Mickie  1:42 
Have you ever run in...? I'm sorry, did you ever run into any snags doing that I'm thinking of a particular...

Jimmy1:47 
Go ahead. There is professors who didn't have the time or did not want to meet with me first, or some who didn't understand about my disability itself.

Mickie  1:58 
That is probably a big issue that a lot of students run into.

Jimmy2:03 
Yes, My issue is I have a hidden disability. I have a learning disability. And it was very hard to first accept my learning disability. And many times when I would go to my professors and hand them the note, they said,  "well, you look fine to me."

Mickie  2:21 
And they're not supposed to do that, by the way, that's not the law.

Jimmy 2:25 
They're not supposed to do that.

Mickie  2:27 
Some don't realize it Yeah,

Jimmy  2:29 
Some don't realize it. And if I can say something to the to your audiences, have a relationship with your professors, because at the beginning of semester, they don't know you. To be comical, it's kind of like a first date.

Mickie 2:44 
That's a good analogy. Just getting to know each other,

Jimmy 2:47 
Get to know each other. How are you? this is, this is me, this is how I am. This is how I function. And as we go through just like a date or marriage or anything you get, you start getting to understand each other and your pitfalls, or your struggles, your struggles. One particular experience I can relate is, I was taking a course at the university level, and I studied so hard for that midterm, that I forgot everything including my name.

Mickie 3:20 
Wow, you just went in there and totally,

Jimmy 3:22 
I went in there.

Mickie  3:23 
blanked?

Jimmy 3:25 
Blanked. And I was able to only answer the first question. And I remember getting up. Answering three questions. Handed in my exam, walked out and started crying.

Mickie  3:39
Oh, wow. Oh wow.

Jimmy 3:40 
Because I felt that I failed the course.

Mickie 3:44 
Sure.

Jimmy 3:44 
So I went home. I emailed the professor, I said to the professor, I need to withdraw from the course because I failed the midterm. He responds back. He says "Come see me my office." I think the class was a Tuesday or Thursday course. This is see me on Tuesday after class. He said okay. So that day went to class and I went to office hours. And I told him, I guess I have to withdraw. He goes "Jimmy,  I'm a person of merit, you at least made the attempt to answer three questions. And the three questions that you tried to answer you were on the right track. So how about this? How about we put this aside, and we work together on the questions that you did not get, that you did not finish. And I said okay, I appreciated it because he didn't have to do. He could have just said, you know, you failed bye! Yeah, but he took the time because he knew from the beginning and I was honest with him about my disability that you participate. You try. You do the readings. I can see it. So not all professors are out to get you.

Mickie 4:52  
That's a very good piece of information to share. Because so many times students assume that there's going to be a problem sometimes legitimately, if they've had them in the past, but sometimes just out of fear that they're into a college level class now, and they have a hidden disability, and the professor is going to find out and

Jimmy 5:15  
yes, yes. And sometimes we ourselves don't know that a professor could also have a disability, a hidden disability.

Mickie  5:25  
That is a very, very, very good point. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We have no idea what struggles the professor is going through as well, that's a very good point. 

Jimmy 5:34  
Because one in particular, when when we were working together, I was failing. I was failing those tests, those those, those test grades look like a winter in Cincinnati. It was 45, 35, 55.

Mickie  5:51  
As a person formerly from Ohio, I can I can dig it.

Jimmy  5:54  
It was cold. And those were low numbers. Yeah, really low. And I remember talking to the professor, and the professor said, "Hey, I wasn't a good test taker too when I was an undergrad. And he told me, how about you come to my office, and we'll do a little run by of test taking skills of what you can do. So you do not freeze up or test anxiety or ways of how you can learn how I did it when I was going to school. 

Mickie  6:28  
Wow. 

Jimmy 6:29  
And he told me. To this day, I sometimes, if I don't understand something, I will decipher the way that he taught me how to decipher .

Mickie  6:39  
That's awesome. That is that is amazing. People need to hear that professors in general are not out to get you and many will do whatever they can to help you out. And that is just really, really nice to hear that he shared his own techniques.

