Interview with Sally Smith - Founder of The Lab School - Page 3

NCLD:

There are a number of working artists who are supporters of Lab School, such as Chuck Close and Robert Rauschenberg, who have learning disabilities. Can you point to any artist you know of whose work you consider to be a direct outgrowth of, or at least influenced by, their learning disability?

Sally Smith:

Chuck Close has always said that his art is driven by his disability. He draws these tiny boxes and puts them together on a grid to make a huge portrait, much in the manner of a mosaic. But that's the way he says he can do it. He's dyslexic, and he says he's always had to chop things up into little bite-size pieces in order to understand them.

Chuck says he had a lot of trouble in school. He could barely read and write, but he was always trying to find ways to get his teachers to realize that he could understand the material, even if he couldn't verbalize it or write it out. And he would do projects to show them that he knew the lessons; some teachers would give him an "A" and some would give him an "F." He said once that for a history test on Lewis and Clark he completed a 20-foot mural that showed the Lewis and Clark trail, with every stop fully illustrated. It showed the teacher he was interested and cared about what they had covered, even though he had done poorly on the written test. He also had trouble remembering what he read; in order to remember difficult words, such as "plankton," he might make up a story like "Pigs Leaping Around Nearly Killing Ten Old Neighbors."

NCLD:

Do you feel that an inclination toward and proficiency in the arts is more characteristic of children with LD? Why or why not?

Sally Smith:

Well, we certainly see a lot of kids go into the arts and a lot going into the theater who have learning disabilities. And I think it's that they have different intelligences. They see differently. They have another pathway to the world that they use in everyday life. That's what makes their work fresh. They don't follow the mold, and they don't fit the mold.

Most of the children we have here at the Lab School have very good minds; it's just that they're different minds. They don't learn the same way as others. And different isn't bad. Different is fine. For these children to be successful, however, we have to teach them to be very self-aware. Much more so than other children, children with LD have to understand how they learn. They have to pay attention to which things are difficult for them and which things are easy, because they're going to have to advocate for themselves when they go on to college or into the workplace.

We're using the arts here not only to teach but also as a confidence builder" "I made it. I did it. I can do it again." It shows children with LD what they can do well, what works for them, and what they might have trouble with. Having the answers to these questions is critical for their success in the real world.

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Sally Smith was director of the master's degree program in special education at American University in Washington, D.C., and founder of The Lab School, a school for teaching children and adults with moderate to severe learning disabilities also located in Washington, D.C.

Her best known books are No Easy Answers: The Learning Disabled Child at Home and at School (Bantam 1995) and Succeeding Against the Odds: How the Learning-Disabled Can Realize Their Promise. (Tarcher/Perigee 1993).

NCLD interviewed Ms. Smith in January 2003.