Random Stuff

Some thoughts.

Kofi Tip jar

Don't tell me to remove distractions, make time, set up a space. Tell me what "study" MEANS. Because otherwise I just sit there reading the book over and over and stressing out because I don't know what the hell I should be doing.

It's so frustrating that people listen to me talk and think I'm "smart" and don't need help. I WAS NEVER TAUGHT ANYTHING!! Learning things in a classroom is literally a fucking nightmare and the only reason I APPEARED to learn anything at all was because I'm a chatterbox that grasped reading early. But that's ALL I learned. I never learned how to study or how to learn something when it was hard. And nobody helps me even when I tell them very clearly that I need help and what I need help with, because they assume self-awareness = being able to do it on my own. NO! Stop abandoning me because I speak well!

Number one problem I have in adult learning classrooms is that they expect you to WRITE while LISTENING. I can only do one of those at a time! Number two problem is NO TEXTBOOK. The textbook for college classes is often so fucking different and unhelpful compared to secondary and primary school, where the textbook is divided into sections with questions and so on. In college I got assigned books that were NOT textbooks at all, because I was supposed to treat the lecture like the textbook. Well write it down then if it's so important! Let me READ it. How the hell are hard of hearing students supposed to learn anything like this! (answer: we're not, I know we're not because exclusion is what this system is fucking built on)

Accomodation is a joke. You need a note from a doctor so you need health insurance and time and a car to go to a doctor and then you need to FIND a doctor that actually can PROVE you are disabled, which is hard because well 99% of your body is inside you where nobody can see it. You can't PROVE I'm hard of hearing with a hearing test, because it's not that kind of hard of hearing. It's a processing problem. I do ONE thing at a time and I don't think that should be a disability but it IS when you're in school so here we are. And even WITH the school's idea of "reasonable accomodation" it's a crock of shit. They don't accomodate you. They have ONE thing they decide they are going to do for all students and that's IT.

And that's why I hate school but seem so "smart". I'm not smart. I'm good at reading and writing. Not listening. Can't listen for shit. Not if you want me to remember it or write it down while I'm listening. Give me a fucking book to read.

I'm just. I'm so restless and BORED and want to learn new things but that is locked away from me by HOW you are forced to learn them. And that doesn't even get into the problems I have with other students, who are disruptive, stupid, and abusive. Fucking loathe other students.

God I wish someone had taught me even a hint of the law school outline method of studying. In law school, when you hit the end of a course and you’re prepping for an exam, you outline the whole fuckin thing — topics, legal principles under those topics, definitions under those legal principles, and case law under those definitions (with variation in this related to how the legal subject itself is organized). This was a way of processing and interacting with the material that put it together into one coherent whole, and it felt So Good.