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FAT City Video Reflection
1. What is a common misunderstanding about students who have a LD?
There are many common misunderstandings of students that have learning disabilities (LD).
One of them is that a student with a learning disability will only have problems in school and that
it is only the school’s problem to deal with. The fact is that the disability affects the child
throughout their whole day. So not only do teachers have to understand what a child who has
learning disability goes through, but other people that deal with the child must as well, such as
the parents, friends, employers, etc. People have to realize that children with learning disabilities
don’t just decide to have learning disabilities. They have no choice in the matter, so it very
important that people know how to work with students with LDs in order to maximize their
potential, whether that is at school, at work, at home, etc. Other common misconceptions, which
will be discussed later, of students with LDs is that they don’t try hard enough,
2. How does anxiety affect performance?
Anxiety can have a huge effect on performance on people that don’t have a disability, as we saw
from the video. Now just think of what it is like for a student with a LD in a regular education
classroom. When students with LD are not given enough time to think about an answer they will
become anxious and not be able to perform. We want our students to perform, so it only makes
sense to reduce this anxiety for our students so they can perform. We can do this in a few ways.
The obvious thing that comes to mind would be to give these students more time to think of an
answer or to provide cues for the students to know when they are going to be called on, such as
the idea Mr. Lavoie presents in the video of standing in front of the students desk when they are
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about to be called on, a cue that is visible to the student with the LD, but at the same time,
invisible to all of the other students. Another good suggestion to help reduce anxiety, in addition
to the two above, would be to “question students frequently (with a high probability of successful
answers)” (Mastropieri M. & Scruggs T., 2010, pg. 59). This will reduce anxiety for the student
with a LD because by questioning them frequently with questions that they will be very likely to
answer, we are increasing their confidence, which will hopefully motivate them to participate
more and more in the regular education classroom. If we apply some of these ideas in our
classroom, we will certainly be able to reduce anxiety and increase performance of not only
students with LDs, but with all of our students.
3. Why should we not accept "I don't know for an answer"? What should we do instead?
We should not accept “I don’t know” as an answer because other students will just give up trying
to think of an answer after seeing the teacher accept one answer of “I don’t know”. We certainly
don’t want students to give up on thinking right in the middle of class. I think what we could do
instead if we come across a student who answers “I don’t know” is to tell them to take some
more time to think about it and come back to them later. Of course, if we do this, we need to
make sure we do actually come back to them because if we don’t then our students will certainly
notice that we didn’t. Like stated in question 2, all some students need is a little more time to
think about the question. More time will not only help students with LDs but also students who
don’t have disability, as we saw in the video.
4. Why couldn't the one participant answer the question even after being "motivated" by the
$100 prize? What does this suggest to you about motivation?
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The participant cannot answer the question even after being “motivated” by $100 prize because,
in this case, she couldn’t perceive the picture. In this case, it was a perception problem, which
many students with LDs have problems with. In other cases, it may be because a student just
doesn’t know unless they get further teacher instruction or help. This tells us that motivation is
not the problem with students with LD. In fact it is a common misconception that students with
LDs do not try hard enough. As we saw from the video, we can try to motivate students with
LDs with just about anything, but it still won’t translate to the student getting the right answer or
doing what the teacher wants. A way teachers can combat this is by actually giving direct
instruction and help to students with LDs.
5. What are the two functions of the brain and what difficulties does a child with a learning
disability experience with these functions?
The two main functions of the brain are storage and retrieval. Students with LDs have problems
with the storage and retrieval systems working together. Sometimes the retrieval system will fail
to retrieve a piece of information from the storage system, or if it does retrieve a piece of
information, it may be put back in the wrong place, so when next time the student is trying to
retrieve that piece of information they may not be able to retrieve it. In fact, there has been
research on the memory capabilities of students with LDs. “Many students with learning
disabilities have deficits in both long- and short-term memory and working memory for verbal
information (semantic memory), the ability to hold information while simultaneously processing
the same of other information” (Mastropieri M. & Scruggs T., 2010, pg. 58) This certainly can
be explained by one of the possible causes of a learning disability. The organic cause of a
learning disability deals with problems with the development of the brain. Researchers have
seen many differences between the brains of a child with a learning disability and a child without
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a learning disability. Saddler (2009) notes that “the brain is organized into cooperating zones
called functional systems which develop in a sequential fashion. Interruption of this
development could affect a child to a different degree but might include problems such as
attention deficit, learning impairments, judgment, etc.” (Saddler, 2009, pg. 38). So we know the
brain of a student with a learning disability is different than that of one without a learning
disability which could explain why a student with a learning disability has so much trouble with
their storage and retrieval systems.
