Happy Learning Disabilities Awareness Month

October is Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, and we want to celebrate! All month, we'll be sharing stories from young people, adults, families and others who live with learning disabilities. If you have a story to share, please send it my way at Rhonda.Brown@bridgeway-academy.com.

Today we're going to start with a remarkable young woman named Ellen. She spoke earlier this year at our annual fundraising event, the Silver Lining Soiree. She had the crowd transfixed by her strength and her honesty. These are her words, as she shared them in May 2010.

Rhonda


Ellen Benoit-Colling speech
Silver Lining Soiree
May 20, 2010

Ellen Benoit-Colling is a former Bridgeway Academy student. She attended the school from 2001-2004.

What do these people have in common?
Albert Einstein
Galileo
Thomas Edison
Mozart
Leonardo da Vinci
John F Kennedy
Walt Disney
John Lennon and Winston Churchill.

They all had a learning disability. But it didn’t stop them from changing the world.

People with learning disabilities just see the world differently.

People with learning disabilities generally have a higher IQ.

People with learning disabilities are inventors, dreamers, doers, motivators, creators, composers, activists, and yes, even Presidents and Prime Ministers.

I have a learning disability.
I can read a whole book and couldn’t tell you what I just read.
I can’t do math if my life depended on it.

This is what my life was like before Bridgeway.

It was awful. I was frustrated at school and at home.
My grades weren’t good. All the comments on my report card were “Ellen doesn’t’t pay attention in class”, “Ellen is easily distracted by others,” “Ellen doesn’t’t seem to apply herself”.

But when I came to subjects like home-ec, tech ed and woodworking, I was above average.

My learning disability didn’t mean I was dumb. It just meant I had other talents.

But people didn’t understand. Even my own parents had mistaken my learning disability for what they called laziness.

So I went through school year after year, slipping more and more behind. I started hating school. I simply had no clue what the teachers where teaching me. It was like nothing stuck with me.

By the time I reached junior high, I found an easy way out: drugs. It was an easy escape from the pressure of school and life.

At first it was nothing major - just a few joints here or there.
But my grades got worse. I stopped caring all together.

Once I finished junior high, my parents decided maybe I needed to go to private school.
The class numbers were smaller. My parents hoped that would help. I didn’t even finish the year.

That was the year I found out I had a learning disability. I was tested for two days on every aspect of learning.

I failed math and reading but excelled in the hands-on and hand-eye memory department.
I also excelled in short-term memory.

This did not make me feel better about myself. I was still different from anyone I knew.
I had no one to relate to.

So the drug abuse got worse as well as my attitude toward myself.

I then felt I truly was stupid, dumb and lazy.

Because I didn’t finish school, I took courses through the mail.
I worked with a tutor.

She was a teacher from Bridgeway. She understood my learning disability.
With her help, I did much better with classes.

After the year of mail-in courses, I tried to go back to public school.

Round two of high school was good at first, but went downhill very fast.

I still didn’t have the help I needed from the school.
I found new friends and new trouble to get into.

Again I did not finish the year of school.

My parents were so frustrated with my schooling attitude, drugs and bad behavior, I was asked to leave home until I could get my life together.

I needed close to a year to find myself. It was a very hard lesson for a young person to learn.

In my year away from home, I got myself together and sober.
I was ready to try again.

I was off to a different school with an Individual Program Plan in place.
It was designed to help me learn and make me successful.

I got through the first semester then dropped out.
I was back on the drugs.
I was feeling like I was not going to ever get through life.

My mother took me to an open house at Bridgeway. I spent an hour touring the school.
They were learning in a different way. I didn’t understand how this would help me.

On the way home I was asked what I thought about the school. My words were, “I do not need to go to a school where kids are special. I am not retarded!”

A year later, it took my tutor Heather, a teacher at Bridgeway, to talk me into giving the school a chance.

So after a long time talking and thinking about options, my family and I decided to give it a try.

Again, I got myself sober. Ready to start my new lease on education and my life

I stepped back into Bridgeway.

I sat down with two people who have forever changed my life as I know it. Mrs. Low and Mrs. Scott talked to me about what I was going through and promised me that everyone here knows what I am feeling.

They made it clear that even though I may have given up on myself over and over, public school may have given up on me, they were not about to. In fact, they were going to help me fight for my life and my education.

I walked up to my classroom scared about what the day was going to bring.

The smaller class turned out to have some huge advantages. I got more one-on-one time with teachers. I got to know others struggling in the same way I was. We shared ideas, fears and frustrations together.

I made a very good friend that year. We were so much alike. We became attached at the hip. For the first time in my life, I found someone who was like me. We never had to speak about our learning disability, we just understood each other.

It eased the transition into my new world. School became fun. I understood what I was doing.

We did different projects, used our hands, and went on class trips.

The teachers went above and beyond to make sure that at the end of the day we got it.

If there was ever a problem, or you were having a bad day, Mrs. Low’s door was always open.

She never judged or jumped to conclusions. She would simply say, “Look around you, everyone here understands and no one is looking at you differently.”

In 2003 I graduated with an average of 83% two years in a row. It felt good to be done high school but there was still the outside world to deal with. Was I ready?

The first day of school came again. I picked up my friend to drive her to the new school. Now they had an actual school.

I stopped into see Mrs. Low and have a chat. She asked what I was going to do this year, I had no plans. We talked about my fear of the future and why I felt I was not ready.

At the end of the conversation I asked her if there was any way I could come back
And there was. I could come back and take some upgrading courses.

I was so happy to go back to school for the first time ever. I went home and told my parents I wanted to go back. I am sure my parents were floored, not that they had to find money for me to go at the last minute, but that this child who did not like school was begging to go back.

In less than a week I was back. One of the reasons I decided to go back was I felt I might do better with a chance at learning if I just had more time. I took repeat courses of what I did in public school and we used the better marks to get rid of the old ones.

Now I was feeling better. That was the best thing I could have ever pushed myself to do.
I was ready to take on college.

I went to NSCC and took Human Services and found many people including my instructor that had some form of a learning disability.

I left after Christmas. The course just wasn’t for me at the time.

Years went by before I tackled school again. I enrolled myself into hairdressing school and found I did not so bad at the theory part without help, and I was really good at the hands-on part. I used the tools I learned at Bridgeway and passed 11 months later. I love what I do and work very hard at it.

Now I stand before you not just a graduate from Bridgeway Academy, but a success story.

I came to the school in my late teens.
I had given up on myself and the school system.

Now I have an education I can be proud of.

And most importantly, I am proud of myself for all I have accomplished in a few short years.

All I needed was a chance to learn the way I needed to learn.

Bridgeway gave me that chance, as well as a second chance at life.

I would like to thank Mrs. Low for being the mother who didn’t take no for an answer.

I would like to thank Mrs. Heather Ingalls- Parrot for the push I needed.
You opened my eyes to see myself differently and understand the way I learn.

Lastly I cannot thank my parents enough.
I am a changed person for the better.

If it wasn’t for Bridgeway, I would not be here in front of you today.
I would not have an education; I would not be a wife or a soon- to-be mother.

I am only one of thousands of kids who have or will walk through the door of this school.

All we need is a chance.

Thank you, for this is the first step at giving someone like me a chance.