I’m gonna talk a little bit about dyscalculia and why you shouldn’t be fucking patronizing toward people who have a difficult time understanding certain things.
I am 24 years old and I have what’s probably a 4th or 5th grade level of understanding of how to do math. On top of that, I am almost completely unable to calculate anything with accuracy in my head without a visual aid, and even then I’m extremely likely to fuck it up. Badly. Calculators help, but I often don’t understand how to calculate certain things even if I’m taught over and over (sales tax, etc.)
You know those times table sheets we all got in elementary school to fill out (with or without a time limit)? Mine were always covered in tally marks and little dots that I would count out individually because I could not calculate them or memorize them myself. In many cases it took me the whole amount of time to fill out a single row of problems.
The division ones were almost out of the question; I was always supremely proud of myself for being able to fill out even three. In third grade we had indicators on the wall of how many of those sheets each of us had been able to fill out at a time and mine stayed at the lowest level consistently. I tried so hard, I even had flash cards and all kinds of workbooks and math games to do at home, but nothing helped and I never progressed and everyone knew. It was humiliating. It completely convinced me that I was an idiot, and it dramatically lowered my expectations of myself for over a decade.
For years, during math class I could not do anything but frantically copy everything that was being written on the board and pretend to understand it and hope that that would be good enough. At home, my engineer dad would try very hard to teach me everything but despite his efforts it would always end in a crying, screaming, fucking traumatic meltdown.
In college I took one math class. It was ‘physics for the artist’; it was supposed to be relatively easy on the math and focused on basic principles. I understood the vast majority; these were all things I’d been closely observing since I was a kid and it made great sense. Until I had to calculate things. I could not make the connections between the equations and the concepts that we discussed. I loved that class for the most part, but I failed it and I will have to retake it.
For my first job, I was hired at a print shop because the owner liked my artwork and my graphic design and had soaring expectations for me based on that. But when the time came to make change or calculate sales tax, I would constantly ask her for help. In many cases I would also fuck up things like cutting paper stacks correctly because I couldn’t estimate where I would need to to cut. It was embarrassing as hell and of course I eventually got fired for it.
Dyscalculia also affects things like my sense of direction and while I may remember the layout of a place quite well, it will take me several tries and a lot of being utterly lost to finally get it down. Tying into this (despite the fact that I draw!) visual processing is an issue that comes with it and I have never been able to easily read maps, remember the fingering on a piano keyboard or type anything at all without looking at the keyboard. I can’t intuitively know left from right most of the time. I have difficulty with patterns and keeping things in order. It has even prevented me from being able to learn and read musical notation despite multiple piano lessons and even an attempt at playing the trumpet.
Anyway, what I want to say is that people who are having a hard time reading or doing math or pretty much anything could very well be disabled, they could have been through a lifetime of struggles with their issue and being irritated about someone doing something very slowly or doing it incorrectly is really kind of fucked up because that person is most likely really, really, REALLY embarrassed that they have to try to do what they have a hard time doing, and if they tried to do it on their own accord then they are trying to improve and they are being brave as fuck.
If someone can’t do elementary math or something you don’t treat them like shit or try to shove shit in their faces. Just fucking accept it, and if they ask for help then help them and treat them with respect.
