No More Pesky Exams - 1998 Yearbook Signature

Richard Neal,

Well, your through! No more pesky exams, or stupid teachers! I'll miss you, bud! Hopefully, you'll do well in the future, and hopefully, you'll find a nice girl to marry and multiply with!

Teachers and their Laws 1997 Yearbook

A Teacher Affects Eternity - Henry Brooks Adams

What was I Thinking?

If there is one thing that truly messes with a man it is his own face in the mirror made clear. That’s why it so hard for me to look back at these old essays.

That would lead to the question: “so why are you posting this online?” To be honest, I’m not all that sure. There are things I find that I will refrain from posting, but that is due to the work involved.

I believe that date is incorrect or that this was an essay for my freshman English class. I think I must have been the dumbest fifteen year old in all the state of California at the time, and I still have no idea how I graduated from high school.

Well this is an essay where I tried to say that we need good teachers, well written text books, and motivated students to teach mathematics. At the time I couldn’t even spell mathematics, what did I know?   

                              2^nd January 1995                           

M Forward

Math is the subject of today's essay. You all, I am sure, have taken it under different titles. So it must be explored good points, bad points, and flaws in application, so that it is understood.

           

Math enables us to do almost everything in life that we do now, it is considered by some to be more than or as essential as reading. This is perfectly true as I can see it. Math is a tool in business, and the more you know the better you can do, depending on how you use it, if you use it. It can and will give you a better understanding of what you do. Inside of all this are the bad points that always exist.

           

Common bad points are in un-learnable nature of math, it is confusing. In theory the equation for math learning is teacher X materiel plus study equals result or TM+S=R and the best to have is 25(2)+50=100 the teacher is a very important part as you can see. However math's greatest enemy is bad books, I have never seen good math books in fact. Not to mention that to teach math appropriately is thought to be too hard to do, or at least impractical. Can you detect the confusion?

             

The greatest problem with math as far as uses is that Math has attributed to the damaging things of today. Math gives us the ability to do bad and good and the two are inseparable. This is a topic that is not commonly brought up. However, you can counter math with itself. They used math to build the missal and to detect it.

             

until next time R.L.N.

Honors Student

22^nd March 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

There is a bit of business that happened in middle school that would be a major shaping agent for the next six years of my life. Up until the age of eleven I was classified as learning disabled. Understand here that schools get more funding for the learning disabled so they have no interest in curing this problem.

       

Now it just so happens that the school also gets money for the honors students and that one can be both. This contradiction is most perplexing given that a student must have problems to be learning disabled and yet must be more capable than average to be in honors.

       

So they tested me for honors aptitude. I went into one of the buildings with a math teacher who had these blue eyes that darted about the room as if he were on drugs. They gave me an English test. What the math teacher was doing there I cannot say but they gave me a set of pictures and told me to write a story.

       

When I was done they explained to me that I would be graded on how many long words I used. I think this was words over seven letters however I cannot recall. As the written word and I had never gotten on well I had written my story in the smaller words I was better with and so had scored poorly.

Then they saw the word ‘jalopy’ in my story and decided to count it even as it was one letter short. That day I became an honors man and the school put a few more dollars in their budget. I only made it through honors classes because they gave me special consideration.

Still the truth in this regard is that my learning disorder was like a broken bone that had healed wrong. The problem progressed only because it was never looked after and I suffered so that they could make a few extra dollars.

Hear the roar of the all mighty dollar, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Also updating today!

Random Street Theater a Comic

http://randomstreet.blogspot.com/

Teachers Should be Made to do Better

This is a group of four emails dating back to 2009. I don’t like the dating system used here, but it’s what came with the emails so I will leave it in place.

I want to make it clear that the teacher we talked about was never given any retraining or reprimand. She clearly misunderstood the nature of her obligations. She had never dealt with a student with a disability before and responded as if she thought I was malingering.  

Given the theater folk are in the art of telling lies her belief was understandable. However, nothing gave this teacher the right to be rude to me regarding my legally defined learning disability.

Teachers should be made to do better.

1/30/09

Dear Doctor (at the Disabled Students Services),

You have now received my first request for accommodations. I assure you that this was not my idea. There is a one Doctor(Theater History Professor) of the theatre arts department that has requested that I verify that I have a disability despite the fact that I have not asked her for accommodations. You may recall from our last meeting that I have had issues with theatre teachers in the past and their attitudes regarding my problem.  

All I require is that you inform her that I am indeed registered with DSS, and I will be out of your hair. I'm told that you will be very busy for the next few weeks, so I don't want to take up to much of your time, but I will meet with you if that is what will accomplish my needs. 

Thank you and best wishes   

Richard Leland Neal

2/2/09

Richard,

We only communicate with professors when one of our students requires some kind of reasonable accommodations for a course.  The only way a professor would know a student has a disability, other than a visible disability, is when the student discloses that information orally or by presenting documentation from our office. If you didn’t disclose that information, and from your comments I think you would choose not to disclose, then I would be concerned as to how the professor came to know. In any event, it is inappropriate for a professor to ask for documentation when no accommodations are requested. If she persists with this request I want you to have her contact me directly.

Doctor (at the Disable Students Services)

2/2/09

I did mention it, but I did not ask for accommodation however. Theater teachers have poor responses to students like myself, and I almost always mention it. You may recall that this is why I updated my registry. Even after I repeatedly stated that I had never asked for accommodation, and only have them at the discretion of the instructor's she insisted. I don't know if I will need anything for this class and it is likely that I will not, but if she gives me problems such as teachers have given me in the past I'd like to be able to say that I made things clear beforehand.    

2/3/09

Richard,

Please call me or schedule an appointment with me so we can discuss this.

Thanks

Doctor (at the Disable Students Services) 

Teachers Open the Door - Chinese Proverb