Nina Padolf: Labels Do Not Define You

Years ago, long before higher education really knew how to accommodate students with learning challenges, my psychology instructor, like many science professors, handed back our multiple-choice mid-term exams. My guess is that it took less time to grade. Most students liked this kind of test. I, on the other hand, was the exception. Later on, he asked me, why I did so poorly on the test yet knew all of the answers when we had classroom discussions? I cringed at this question. It stirred up years of test anxiety, stemming from the many years of being assessed since I did not prevail in grade school.

For first grade, I had to take a bus to a school designed for children with disabilities. I no longer attended my neighborhood school, instead, I was placed in a room with all the boys. Most of them appeared to have various issues, one had hearing aids and made odd noises, another was fidgety; I was angry that I was there. I knew that deep inside I belonged back at my neighborhood school, but some man assessed me and told my mother, “that I would never learn how to read or write.”  This label stuck to my records and self-esteem for years. I eventually attended college in spite of the many challenges that I encountered in school.

There were good days and bad days when I first attended community college. Since I never took the SATs like most of my high school classmates, I had to start at our local community college. 

I was not sure that I had what it would take to make it in college, but then something inside of me realized that I did belong. It was Professor Eskridge, my philosophy professor, who first ignited that desire to question the status quo of things. He along with my one history instructor, who shared one of my poems with the class, gave me hope. It just takes one teacher to make a positive change in a student’s life.

No one would have guessed that idiotic evaluator who labeled me learning disabled at six years old, would run off with one of his students and never be heard from again. Thankfully, I had the drive inside of me to prove him wrong.

It would take a lot of dedication and hard work to complete not just one master’s degree but two, and then eventually my dissertation for my doctorate in Higher Educational Leadership. I did this in part for not just my six-year-old self, but for all of the people that made me feel inadequate. 

Today not only do teachers have to cope with not being paid well, they have to cope with gun violence and various threats from not just students but parents. It is a violent world, and as a result teachers have to be trained in how to deal with lock downs. Many schools do not get the funding that they need, and the list goes on. As an adjunct professor, I barely make a living and have an exorbitant amount of student loan debt, but I love what I do.

Accommodation should not just stop in high school; it should be in all curriculums including college. It still shocks me that many leaders in education are still oblivious to this concept. When I talked briefly to the dean of the university I attended for my doctoral degree about accommodations, he replied, “Students shouldn’t need accommodations at this level.”

With over 15 years of being a professor, I can tell you that this is a serious matter. I often hear so many situations from my students when I have my one-on-one conferences with them. I have had students tell me that they have attention deficit, dyslexia, or psychiatric conditions, like depression, and anxiety, to name a few things. It is important to be there for students regardless of what grade level they are in. We need to treat them individually, first. There are plenty of creative, intelligent, successful adults that have had and may still have many personal struggles in life to overcome. Ironically, some of the best instructors and mentors are difficult challenges.

When I was six years old, I felt like a freak. It took me years of therapy to overcome the trauma that I experienced in my childhood. We need to be willing to expose the imperfections of these labels that we so freely put on various students, and find what they excel in. Our system is broken, and as a result many people are still trying to find themselves because they were told they would never amount to anything. I was one of those children, and I feel the need to expose how much damage this can do. We should make it safer for our children, and we should share our stories, so that we can heal those wounds that may have held us back and inspire others to find the strength and courage to do the same.

Dr. Nina S. Padolf is a teacher, writer and editor who lives in Pittsburgh.