Instead of getting ready to go out for the night, future educators sat down in McCord Auditorium with notebooks and pens in hand on Saturday. The lecture, A New Look at Learning Differences, addressed appropriate ways to help the children they would soon be teaching.
“Talk to them; help teachers see that not all kids with learning differences are the same,” Terri Zerfas, Coordinator for the Diagnostic Center for Dyslexia and Related Disorders, said. “We have to be advocates for kids who cannot be advocates for themselves.”
Panelists discussed aspects of teaching for students with learning disabilities, like ADD or dyslexia, and techniques for providing the appropriate accommodations.
Among the topics of discussion was the Shelton School, a non-profit school that focuses on providing help for students with learning differences, as well as reasons why some students act up in class: it distracts them from their struggle with the material.
“We expect them to get up, struggle all day, go home and do it five to six days a week,” Zerfas said, pointing out the reality of the students’ hardships.
SMU graduate Callan Harrison also came to discuss her new book, “The Girl Who Learned Differently.”
“I wrote it so children can talk with their parents,” Harrison said. “So they have a way of communicating their learning difference.”
Harrison has a learning difference and spoke about her experience as a student in college. The two things she found most helpful at SMU were the “Semester-At-A-Glance” sheets and talking with professors to make the accommodations necessary for her success.
Two short films were played that led into the panels; the first was entitled “Laura’s Story,” and it was a personal look at one girl’s struggle and determination to learn with her learning difference.
Laura Fields, the subject of the film, has a processing speed disorder, which lengthens the amount of time it takes for her to process any information she receives. However, with the help of her mother Katha, she has worked with her teachers in order to learn efficiently and stay on track to graduate from high school.
“Now our story is out there for more to see,” Katha Fields said. “Please teach them, they want to learn. Just give them the chance.”
The film was directed by Liz Johnston, a graduating SMU student. Her relationship with the Fields inspired her to educate others on the impact of teaching students with learning differences.
“I wanted to arm education students and current teachers with knowledge about how to help children with learning differences so that students like Laura didn’t have to go through all of the struggles and fight the battles that Laura and Mrs. Fields had to because of ignorance,” Johnston said.”
