Keep Teachers Informed

Just as parents who are actively involved in your education can make a difference, teachers who are aware of your needs can also play a big role in how well you succeed in school. When teachers are informed of your needs, they can:

➢    Make sure the classroom temperature doesn’t get too cold
➢    Help you stay hydrated by allowing you to bring a water bottle in the classroom
➢    Permit you to have more frequent restroom breaks
(Drinking nearly a gallon of water daily may, for some reason, cause you to need more restroom breaks than others.)
➢    Allow you to eat in the class
➢    Have make-up home work ready for a relative or friend to pick up
➢    Give you a spare set of textbooks to use at home for make-up work (This allows you to always have the necessary materials to do your make-up homework.)
➢    Be more understanding as to why your classroom performance may be better some days than others.

How you physically feel will often influence how well you mentally function. As a result, there will be times when your clarity and/or productivity aren’t at their peak. On such days you may not test as well as you typically do or the quality of your work may be less than ideal. Without a knowledge of why this is so, teachers may form false ideas about the cause. In consequence, you could be given a label you don’t deserve. However, when teachers are informed about the challenges you face, when they understand the reason behind your fluctuating performance, they will be more willing to help you excel.

When I was in a school, the teachers who were informed about my needs had a very different attitude toward my absences than the teachers who lacked that information. Teachers who understood my circumstance were almost always happy to help me, and went out of their way to do so. I remember one day a teacher told me that she could always tell how I was feeling when taking tests based on my scores. When I felt good, I tested well; when I was feeling poorly, I tested . . . well, poorly. I hope that means she graded me on a curve.