Jimmy 6:56  
And when I went to the university level, I had this wonderful professor, he was a brand new professor. He was from the United Kingdom. So he just came to the States. And he was at the university level. And he really didn't know how the American system worked. So I was basically his first students with disabilities. It's up to you how personal you want to get with your disability. Yeah, this is not 50 questions, you're not on trial. You. I learned throughout my, my studies that you're the one in the driver's seat, when I got into the university level, I had to get retested to get accommodations. So when I got retested, I had the opportunity to really take the test seriously, and see where my hidden disability fell into. And this was, I would say, this was in the summer before I started my I started at the at the university. So it was a brand new, and in my mind, I myself wanted to be a guinea pig to my own self and say, Okay, this is what the report says. So let's see if there really is an issue. So I talked to him. I said, "These are my accommodations. And he goes, Well, you don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to, but what is it that I can do to help you? Please let me know if I can? If I can, if you don't understand something, do you need extra notes that." I'm not asking for any special treatment? Because how important, like you said on one of your podcasts, we cannot alter the course 

Mickie  8:32  
That's one of the things. Accommodations cannot alter the fundamental function and basic information of the course.

Jimmy  8:40  
And and as something and my personal feelings, we want equality with the other students. Yeah, we don't want to be singled out. The ones who are the hidden disabilities students, we don't want to be. We don't want people to know, this person has disability. We want to act and we want to be inclusive. 

Mickie  9:01  
That's right. 

Jimmy 9:01  
We want to be inclusive. So we want to be in a classroom where we're not pull aside because automatically students are going to be like, oh, that person has disability, right? So we want to be equal. So that was my my, my record. Every time when I was an undergrad, I would say I don't want special treatment. And just, it takes me a little while to get at your maybe at the level of the rest of the students. I had a professor when I was at the community college, she was a math professor and she said, Remember the story of the tortoise and the rabbit. Who won the race? So it's not the fastest person is the person who slowly goes.

Mickie  9:43  
Yep, absolutely. 

Jimmy 9:44  
You're a turtle. 

Mickie  9:45  
Keep stepping forward. Keep moving forward. Slowly but surely,

Jimmy 9:49  
Slowly. Maybe you're a turtle. And there's nothing wrong with being a turtle because at the end of the day, who was the one that won the race? The turtle won, right? That's right. That's right. I rather for you to take the time to learn the curriculum. So if I see you in two, maybe three years down the road, I can ask you, Hey, what do you learn in my class? And you can, if you can tell me you learn

Mickie  10:10  
one dog barks. 

Jimmy  10:12  
One dog barks. 

Mickie  10:15  
A little inside joke between me and Jimmy. 

Jimmy  10:17  
Or you learn how to foil? 

Mickie  10:19  
That's right. 

Jimmy  10:20  
I still know how to foil, because you took the time to learn. And that's what we all want, as a professor is for you to learn

Mickie 10:28  
Well, and and to learn how to not only use your accommodations correctly, but also to circumvent your problems. What can you do to reach out to the professor to compensate for the issues that you're having? Maybe there's another approach, you can take another resource you could, use another way you could be tested, evaluated, yes, you know, alternatives that are available. 

Jimmy  10:54  
And one of my issues that I had was I had trouble getting my information from my brain to the paper. 

Mickie  11:02  
Yeah.

Jimmy  11:03  
I couldn't 

Mickie  11:04  
There's a lot going on up there in the brain. 

Jimmy 11:06  
Yes. And I just couldn't get the connection from the brain to the pencil to the pencil and paper. But when I would tell the professor, the professor' s like, just put that on the paper. "I can't, that's my issue is my disability I can't get 

Mickie  11:22  
Yeah, 

Jimmy 11:22  
so how about this? Okay, well, how about we do a verbal exam, where you express you expressed to me what you're trying to say? And if I don't agree with you, that means you got the question wrong. or right. Or no, it's not gonna, if, if if I find, if I find no, then , that's how I would grade you. And it's interesting, because I learned that way. I learned how to critically think, and how to defend my point, 

Mickie 11:55  
yes, 

Jimmy 11:56  
I learned that if I was able to convince or persuade a professor, and he said, Okay, I understand what you're trying to say. Then I took that in my personal life. And I took that in my jobs, that this is what I'm trying to say. And it worked. It was a political science course. And he said, that's the best way that you can defend yourself in a in a in a defense is with facts, with examples, because you're showing to the person, I did my research, and I did my explanation, and this is what I feel on the subject. So many of my professors took time to figure out the ways how they can help me learn. Throughout those times, I saw professors are human just like us. 

Mickie  12:47  
Yes, yes. 

Jimmy  12:48  
Because  one professor I had, he says, I'm sorry, I have a newborn, I haven't slept all night. What do you need? I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I'm not? Yeah, I'm sorry. Or many times, I would have lunch with the professor because we all eat and we all have to have lunch.

