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(soft music playing)
VALESKA: I wanted to go back to school
because I felt called to to help other people,
to learn to stand on my own two feet,
learn not to hold so much on to other people.
I believed for many, many years
that my learning disability was who I was.
It was the first thing.
"Hello, my name is Valeska.
I have a learning disability."
That was it.
Now I am learning a new way to be.
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
The name for it is dyscalculia.
It manifests itself as a lack of organization.
Organizational things are very difficult for me.
At work, transitions are very difficult for me,
when I have to move a group of kids
from one place to another.
Math is very difficult for me.
In high school, social skills were very difficult for me.
I have no memory of not having a learning disability.
I pulled hair, other children's hair,
when I was older than I should have been.
Like, I should have known better.
And my response was "Well, it doesn't hurt me."
I think that both my parents knew
that there was something wrong or something different
when I was a baby.
My father once told me a story about a doctor
who said to him that I would never graduate from college.
This is, like, a three-year-old.
I know that that has made a huge difference in my life,
that I had parents who were aware
that there was something going on,
that I had early, early, early intervention.
High school was really hard.
I was lonely.
I would get teased.
I just angrier and angrier and angrier and angrier.
I would do things to get out of class,
like I would kick someone else's chair,
something sort of minor that would annoy the teacher.
I'd be asked to leave.
Then I didn't have to deal with my peers,
and I didn't have to deal with academics,
and I didn't have to deal with, you know, all those things,
all that social stuff.
I'd be in a room, alone.
Someone in a wheelchair doesn't go up the stairs generally.
So they find the elevator.
The teacher's office,
the principal's office was my elevator.
It got me out of social situations.
For the first time, I was with...
I was in my early teens,
and I was with people my own age,
girls my own age.
And it was a scary experience,
but it was a really good experience,
because I finally had peers.
After high school,
I didn't really know what I wanted to do,
where I wanted to go,
and so I went to a two-year technical college
for about four and a half, five years.
And I flunked.
I just didn't do well.
I was just floundering, just floundering around.
I didn't have the skills,
the skills to do the things that most people do--
you know, pay the bills--
and I couldn't function,
although it did teach me that I needed... I needed help.
JAMES WILBUR: The Threshold Program is designed
for young men and women
who have learning disabilities severe enough
that they couldn't compete in mainstream academia college.
They're all young adults who want to go away to school,
like their friends, like their siblings.
And we're looking for people
that are highly motivated to be independent,
people that are emotionally in good shape.
A little anxiety, a little self-esteem issues,
we expect that to happen.
And we look for people who are interested in what we teach--
early childhood education--
people who are interested in working
in the human services or the business area.
Our students, when they leave,
are eligible for the same licensing procedure
as someone graduating with an associate's degree.
Valeska worked at the Agassiz,
which is one of the great, great schools.
And then when she left,
she got a job at Longwood Medical Center,
the daycare center there,
which is also a place
that we've been using as an internships site
for years and years.
VALESKA: I see.
What color are they?
When I was growing up, my parents did a lot for me.
So I didn't know how to self-advocate
until quite recently.
WILBUR: But that's the whole idea.
You don't ask for help; then you just kind of flounder.
VALESKA: Yeah.
Self-advocate in a way that doesn't make me look like
"Oh, here I am, the baby," you know, "coddle me,"
you know, "change my diaper,"
you know, "put the pacifier in my mouth;
I just can't do it"--
in a way that says,
"Look, you know, I have this bunch of skills;
"I have this... you know, these things that I can do,
but I need assistance in this other thing."
WILBUR: The challenges of students leaving the program
are the same challenges they have when they arrive here.
You arrive here with a learning disability.
You leave here with a learning disability.
So you need to take all the tools that we've given you,
because they're going to have to negotiate their way
through the rest of the world.
And it's an ongoing process for everybody in the world.
VALESKA: One times zero is zero.
One times... so it would be 100.
WOMAN: Yeah.
VALESKA: My view of disabilities
is that all disabilities are gifts,
and if there's a reason
that I went through that experience I did in high school,
if my learning difference is a gift,
I need to know how to use it.
So that's why I'm in school: to know how to use my gift.
TEACHER: The reality of "Bridge to Terabithia"
would be your "Balm in Gilead."
That's great.
VALESKA: In English, something very interesting happened.
It seemed like in every class, someone came up to me for help.
Like, and it... in the back of my mind,
I'm thinking, "Do you know who you're asking?"
And then I realized that I could actually help people,
other students,
and that was kind of amazing.
And what I did here, it's all choppy, because...
For a long time, I was defined--
it was my identity, my disability.
Now I know that it is a part of me,
but it's not me.
I would like everybody to know that,
that other people with differences or what have you,
that it's not you.