Throughout all of elementary, middle, and high school my experience with language and learning was not too good. I struggled with so many aspects of language to the point i thought I was dumb and not smart enough. I had plenty of teachers to guide me and teach me, but I was still not reaching grade level. It was to the point where my mom decided to put me in an IEP class because of how poor I was in not only english language but in other subjects. Being put in an IEP has its pros and cons but at the end of day it helped with my main subjects that I’ve been struggling to understand.I began to see two different teachers around 3rd grade. I would be removed from my class to see another teacher with a bunch of different kids. During this time I was annoyed by the class and thought it was useless. I hated being removed from my main classes to learn something at a much slower pace. I also felt very excluded from everyone else, all my friends were together and I was always left out of everything. Some mornings I would have to be at my IEP class instead of outside with my friends. My experience with IEP in elementary school was annoying mainly because I was never really looking forward to getting removed from class to sit in another class room for two hours each day. As I began middle school my mom decided that she was going to keep me in IEP because she saw no progress. I thought IEP was going to be different in middle school where i dint get removed from class but unfortunately it was the same as in elementary school. I had two different IEP teachers throughout middle school, one wasn’t as helpful as the other but I still learned something from being in that class. Something i started to realize was that the students would make fun of me or others in an IEP, they did not realize what the class was for and just assumed the class was for dumb students. Middle school really opened my eyes and made me realize that an IEP was only to benefit me and made me appreciate my teacher even more. Not only was I learning a lot more than the previous years, I also built a relationship with my teachers. In high school I began to notice that I no longer needed an IEP towards my last few years. My overall performance in school was better than normal. My teachers began to suggest that I be removed from IEP so my mom did what she thought was best and removed me. Being without it started to become a problem for me when I began to take my regents or any AP exam. I was always so used to having extra time on my exams to the point I started to depend on it. I’m a slow test taker and I needed way more time to finish my tests than the other students. During my SAT I had only limited time to take my test which led to me not finishing it on time and getting a very poor score. I was extremely devastated by this outcome because I knew that the SAT was extremely important for college. Luckily for me, due to covid colleges were making SAT scores optional. My problem with IEP was that I was relying on it too much towards the end. Having that extra time on tests was good but it never prepared me for when I won’t have extra time on tests, for example in college. It prepared me for harder levels but did not prepare me for tests. Another major problem I faced throughout middle, and high school was the stereotypes students were
putting out about IEP. It wasn’t easy hearing other students make fun of me and others in the IEP class, saying that we were dumb and not fit for the school. Made me second guess myself and my ability to learn which prevented me from actually trying. Even my friends would question me about the class and ask me why I was in it. They knew why but just wanted me to feel bad about myself. Overall my relationship with the educational system has taught me to embrace certain academic problems and learn from them. Learning from it has helped me be more prepared for more advanced classes in the future.
