Learning Denied

The hardest thing to read about Patrick in Learning Denied was the number of tests he had to go through. He had to take so many tests and none of them actually proved anything. It's no wonder that he had gotten sick during this time. The would make him miss school to prove what? Nothing ever came back. I would be so frustrated if I were his parents. To not know whats going on is one of the worst feelings. Here they are trying to help him and they can't. No one seemed to be on their side initially. They tried to ask questions, tried to send him to the right places, tried to have him take the right tests, and nothing seemed to work for him or for them. Here they are trying to make the right decisions and no one would help them until Denny Taylor. I found it interesting that the school tested students as young as pre-k. That is amazing, how can they tell at that age? One of the tests they did would have qualified me as an LD kid. I hate cutting things out and I especially hated it when I was younger. I wasn't very good at making a straight line or cutting on the line. And even today, I still sometimes only walk up the stairs with one foot instead of alternating. So, what makes me different from Patrick? I think Patrick really doesn't have a problem. Of course, I am only about half way in the book, but just because he seems a little slower, I don'tknow if that qualifies him as having a LD. There are times in teh book that I see his eagerness for learning but yet feels that sense of fear or intimiadation when around the other students. To not be the head of the class can be a very lonely and intimaditing feeling. I felt bad for Patrick because he tried/tries so hard and it doesn't seem to matter. I felt like the school had it out for him from the beginning and could careless about his actual progress. I guess they had more of an assimilationalist view than a culturally relavent view. They didn't seem to think he could succeed so they just kinda pushed him out of the way and stopped paying attention to him. They figured he would fail regardless of what they did so why put that extra effort out? I'm interested in reading the end result of Patrick as well as Claudia and Pat.