6. What is the greatest gift that we can give a student with a processing deficit when we ask
questions? Why is this gift important to such a child?
The greatest gift that we can give a student with a processing deficit is the gift of time. As
mentioned before sometimes all students with LDs need are time to think about the question or
problem at hand. This is gift is so important to such a student because it allows them to
participate, more so than they otherwise would, in whatever is going on in the classroom. This is
something that certainly needs to be kept in mind when writing a student’s IEP. For example, a
student with a learning disability will certainly need extra time to takes assessments and tests.
Like I said earlier, we want all of our students to be successful and sometimes we have to give
students something in order for them to succeed. Extra time is certainly one of those things that
we will have to give.
7. Based on this video, how would you explain the concept of fairness to a child or a parent or
another teacher who says that making an accommodation for a child in a classroom and not for
everyone else is unfair?
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If a child or parent came to me complaining about accommodations that I was making for
another student that they thought was unfair because not everyone else got the same
accommodation, I would tell them one simple statement: fair does not always mean equal. Every
student is different and has different needs that need to be met in order for them to be successful.
This is exactly what the IEP does for students with disabilities. It points out special needs that
the student needs in order reach “the same learning standards as nondisabled students” (Saddler,
2009, pg. 16) This seems to be a recurring theme in this reflection, but we want all of our
students to be successful. Any teacher who does not want all of their students to be successful,
even the ones with disabilities, should not be in this field at all. I think another thing I might need
to do is give an extreme concrete example to that parent or child to help ease their mind. For
example, if there was a student who was blind and instead of having to write notes down during
lectures, he got lectures tape-recorded for him. Is this accommodation fair? Well, of course it is,
because what everyone else in the class gets (writing their own notes) would not meet the needs
of this student who was blind. The bottom line is that fair does not always mean equal.
8.
In your opinion, what was the most poignant idea that the "survivors" related during the
commentary section of the video?
I think the most poignant idea that participant gave during the commentary was actually the first
person that they showed named Karen, who described how stressful it is being learning disabled
in a classroom because she didn’t want all of the people in the room to think she was stupid. She
really could empathize with a student with a learning disability after having gone through this
experience with Mr. Lavoie. I, myself, feel like I can empathize more with a student with a
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learning disability just from watching the FAT City video. It really is truly amazing, and
frustrating, to think that this type of behavior between teacher and students with learning
disabilities actually does occur in real-life. This video should be shown to all current and future
teachers to make them aware of exactly what having a learning disability entails. I think what
these people experienced really opened their eyes to what students with learning disabilities go
through on a regular basis. We just have to realize that we need to work with these types of
students, at home, in the workplace, and in school, so they can succeed.
9. What is the most important concept about children with learning disabilities that you learned
during this video?
I don’t think I can pick just one important thing that I learned about from watching this video.
There were so many. If I had to pick one, though, I think the most important thing that I learned
about students with learning disabilities is that it is not a matter of motivation for these students.
They want to learn and be successful just like any other student. It is just that they may have
more trouble and may need more support in doing so. We saw this firsthand in the video when
the one participant was offered $100 to answer the question correctly but still couldn’t. She was
certainly motivated to answer the question, after being offered $100 but she just couldn’t answer
it without the necessary support. Another important thing that I learned is that fairness does not
mean that everyone gets the same thing, but it means that everyone gets what they need. This is
definitely something that many people overlook, even some educators, but it something that
can’t be overlooked anymore. There were even some things in this video that I learned that
applies to general education students that I have done myself. With regards to anxiety, when I
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talk to students, I will sometimes ask them to look at me, so I know they are listening. I never
really considered the fact that the reason why these students don’t want to look at me is because
of anxiety. There is just so much I learned through watching this video that I will definitely take
with me when I get my own classroom. “4.3% of the school population have a learning
disability” (Saddler, 2009, pg. 38), so it is very likely, at some point in my future career as an
educator that I will have to work with a student who has a learning disability and I am certainly
going to remember this video as I am planning for my classes that contain students with learning
disabilities, and even my classes that don’t have students with learning disabilities.