Is there really such a thing as "learning disabled"

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I was watching a news segment this morning talking about how kindergarten has become so demanding that children are already getting burned out at 5 years old. They were saying there was so much pressure from parents, the government and school systems to have children performing at a high level that kindergarten gives no time for play and just having fun.

I remember when I was in school many years ago, even then, my grandmother remarked on how hard the work I got was compared to what it used to be...and this was 25 years ago. I also was put in pull-out resource classes for learning difficulties and almost had to go to a special school for disabled children, which was reconsidered after testing me. Even still, I eventually became an honor roll student and years later, a college grad.

This makes me wonder if the labels we've gotten over the years aren't necessarily because of "learning difficulties" as much as too much demand on children to move at a certain pace in a certain way academically. When did we get this idea that everyone must learn this or that by this age, and if they can't, something must be wrong with them? And why does every learning style have to be the same?

After all, don't we all differ as far as how quickly we absorb certain skills, even NTs? And if children are being burned out as toddlers, isn't that an indication there's something lacking with the system, not the child? If so, children are the ones being punished by being branded with the "learning disabled" label. And as we know, even with good academic performance, once this label is applied, it's even harder to shed since less is expected of them no matter what they do in the future to prove otherwise.

if i ever have kids, (wich i highly doubt) there going to be home schooled. that right there eliminates alot of problems and most studies in school are pointless, like there's no reason to do them expet help waste 8 hours a day. like p.e. and ceramics, i hated f*****g ceramics. and rhetoric, or whatever that class was about god i hated that class, "public speaking"

I like to think of them as learning differences. I don't have a lot of faith in the public school system. I feel they spend more effort shoving standardized tests at kids and also conditioning them to be good little consumers, and not to use critical thinking skills.

From all I've read and experienced, it seems that "learning disabilities" just means that the system has a deficiency in catering to that specific learning style.

I wouldn't say that learning disabilities aren't real, it's easy to see some people have memory problems or differences in processing speed, and all sorts of REAL genuine factors. People are just biological machines and yes their performance in many tasks varies widely according to the quality of the hardware they are given.

Someone who is ret*d does not have a different "learning style", he has a disability!

Yeah, you're right, there are learning disabilities. But I believe a lot of the things called disabilities really aren't so.

Aspies do have a "disability" with communicating emotions and stuff. But that's because we're better at other things, and brains aren't all-powerful. In that sense NTs might have a disability in other areas aspies excel at. People with William's Syndrome are like aspies' opposite, because they're ret*d but with excellent social skills. I'd rather say that both people with AS and WS have special abilities, both useful. Just imagine what we could fo together as a team!

school systems have become nothing more than torture for any child that isn't like in the top 5%

My nephew got off to a real slow start in school and is now at a top university in his senior year. My sister saw right away he wasn't with his class and had him repeat a year and than after 6th grade sent him to private school. The public school system would have turned the kid into one of the kids at the bottom of his class.

physical education, we probably wasted almost 2 years of our school years in gym class

45 minutes in gym class a day 45 minutes a day going from class to class 1 1/2 hours a day accomplishing nothing, add in a B/S class or 2 a day plus home room for 10 minutes and half the day is wasted.Plus the time on a school bus

History class is important, but learning the names of the ship Columus used is as ret*d as having to learn the names of the cats they might of had on the ship,who gives a crap.

Science class, some stuff is usefull, but some of it will never be needed by the average person. Sure expose somebody to sciense so they can make a choice to enter that profession, but going into depth about stuff nobody but a scientist needs to know is pointless.

Everyone needs to know about personal finances and the school system doesn't even cover it.
Everyone will enter the labor force and nothing is taught about labor law & unions or and employee's right and most everyone will either be an employee or employer.

The bankers & employers love it, thay are handed ignorant people to screw.

Is learning Thomas Jefferson was screwing around with Sally Hemings his slave more important than learning about Jefferson the statesman and super brain he was
Gossip class would be more fitting than history class when they go on about peoples personal lives that had little impact on history.

About 2 or 3 hours a day of book work for a kid at home 6 days a week every week of the year would provide more instruction than the school system and leave the child lots of free time and once they got to be about 12 years old they could start earning money deliveing papers and cutting lawns and by the time they turned 16 have a wad of money if they saved a lot of it and invested it.
At 16 get a full time job and make even more money and by the time the average kid gets out of college deep in debt, the home school kid could just about pay cash for a house

Damn what I put up with because my parents where sheep and followed the flock

Parrots back: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María.

I'm glad you finally found a use for that information

1492 was the combination to the gate lock at a place I used to deliver to in the middle of the night, I didn't have to write it down because it would be hard to forget.

somebody could write the history of the world in so many chapters and leave out all the nonsense and people would get the idea and write another book about american history and leave out the nonsense and history could be done in a matter of weeks.

If something isn't important enough to remember long, why waste anyones time with it ?

Most of the junk we where forced to remember to pass a test we forgot about in no time, so it was never important in the first place

we have to learn how to learn, that's the point: the idea that kids should only learn things that are going to be useful to them when they grow up is, well, infantile, actually

But wouldnt that be implying your trying to teach kids something they already know otherwise it would be impossible to teach them in the first place?

Yeah, we should learn how to learn, but 12 years for that?
And that "learn to learn" thing never comes to use until college because you don't end up learning anything.

I have no idea what this means

I disagree
When I learn to learn useful things I'm learning to learn.

Drag a damn washing machine in and teach me all about it, might not ever have the need to use the knowledge, but machines are part of our lives and at least if my washing machine breaks I might be able to fix it. It's an absolute waste of time to waste a minute learning that columbus named his ships Larry,Moe & Curly That information has zero chance of even being usefull.

okay, I'll ask my 8 year old daughter if she'd rather learn about King Henry VIII and his wives or how washing machines work.

deal

asks her the day her washing machine breaks and she has to pay a repair man