Tuesday 10 April 2018

Overcoming Odds and Barriers with Education by Krystian Shaw

I am so excited. I have run my newspaper business for four and half years now. I've been told I have good writing skills, but I still need someone to edit my work. Most of the writing skills I have learned by myself because once I started grade 8, my teachers mainly focused on teaching me life skills. So I am going back to school to improve my skills for my business and career.

The public school district is offering adults from 18 and up to take courses to get there Dogwood diploma. My main focus is to get writing and communication skills so I can learn how to condense my writing. My goal is to say everything I want to say in as little words as possible. And I would like to improve my writing skills so very little if any editing needs to be done in my newsletter articles. For those who don’t know what my newsletter is about, please go to my facebook page at The Kamloops Self Advocate Newsletter/Diverse Abilities.

I am mainly concentrating on English and communication courses, but I will also tackle math and other important skills for my business called the Kamloops Self Advocate Newsletter. I register on April 24th for my schooling, but they gave me literacy tests such as math, English and reading comprehension in the meantime before I registered to know what grade level I am at.

The special education classroom in high school mostly focuses on life skills and work experience and they refused to teach me academics because they thought I couldn't do it.

Look at me now.

I run a business with little support. I want to be more independent, make my messages much shorter for Ability Online, as well as my business. I'm looking forward to improving my skills.

I would like to get my Dogwood which allows people to take university courses, but I don’t need it to reach my goals in life. Although, since I am a go-getter, I still want to keep that as my long-term goal. It’s referred to as street school and it’s free for all adults in the community who don't have their Dogwood and who were not able to graduate from public school.

If you want to upgrade to go to university, you can do that at a university. But they don’t offer you a Dogwood. You just get a grade 12 certificate. At Street School, you write government exams and will receive your grade 12 diploma once you complete all required courses, take the tests and pass.

I am grateful that free programs exist in the community, especially for those who were not offered the same education in school while growing up like me.

The educational system needs to realize, just because we are born with challenges, that doesn’t mean they should assume we are not capable. Give us a chance and push us to as far as we can go. We might surprise them and be capable of learning more than they ever thought we could. I will give an update after I register to let people know what grade level I do have without any formal education when I was young.

Don't "dis" my ability.

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