Student Panel on Learning Differences
On Monday this week, the Goyen Foundation hosted its first student panel with five high school students. The students reflected on their experience being diagnosed with learning and attentional differences, considered accommodations, and interventions that have helped them in school, and explored what they wanted and needed their parents and teachers to know and hear. Our panelists were thoughtful, expressive, and brave, and I’m incredibly grateful for their insights and honesty.
In a few weeks, you can expect to read about student takeaways from the panel, but for now, here are three of my thoughts:
Feelings of shame and disappointment and frustration as early as elementary school. This was a nearly universal experience for the panelists. If I could make parents and teachers listen to one part of the panel, this would be it. These panelists were aware of their learning differences before they had the language to describe them, and they were made aware by teachers, by gifted and talented programs, by high-achieving siblings. And it did not feel good.
Relief comes with diagnosis and community. This was a universal experience, even for the panelists diagnosed later in their school careers. Diagnosis offered them answers and clarity, but it was even more important for them to realize that they weren’t alone, that there were other students and adults dealing with similar challenges.
Accommodations matter too. There’s not a lot of good evidence that common accommodations (extended time, preferential seating, access to teacher notes) are effective at helping students with learning differences (that’s a blog post or two for another day). But these panelists talked about how important these accommodations were for them and how much they relied on them. Effectiveness aside, this was a good reminder to me that some of the value in accommodations may come from students feeling and being seen and recognized, particularly after they’ve been and felt unsupported previously.
Moving forward. This was a successful panel partly because these panelists knew each other and most of them knew me as well. They have also spent time in an academic environment that encourages them to reflect on and talk openly about their learning differences. These conditions won’t always be true in the future. We’ll need to think about how we can capture their insights in different ways (interviews, videos, blogs, other forms of social media I don’t even know anything about!). We’ll need to think about how we might partner with schools to nominate students. We’ll need to learn how to build community and trust rapidly. We’ll also need to learn how to share these invaluable insights with a broader audience.
