I was back in college now, not by choice, but by necessity. The private school where I had taught seriously emotionally disturbed children full time for over six years had become state approved, which meant that by law its teachers must be certified. I had left college 25 years before to be married at the end of my sophomore year, and, although I had been taking courses at night, these credits accumulate slowly and the school had its state approval before I did. I could not teach again until I had a bachelor’s degree in education and teacher certification.
I decided to do it the quickest way I knew – by enrolling full time at the state college. Cal, my husband, supported and encouraged me. Our children were all grown, and some were in college themselves, the same age as my fellow students.
Continuing education for women was not yet popular, and I moved through my days in a sea of twenty-year-olds and dull undergraduate courses. That was okay. But as an education major I had expected to be surrounded by children. Not so. There were plenty of lectures, textbooks, quizzes, term papers, and tests – but no children. In the spring of our senior year, we would be sent into schools for six weeks as student teachers, but that was almost two years away and I knew that I couldn’t wait that long to work with children again.
Before returning to college I had been teaching schizophrenic and autistic children in a small private school, and during those years I had come to love both the staff and the children. The children had been the beginning and end of my days, and without them there was an emptiness that nothing else could fill.
Consequently, when a psychologist I’d known at that little school asked if I’d be interested in tutoring, I jumped at the chance, sandwiching sessions with children between my college courses. And so, without plan or conscious intent, I began to work with a type of child I hadn’t known before.
The first child to come was Bobby – seven years old, in second grade in public school, and seemingly bright, but totally unable to read. When I asked the psychologist who had sent Bobby to me how this could be, he shrugged and replied, “Suspected minimal brain damage.”
Brain damage? The words hit hard. Bobby? I couldn’t believe it. Bobby was bright, alert, bubbling with life, understanding subtleties without explanation – it didn’t seem possible that his brain could be damaged. What I didn’t know then was that in the late sixties and early seventies, learning disabilities was a new field and such medical terms as “brain damage” and “minimal brain dysfunction” were often still used. Now educators would use words like “dyslexic” or “learning disabled” to describe a child like Bobby.
In any event, I was sure that Bobby could learn to read. A friend helped me find an unused room in a nearby church, and Bobby and I met there twice a week. Almost immediately, he began to read. Not on grade level, of course, but within a few weeks he knew both the sounds and the names of the consonants, then the short sounds of a and i – and before one season changed to the next he could not only read, “A fat cat ran to a pit,” he could write it as well.
It was a heady experience to be part of such phenomenal growth. Phenomenal to me, at least. I was used to months, sometimes years, of struggle before a child could acquire what Bobby learned in a few weeks’ time.
It was not that I was doing anything so special. I was teaching the way I always had – moving slowly, sequentially – making sure each session ended with success. It was Bobby who was taking off, all by himself, and I was so caught up in the delight of his learning that I could hardly contain myself. Working with Bobby was my first experience with a child with learning disabilities, although I did not know it then.
Soon a friend asked if I would help Nancy, and someone else sent Henry, and Henry’s mom referred Peter. And then a teacher who was also a friend sent me Maggie, and without knowing it she changed the course of my life. Maggie was small with a narrow little face and brown curly hair. She was a quiet, intense little girl, not especially pretty except when unexpectedly something she had been working on long and hard became clear to her – then her face lit up, and for a minute or two Maggie was beautiful.
Maggie never complained, although sometimes her stomach ached before a test. She just kept on working diligently both in and out of school. She kept an alphabetical notebook of all her spelling words; she wrote multiplication facts in toothpaste on her bathroom mirror until she knew them by heart; she refused a gift of a digital clock, determined to learn to tell time the “usual” way. Maggie put in a lot more effort than most ten-year-olds, and still she struggled.
Why? What was wrong with Maggie? Her mother said she thought maybe Maggie had a learning disability and brought me an article from a magazine. Now, besides the escalating pleasure of being able to help these children, there was also a little tick of recognition.
Unable to spell correctly. Tick. Unable to tell time. Tick. Enormous difficulty putting a simple puzzle together. Tick. Tick. Tick. That was Maggie. That was also me.
In kindergarten the school nurse discovered I had almost no vision in my right eye. I was immediately taken to New York City to Dr. Sternhow, who had me look at his pencil, follow his flashlight, turn knobs to try to make things meet. I was given reading glasses, a black patch, a colouring book, and weekly remedial sessions. It did not seem serious. In fact, my mother and father seemed almost relieved. “No wonder she’s never been able to catch a ball,” they said to each other, smiling at me.
But despite the glasses and remedial sessions, I still couldn’t skip or sing on key or remember a new phone number, or make my letters the right way.
As I got older, I was conscious of mixing up left and right, and was not able to set the table correctly unless I stood directly in front of each place and pointed my watch, which I knew I wore on my left hand, toward the spot where the fork should go. I was never sure in which direction to deal cards, and I had to work excruciatingly hard to learn the new steps at dancing school, practicing alone in my bedroom at night, saying everything out loud to myself in order to get it in the proper sequence. I was never a very good speller, and handwriting and artwork were a struggle.
As a young adult, I knew and tried to cover up the fact that I couldn’t tell east from west or read a map. Even “before” and “after” were difficult, and I had tremendous trouble learning to tell time. Even now I say, “It’s about ten to two,” not sure whether it’s actually twelve or eight minutes before the hour.
But I was lucky, I grew up in the safest of worlds – in a home full of love, warmth, good food, enough money, and tender care. I went to school in the same town year after year where there were small classes, good teachers, and loyal friends who picked me for teams despite my strikeout potential. So I was spared the loneliness and feeling of inadequacy that haunt the lives of so many learning disabled children. My language center was not affected – I could read, my grades were good – so I didn’t have to deal with terms like “stupid” and “idiot.” Hard as it was, I’m sure it would have been harder still for both my parents and myself if I had had to struggle in school. Then, as now, academic success and intelligence were considered synonymous. Instead I simply, though painfully, thought of myself as a klutz.
Still, I know what it’s like, at least to a small degree – this feeling that the world is a little out of whack, slightly askew, and then one terrifying day you wake up and wonder if maybe it’s not the world, but you.
The day I met Maggie I met myself again, and I knew I had to find out why we were like that. Did we have learning disabilities? Why were we different from Bobby? Were we all brain damaged? Was there more than one kind of learning disability? What caused it? What could be done about it? And what was this word “dyslexia” that cropped up with increasing frequency?
I continued my dual major in special education and elementary education through my junior