Stories of Hope for students with learning difficulties.

Stories of Hope


It doesn't feel good to have a learning problem. Sometimes you feel down. by Lauren Eddie - Ohio	But sometimes you learn something new about yourself and it feels like the sun shines through by Megan - Ohio

I felt like I was all alone with my problems in school and became very frustrated with the fact that I couldn't learn the same way as other people. I knew I was smart, but wondered if anyone would ever notice. Outside of school, I was just an everyday kind of kid and did what any other teenager would. I excelled in athletics and enjoyed music and the arts, but all this didn't really matter when school was so hard.

During class, other people grasped the concepts of a lecture, but usually I was stuck and confused. When I told the teachers that I didn't understand, they usually would explain it again in exactly the same way, and I would be embarrassed that I still didn't get it. I would just nod and say, "Oh, now I get it!" but really didn't. Then, the test would come and it would definitely show that I was lost.

If I had to write, I would write, but I would always try to avoid it because I thought people would laugh at me. My writing was different than the other kids'. I had a lot of thoughts running through my head, but I couldn't capture them on paper. Spelling was a problem. Often, I wanted to use a certain word but if I didn't know how to spell it, I had to choose another one, and it threw the whole thought off. When it came to writing in script, I was thinking of how to write the letters more than I was thinking of writing the story.

I hated reading aloud the most. I read slowly, reversed words, made up words, put words in that weren't there. When I was a kid people used to laugh at me and imitate me when I read. It broke my heart, and I even cry now as I write. I kept a lot of this inside.

By the time I was a sophomore, the frustration built up, and I got depressed and angry with myself and with other people. I would blow up for no reason. My mom and dad were very worried because of my behavior and decided it was time to figure out what this was all about.

My mom found out about a summer program for kids with learning difficulties. I rebelled. I didn't want to go, but it helped me to find myself. I met the best people, and they all understood me because they had some of the same problems themselves. Many of them seemed smarter to me than most of the kids in my school because they thought in unique ways and looked at things from a different point of view.

I found out how I must learn. The teachers knew that people learn in different ways. If I didn't understand it one way, they explained it in several other ways. I found out my best way of learning was visual· I had to see it and sometimes experience it. Everything started to make sense to me. I even learned how to write in script.

When I came back to school, I knew I could do anything if I worked hard enough. In my competitive high school, I have a B average and a decent ranking in my class. I feel I have accomplished a lot and know I can do more. My life seems like a mountain. The climb so far has been steep, but now I'm ready for the next challenge.

When I was in school in the late 40's and 50's, teachers didn't know what to do with a child who needed more time. Soon came the next terrible question.

At the time, people just didn't know. So people would say, "He's nice but he's dumb." It was first a joke, but then soon, parents didn't want their children around me because I was "dumb". I was put in a class of thirty students with all sorts of learning problems. Teachers didn't expect too much from us.

Oftentimes we would go on field trips - to plays, movies, zoos, or farms. Living in the city, all we would see were cats, dogs, or birds. That made it different, being on a farm, to see real horses and cows. Sometimes the farmer would show us how to milk cows and explain to us what it would take to run a farm, such as waking up in the wee hours of the morning to get eggs from the chickens. It was a lot of fun.

When the day was done, we had to return to school, and everything worsened when we had to face the other students. The fun was over. Back to name calling. Reality hit when the other children would make fun of the trip and what we had seen. And the teachers would ask us either to tell or draw pictures about what we liked at the farm. I couldn't draw well, but most of all I couldn't write about what I had seen. That made me feel double dumb.

In my class, the teacher only knew how to teach in an ordinary way. We had a reading book that had a lot of pictures and very few words. So the teacher would ask us to look at a picture and figure out the words. The teacher would ask, "So what do you think the word is?" and we would see the picture and say "jump." Then I went to a different school, where the reading books had no pictures. I couldn't read the words. By fifth grade, I couldn't read like the other kids. I felt ashamed because I didn't know how to syllabicate words. I fell into my own private world.

I will never forget one English teacher. Most of us were struggling, yet he told us that we would come out just fine. He told us to work at what we needed to do. At the time, we all thought he was crazy, but I will never forget him. Whenever I had a patient teacher and a smaller learning situation, it was always fruitful. But that only happened a very few times.

