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1993 Brutal Truth: Crushed

High school was worse!

Unknowingly dyslexic in 1993. I was crushed.

The humiliation was not nearly as often but was far more scarring.

I am dyslexic and here is my brutal truth. 

Dyslexic: 1993
My Brutal Truth

 

Sunlight, pouring in from behind me, caught on something unexpected and shiny. I was already flinching when hairy knuckles rapped on my desk.  If it were my attention that he had wanted, he got it.   His hand in my direct eye line and the glinting gold band squeezing around his finger had been distracting enough.  The startling knock, inches from my face, was unnecessary.

Bent over my desk, I had been lost in my own continuous stream of thoughts and the ink was struggling to furiously keep up.  The words I had been about to scratch down halted at the end of the pen and I willed for my memory to desperately snatch them while I lifted my eyes.  Too late,  they were gone; at the speed of a thought into the abyss of forgotten fragments of time. Before me was a sentence left unfinished, my train of thought was reduced to a wreck.

More disappointed than annoyed,

…I looked at my Grade 12 English teacher.   His back was to me as he walked towards his desk.  Lowering himself into his chair, Mr. Fenton peered at me over his reading glasses, made tiny by his rutted round face.  When he raised his wiry brows without breaking his impatient stare it suddenly occurred to me that I was meant to follow.

We were studying Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play I knew well thanks to Mel Gibson. The remainder of the period was ours to begin the written assignment.  Before I reached his desk, Mr. Fenton jutted his chin.

“Bring your work.” This was an obvious oversight on my part given his tone.

More annoyed than disappointed,

…I approached the big desk that stood demanding respect front and center of the classroom.  A sitting Mr. Fenton was at an awkward height and I could see the oily pores of his slick near-bald head.   It was hard to ignore the heat shooting up through to my ears brought on by the open glance of curious students.  An anonymous snort pulled Mr. Fenton’s eyes from my paper to the instantly quieted class.  No one dared to meet his gaze and before us, a plain of crowns lowered.

The painful silence stretched on while his dark eyes challenged his students.  My discomfort only grew.  Why was I there? What was going on?  Should I grab a chair?  What was I supposed to do with my hands?

Doubt and Insecurities invaded me entirely.

The scent of garlic polluted the air when Mr. Fenton returned to my work and huffed.  Never had he apologized for his weakness for the cafeteria Cesar salad; an omission he often made as an explanation to his sour breath. 

Our assignment had just been given to us at the beginning of class, not even twenty minutes earlier.  What could I have possibly written that would warrant this much scrutiny? How could he evaluate me on my preliminary notes which were more of an illegible flowchart? 

“Blood.”  He finally said and I nodded.

Realizing that he wasn’t looking at me I confirmed with a typical teen response. “Yep.”

“Yes.” He held the ‘s’ until garlic tainted the air again.

“Yes,” I echoed.

Referring back to my paper he started listing off all of my points thus far.  I wasn’t about to lean over his desk to follow the tip of his fancy pen as he tapped it around my written notes.  Even at sixteen, I was well aware of the scene that would create. Self-consciously I slid the small charm at my throat back and forth on its chain while taking stock of my shirt with its scoop neckline. Nope. No leaning today.

“All of your examples are in the literal sense. Battle, death and sickness.”  From over his shoulder, his eyes found me again.  “Come on think. What else?”

I knew that I was staring at him blankly, but not for lack of an answer, more from the pure shock that I had been centerd out like this.

Although I felt colour rise to my cheeks, my lips grew cold from my gaping.

Suddenly, Mr. Fenton rolled back and stood snagging the attention of the entire room.  “You sit here and think about it.”

“What?”  I could not keep the chilling surprise or volume from my voice.

Equally confused expressions looked back at me from the rows of my peers.  Mr. Fenton’s fingers curled around my upper arms and dug in as he plopped me into his chair and steered me towards his desk. Panic and embarrassment swelled inside me and a bolt of pressure raced to my head.  Wildly, I scanned the room looking for a kind understanding face when I spotted a friend. Her contorted mouth said it all.  Clearly, the odd behavior of our teacher had not gone unnoticed, but…

…no one else felt the uneasiness coil coldly down their spines. 

Paralyzed by a fear, forever tethered me to the fourth grade, I sat motionless at the front of the room.  Feeling so small and fragile, a single breath could cause me to break, my mind whirled around the senseless humiliation.  I tried to reach back to where I was before Mr. Fenton interrupted my work. Fingers of thought flicked through my memory trying to grasp at anything that had been there but my pounding heart pulled all threads from my grasp.  I had nothing.  It was gone.

I picked up my teacher’s heavy pen and lowered it again upon sight of my trembling hands.  Did he really expect me to be able to explore the concept of blood in the play more deeply from his desk? 

Thankfully, the bell rang blared before I had to find out.  Mr. Fenton was leaning on the window ledge at the back of the class when I darted back to my desk to collect my things and flee from the room.

By the following day, I had reasoned that Mr. Fenton had no way of knowing the deeply rooted fear he had inflicted upon me with his actions the day before. So, I did all that I could to push it from my mind and not drag it with me back to English class. I had barely sat down when Mr. Fenton began to bellow instructions to the class.  We were to pick up where we had left off the day before and then to my horror he said my name.    

‘Ms. Wright,’ he hissed the ‘s’ like a ‘z’.

My eyes snapped to his and he motioned for me to follow him out into the hall.  The mass that had collected in my throat was too much to swallow so I took to chewing on my tongue to ward off the tears.  My heart clobbered so hard that it hurt to breathe.  Out the door, I went, but he was already walking down the hall. Then he turned, where I hadn’t known there to be a room.  When I got there, it was the side entrance into an office I didn’t recognize.  The name on the desk was not Mr. Fenton, it was Mrs. Blackwell the Vice Principal and my teacher looked disturbingly satisfied as he slid into the big wing back chair.  Cautiously I took the seat across from him. 

There was one window looking out over the courtyard directly behind the desk and Mr. Fenton’s glowing silhouette was almost ironic. Shadows created by the few secretaries in the main office, blurred beyond the closed blinds of the wall of glass to my right.

“I see that you have enrolled into OAC English class next semester.” His gaudy ring caught the sunlight again as he steepled his fingers, pressing his elbows into the soft arms of his mobile throne.

This wasn’t a question and I had.  My plans were well thought out and precise.  My high school excelled and specialized in the sciences, not my particular expertise. The idea was to take all the required OAC courses needed for my university application as quickly as possible so that I could add electives to my transcript my final year.  That way, I could enroll in courses available from other high school’s from the surrounding area and use my spare for commuting.   As well, English was by far my worst subject, by taking it early I could enroll in an upgrade summer course, offered only to students who had already completed OAC English. 

I had no illusions about my limitations and academic challenges.  My plan was to accept my disadvantages and get ahead of them.

It was perfect.  Or at least I thought it had been before this blindsided ambush.

“I want you to take a look at this.”  Mr. Fenton opened a folder that had been sitting on the plastic desk protector and plucked out papers.  He held them towards me but I had to stand to retrieve them.  There were three or four pages neatly stapled together. “That is an essay written by a student of mine last year.  It is an example of where you are expected to be.  Where your writing should be.”

Flipping through the pages I feigned interest all the while the date kept flashing in my mind.  It was October! The semester had just begun. This was hardly enough time for teachers to learn all of their student’s names let alone their potential. How could Mr. Fenton possibly know anything about my writing?  We had yet to hand in a single assignment.   The next thing he said tore me from my thoughts.

“I think that you should drop out.”

I froze without being able to look up.

These few words crushed me. 

“I teach OAC English, and you don’t have what it takes to pass that class.”

After that, I didn’t hear anything else he had to say. He had just obliterated my plans for high school, shattered my expectations for graduation and quashed any hope I had for getting into university.  I had been judged and unfairly evaluated without any grounds or cause. There had yet to be anything for him to come to such a rash conclusion.  I vaguely remember nodding and floating out of the room.

Three months later,

I sat hunched over another desk.  Rows of them had been set up in the gym for exams.

