An Amazing Movie Everyone Should See

My husband and I had the wonderful opportunity of watching a movie entitled "How Difficult Can This Be?" by Richard Lavoie. It was shown at our children's school and it was amazing!! It is a movie that ALL people should see. It takes you through the frustrations and anxiety that learning disabled children experience every day. It definitely opened our eyes and I am sure it will yours. The following is a link to the movie and information on the workshop. I am sure you can probably find it somewhere for cheaper, but I thought this link had a good description:
http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-richard-lavoie-how-difficult-can-this-be-fat-city-a--pi-1863454.html

I thought it was important for me to explain why I felt everyone should see this, especially teachers. There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to being "Learning Disabled". The definition is: A childhood disorder characterized by difficulty with certain skills such as reading or writing in individuals with normal intelligence. Learning disorders affect the ability to interpret what one sees and hears or the ability to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up in many ways -- as specific difficulties with spoken and written language, coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read or write, or to do math.
The big point to remember is that children with learning disabilities are not dumb. They are not "Mentally Retarded"... they just have to work a little harder than other kids. Case and point...my oldest is our little genius, but his ADHD definitely interferes with many aspects of learning and social skills. He just has to work a little harder to make friends and to concentrate in class. It's amazing how he is able to compensate. Most people would not even notice these days.

Of course, the term "Learning Disabled" is not used very much these days due to the enormous numbers of diagnosis labels given to children. ADD/ADHD, Autism, PDD, and Dyslexia, are just a few among those labels. In the broad scheme of things a learning disability just means that there are no environmental factors, mental retardation, or lack of experience to account for difficulty in learning. That basically sums it up.

One of the lessons we learned from the movie was that people who are learning disabled are shaped into what they become by the way they are treated... especially in classroom settings. For example, in the workshop they showed how teachers will often call on students to answer a question and then only call attention to wrong answers given versus the correct ones. This often leads to children not wanting to ever answer a question and dreading to be called upon. Also, it can lead to adults who are afraid to ever take chances. That's not good since you can never succeed in life unless you take a chance once in a while.

Another thing we learned is that it is important for people to realize how difficult ordinary things can become to these special children. Richard Lavoie had the people do an exercise where they had to tell a story and they couldn't use any words with the letter "N" in them. It was very difficult and the participants sounded very much like learning disabled children. The key to understanding a disability is to put yourself in those shoes, even if for a moment. I was able to put myself in those shoes and see what it was like. For a brief moment I had a "light bulb" moment where I started to understand some of my #2's challenges. I am sure you all have had the experience of listening to a child tell a story and they stutter and/or fail to think of words and in your mind you wish that they would just hurry up and finish already because you are tired or frustrated with them. Well... imagine the opposite... imagine that you are trying to tell another person a story and in your mind you can think of the words you want to say, but they just won't come out of your mouth. Your frustration and anxiety just rise and rise until you cannot stand it anymore, and you just decide it's not worth it anymore and just quit talking. That's pretty much one of the many things that Mr. Lavoie tries to simulate in his workshop.

I would have to write a book to summarize half of what this movie covers. I strongly suggest you look into it and find out when Richard Lavoie is doing a workshop/seminar in your area. He would definitely be worth seeing in person. It is amazing the insight he offers and the amount of information you obtain in such a short period of time. I learned more in the 1 1/2 hours of his workshop than I could have learned in years!
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A picture is worth a
thousand words.... but
to walk in someone
else's footsteps....
that's priceless!
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