I knew if I had someone to take time with me, I could always learn. Why, I didn't know. I always kept a positive attitude. If you work with me and have patience with me, I can succeed. Even today, I don't like anyone hollering at me, or saying "Why can't you do that?" I have a wall up against that.

Because my mother was working seventeen hours a day as a domestic and my father was often away serving as a career navy man, my parents did not have a lot of time to help me. I just said to myself that I would work hard to learn what I needed to be all right.

When I was thirteen years old, a teacher who was a friend of my mother told her there was a trade school I could test for. I took the test and passed, and my mother agreed I could go.

The teaching was different in trade school. They showed and taught us at the right pace. We were involved in learning and it was a lot easier. The academic part was still hard, but I worked hard to achieve because it was something I really wanted to do. I saw it as a source of how I could make a living. I knew I was capable of learning, and I learned many skills, but still I wasn't taught to read and write. After I graduated from trade school as an interior decorator, I was able to get a job. I married early, and started raising a family.

There was nothing I wouldn't do to get an education for my children. I was going to make sure my children could read and write. That was my goal. Because without these skills, there is really a negative side. Without reading and writing skills, you get lost in this world. My wife and I worked with our children. We stayed with them. We went into their schools. We got them tutors. They thought we were trolls at the time. But if they had a problem, our children knew we would work with them. Parents have to go and ask for help. We have to have pride in our hearts for our children and ask for help.

Parents take kids to church and to school. But it is not up to the preacher and the teacher to raise the child. It must come from home. We as parents have to make sure that our kids are being taught and that they are learning.

If we work with children to be educated and have self respect, there are fewer problems because then those children can be working for a goal. They won't have so much time to get involved in things like drugs. Once we give children support, they can be proud because of what they can do.

The teacher or the parent might say, "Let the children do it themselves." But who is going to give them the help to solve the problems they are having? Our job is to go to the teacher and find out what we can do to help. Because when children are having trouble and can't get help, we lose them. The children get frustrated and embarrassed and then begin to go to the back of the class and hope they don't get called on. Inside their minds, they wonder what is wrong.

Children need help from home. As parents, we can't just say to the child, "Why did you get a D?" or "Why did you get an F?" And we can't just ask that child to go and do it alone, because inside he or she is hurt. Other children can break down this child's self esteem. I know this. You can be pushed out, to be by yourself as a loner. And that's not fair.

All of our three children graduated from high school and went to college. But there was something still on my mind that I always wanted to do-- and that was to get an education. When my daughter graduated from Alabama A&M in Huntsville, there was a fellow that walked across the stage at the commencement with his chest stuck out like a proud rooster. He was 58 years old. I said to myself, "I can do that." The same year, my nephew graduated from Columbia University in New York City, and, also, in the class, there was a 73 year old man who received his degree. I knew then that I could do it.

My nephew told me that he received special help one summer because he was having problems in college. He thought that the same methods could help me very much. So, I went to be tested, and I was diagnosed as dyslexic. I had never heard of it-- I didn't know what dyslexia was. The counselor explained to me about different ways of learning, and I knew that I wanted to overcome my fears and pursue an education. I am a visual learner. And I need to know why and how each step must be done, in a very concrete way. Then I understand the concept of what I am doing.

On my first day of school, I was assigned to a tutor. While I was walking to meet him, everything came back. I thought "well, here we go again." When I'd get there, he's going to say "What's wrong with you?" or "Why does it take you so long?" The things I've heard all my life... But my tutor was very calm, and he didn't say too much. Then we started to work and that broke the ice.

At 52, you would think I'm going for my doctorate. This is the first time in my life I have been proud of what I have accomplished. I'm working hard. I'm doing well.

Within myself, I am very proud of where I am and what I've learned. My life has changed to the most fullness that it has ever been. It has taken me this long to realize that I can be taught, and that I can learn. I'm going to keep on pushing. And there isn't anything that's going to stop me.

From Learning to Learn , by Carolyn Olivier and Rosemary Bowler
Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster