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Complicating IssuesLearning problems affect educational aspirations and effortsFor many study participants, learning problems that emerged
during elementary and secondary school continued to affect later educational
experiences. A number of
respondents reported they had struggled with school work from an early age and
were frequently frustrated. A
lot of people’s slow on everything. I’m
a slow learner and I get real frustrated. I
want to just say “forget it” and get up and walk out and that makes it
harder.
Those respondents who reported themselves as slow learners
were often unhappy in school and reluctant to return to educational settings as
adults.
Other respondents indicated that their learning difficulties had been
formally diagnosed by the school system. I was dyslexic. They didn’t catch it the first year I was in school so I had to repeat the first grade and they kind of figured the second year there was something wrong. I was having a lot of problems so they put me in these classes which helped some, but I didn’t learn like other kids. They didn’t really know how to teach me. It’s not that I couldn’t learn, it’s just that they needed to figure out another way of how to teach me. While his learning difficulties were recognized and
addressed, placing this student in special classes was also a humiliating
experience that ultimately resulted in his disengaging from school. When you put a kid in the classes that they put me in, kids are cruel, you know, they make fun of you. Of course, that makes you bull-headed and you want to fight--been there and done that. And you get an attitude and you don’t want to learn. That’s basically what happened to me. Learning difficulties, whether or not they were diagnosed
by the school system, often resulted in a sense of failure and a strong dislike
for school-like environments and thereby adversely affected subsequent
educational experiences.
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