Mickie  13:08  
There you go. 

Jimmy 13:08  
So the professor would say, I'm sorry, I'm hungry. Mm hmm. What's going on? Okay, question number two, you go over question number two, and he would eat his sandwich or, you know, vegetables, or something like that, and that was a very positive learning experience. And he told me at the end of semester, Jimmy, if you do this with all your professors, you will not have any issues in your academic career. Because we have so many students in our classes, that we don't have the luxury of learning the individual students, but I've had the opportunity because you have come to my office, practically every, every other day, every other class, he got the opportunity to learn me and learn how I learned. So he would tell me this.

Mickie  13:56  
I think you bring up a really, really valid point too, that if you want the professors to help and support you, you have to be in touch with them. You have to go to their office, introduce yourself, you have to reach out even if it's not on a problematic level, but you reach out to them and have a conversation. Yes. And get to know each other. Yes. I think that's important. And and some students aren't in I'm sure you've been in those classes to where you know, you've got so many in your class, especially at the university level, that there's no way you can individually meet with all your students, but there's always still a way to make your presence known. You said something about sending an email, stopping by the Office for just a couple minutes, asking a quick question after class. There's there's ways to do that but you're you're making that contact with the professor's verbally.

  Jimmy 14:47  
And it does come in handy. And I say this to everybody. Throughout your academic career, you are going to be needing letters of recommendation. And this is kind of a benefit because they spend maybe hour or two hours with you when you don't understand, so many of my letters of recommendations were from faculty members that took time to know who I was because I was in the office,

Mickie  15:12  
Jimmy, you have brought some really terrific insight today into hidden disabilities, and dealing with hidden disabilities, and establishing a relationship with your professors, reaching out to them, and talking to them and getting their help when you need it. So I thank you, this has been just an awesome, awesome podcast today. So you have no idea. I am so, so grateful to have a chance to talk to you today. And it was nice catching up before we did the podcast. 

Jimmy 15:42  
It was nice catching up. And the most important thing I can, as being a former student is we're blessed to have our resources. We have a coordinator, the disability coordinator is there to help us where they kind of know our situation freely. And we can, for one moment, hide our true identity and say this was happening. Yeah. So it's a safe haven. Yes, our display coordinator has always been our safe haven. Because you don't have to tell them they already know. Yeah. They're there to help. They're there to help you. So go to your disability coordinator. Go to your counselor, go to somebody, because at the end of the day, they want you to be successful. 

Mickie  15:57  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

Jimmy 16:29  
I remember on a personal note, when I graduated, in the community college, Mickie was the first person  I messaged, and I said "look, I did it, I did it!" And then when I went to the university level, all my professors from the community college level saying, you got this, you got this, you got, you know, Mickie was my so my, my disability coordinator, and she said just go to the disability Center at the University, introduce yourself, be open to your to your coordinator. And that's what's also helped me to move from one the disability coordinator from the community college to the university level. So do not be afraid that I'm no longer going to get help. That's right, because we are blessed to have our coordinators that we're going to just move to someone else. They'll help us on that level of our lives.

Mickie  17:24  
Yes, absolutely. Jimmy, thank you so much. Today was just amazing. I am so grateful for you being here. And thank you again. 

Jimmy 17:38  
My Pleasure

Mickie  17:35  
I will. I will be in touch and talk to you soon.  Bye. Bye. 

Mickie 17:42  
If you're stumped about the questions that you can ask a disability specialist, when you go to college, stop by my website, Mickieteachers.com, M i c k i e teachers.com and sign up for my free eBook, "Insights from a Disability Specialist." It will give you over 30 questions that you should know the answers to. It will help you when you get into your meetings with the disability specialist and it'll give you some guidance, so you'll know "Well, I already know this topic, but I don't know this topic. I should ask this question. I already know this answer." It will give you some sense of the kinds of things you should know to ask because sometimes we just don't know what we don't know. So the free ebook, "Insights from a Disability Specialist" will give you some guidance in that area. Thank you for listening to this podcast today. I know Jimmy appreciates you listening and I know I do. I really really am thankful for all of the information Jimmy shared and I'm just so grateful for him being there today. Thank you again and have a great rest of the day. Bye.

Mickie  18:53  
Information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the college of your choice to have first hand information and the most up to date policies and procedures followed by your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have with regards to legal, educational, or medical concerns.