This isn't meant to be out of bitterness and spite, but rather a question of how teachers treat there students with learning differences. Of course, I also know that this questioning does not apply to all or even most teachers, but for the select few, I must ask, in what situation do you actually think it's okay to tell your students that there's something wrong with them?

For a child, the classroom is an authoritative place, a singular spot that a student spends all day in, surrounded by peers. For a student with learning disabilities, it can often be a place of great intimidation, and your teacher is the unquestionable leader. Before we are taught to question things, we are taught just to accept them as they are. I accepted the opinions of my teachers, and in turn, I spent most of my childhood believing that I was dumb.

To anyone who has worked with young kids, you know how much authority your voice has. As kids we value the opinions of teachers, and when a teacher actively looks down on a student, it becomes a permanent part of them until someone with the equal authority to tell them otherwise.

My teachers encouraged the idea that I was not smart and disruptive throughout elementary and middle school, and it was an idea that I had accepted until I got to high school and had teachers that were encouraging the way that my brain worked differently, setting up high standards that I had never had to reach for before. What teachers tell to their young students can become self-fulfilling prophecies; the kids that you call disruptive or a menace become comfortable with that idea and continue to act out, and the kids you call dumb stop trying.

So why teachers, would you encourage the fate of a student being unsuccessful and feeling like there's no point in trying, when you could instead encourage them with stories of triumph of people with learning disabilities like Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Anderson Cooper, and even Justin Timberlake. Why not harness their differences, and turn them into applicable skills? Or better yet, why don't you actually do your job, as a teacher, and help them?

So, to the teachers that called me dumb, and to any teacher that has pitted their student down for something they can't control, you're lucky that you're words don't always have a hold, and because of your close-mindedness you miss out on the opportunity to see the potential of all of your students. When you signed up to be an educator, realize that that meant educating and helping all your students, not just the ones that are easy to work with.

And to the teachers that made fun of me when I couldn't read or write, suck it.