Re: Dyscalculia

[csjhs@eiu.edu (Jeanne H. Simpson)]

Margaret

Well, no, not a pretty picture.  My dad, bless him, tried so hard to help
me with my math homework and we never accomplished much save to add to
everybody's frustration.  I understood concepts (most of the time), but
the simple operations I never seemed to get quite right.  "Careless"
mistakes they were labeled. As if I didn't care that my test scores always
had this noticeable dip south in the math sesction.  To pass 2nd year h.s.
algebra, I had to pass a 3 problem logarithm test.  I took it 11 times
before I passed it.  And of course calculators and computers help, but
only if one enters the right numbers in the first place.  I still have to
add any column twice to make sure I get the same answer both times. And
sometimes, it takes a lot more than two to make that happen.

What does all this have to do with writing centers?  Well, if nothing
else, it has made me understand what it feels like to struggle, to lack
confidence.  I think that it is a useful thing for anyone who undertakes
to teach to have an idea of what this is like, most particularly people
who work in one-to-one situations such as writing centers.  And it is a
reminder of that profound principle that Mina Shaughnessy taught us: the
reasons for errors are almost always to be found, and the reason is not
stupidity. Students may be unmotivated or uninterested, but there may be
another cause behind these, a cause like dyslexia or dyscalculia.  To this
day, I find math activities stressful, and my struggles with them have
removed some life choices from being available to me.  We should all be
sensitive to these larger effects on the students who come to us.

Jeanne Simpson
csjhs@eiu.edu