By Yamila García
The lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Sometimes not knowing can be good, but other times it can cause a lot of damage.
Every time I’ve approached a professor for help, I’ve always been greeted with a lot of enthusiasm and appreciation for taking the plunge and showing interest. Never during the time that I have been studying in this institution, has a professor not given me the help that I needed. They always made me feel that they really care that we learn, that they take pride in their work, and that they want us to get the most out of their class. Considering these experiences, I can say that I am sure that they want the best for us and that they have a lot of goodwill. However, given the format of some of their classes, many of them have hurt me more than helped. But knowing their goodwill, I have to assume they just don’t know how we neurodivergents work. So all they do is random, it may or may not work for us. Not knowing what works for us is like wanting to guide us on a trail without knowing the way.
Many times, when I have found things in their classes that do not work for me, I have become frustrated. I know I shouldn’t because in reality there is no bad intention on their part, just a lack of knowledge on how to make the class accessible to different ways of thinking. It’s just that. They don’t know how we work. So this year I decided that at the end of the semester I will email my professors, telling them what worked and what didn’t work for me. They will be simple lists indicating what made my life easier and what was a great challenge for me and how it could be avoided. It won’t make a difference in my semester, but it can make them realize that we all don’t work in the same way. I believe that whenever we have the opportunity, we should make neurotypical people know our way of seeing the world. The hope is that one day “their world” will be friendlier to us. We have to give them the chance, we are the ones who have to tell them about ourselves.