So an aspect of my identity that isn’t visible is that I have a learning disability and this first became apparent to me when I was in second grade. I’d always been a good student, working hard, and my hard work always resulted in performing well, but then it came time to start memorizing. We were memorizing multiplication tables and I remember I only got two out of one on hundred correct on that test. I felt so badly about my performance because it really didn’t reflect my effort. All of the guidance that I received was just ‘try harder’, which is pretty typical right, that you can just overcome a learning disability by doing what you’re already doing more? That didn’t really work for me. I started to feel some shame about it and was not able to talk about it, but I also became aware of how my learning process was different than other people and that I could be successful if I just tried to learn in different ways. That stayed with me throughout my education and I’m now working in education. It’s really changed into an asset for me. I have an awareness of how learning can look and how different ways of understanding and making sense of the world can result in new understandings and maybe a different viewpoint than ever expected. The learning strategies that I’ve been able to pick up along the way can be shared with other students and so as an educator that’s really become an asset for me. My own awareness of my learning disability and the different ways that learning can happen is now something I’m really proud of and I’m able to share that professionally with my colleagues as well.