It was believed that lower temperatures were stimulating and more likely to keep students alert.  I must have been the exception because being cold made me want to curl up and sleep.  Being my third exam, I had come prepared with a piping hot tea, a giant box of tissue, and a toque.  The thick wool of my puck bunny sweater helped too. Before me was my English exam and I was ready. There was no stressing because I knew my stuff. It helped too that I wasn’t enrolling into OAC English until September which knocked my plan off course by a year.  By dropping the course as suggested by my teacher I would not be eligible to apply for university until the year after my classmates; a reality I had learned to accept over the last few months.

A hairy knuckle dropped onto my desk knocking mere inches from my pen. The scent of garlic had preceded him.  Beneath my enormous sweater, I stiffened and gripped by Papermate so tight the tips of my fingers turned a ghostly white.  Then, Mr. Fenton crouched beside me. So close, in fact, that I could see a roll of skin attempting to fold over the wire arm of his reading glasses in my peripheral. This time I did not lift my pen nor turn to him, my sights were set on the last few words to finish my train of thought.  He seemed to wait, but still, I wrote. Finally, Mr. Fenton placed my last assignment upon my desk.  The grade was hard to miss in its giant red ink. 

Our final independent study, making up 40 percent of our final grade had multiple components.  Mine was on a local poet and after much research and obscure digging, I had discovered the poet’s glossary.  As if he had his own language, I used the glossary to decode and translate a number of his poems.  No doubt about it, this poet was a sexist womanizer and I said as much in my oral presentation, except I think I went as far to say he was a pig. 

There I was, where I shone brightest at the front of the class prepared to present on a topic I knew inside and out.  Having a completely entranced captivated audience was exhilarating until my teacher interrupted. As luck would have it, or my bad luck as it were, Mr. Fenton knew the poet.  They had gone to school together and shared pints just a few weeks earlier.  This blow took the wind right out of my sail.  I had just openly trashed my teacher’s buddy. 

After a long awkward moment, Mr. Fenton choked out a laugh and announced that I had ‘hit the nail on the head’ with all that I unearthed;

another potentially brilliant day gone badly.

That had been weeks earlier and the anticipation of my grade for that blunder of an assignment had been overshadowed by only my exams.  I gleaned no insight to my results, not through rumor nor teacher’s meeting.  The hopefulness I had for the written component withered. Let’s just say that my presentation had been kind and humorous in comparison to the strong language I used in my essay. 

Words like predator and pedophile lack in comedic value and sharpen the edges of real accusations with well-argued points.  Learning my teacher knew this poet personally was enough for me to enroll into summer school to redo grade 12 English upon my certain failure of the class.

Staring down at the bleeding red ink, a 98  looked back at me. Disbelief snatched my response as I forced myself to consider the mark. Percent, right? Was he for real? The air in my chest turned to lead and a flood of emotion took hold, rattling me to the core.

Flattening his hand over my paper, Mr. Fenton’s football ring failed to glint under the harsh fluorescent lights of the gym.

“I underestimated you.  Good job.”  Still, I stayed silent. Standing, Mr. Fenton slipped his oversized hands into the little pockets of his suit jacket.  “It’s too bad that you dropped my course next semester.”

To that, I could only dip my head.

Again, he had crushed me

…and I refused to allow him to wreck my thoughts.  The scent of garlic faded as he strolled away.

Undefined emotions milled about my brain until my eyes landed on my pen. There was a task at hand that deserved all of my attention.   After a number of centering breaths, I absently slipped my near perfect assignment beneath my exam and continued to write.  

I am dyslexic and this is my brutal truth.

1981 – Sour Note

1984 – Fever

1986 – Sad

1989 – Panic

1990 – Fear

1992 – Anger

1995 – Fraud

1995 Brutal Truth: Fraud

Fraud

Up until 1995, I was unknowingly suffering from dyslexia. This is my brutal truth.

Being accused of fraud was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Fraud.  This is exactly how I felt attending University; a fraud.  Somehow, I managed to graduate high school with a GPA that snagged an acceptance to my preferred post-secondary education establishment.  This was a feat within itself because…

I pulled through high school without reading a single book cover to cover.

My trick? Well, I took impeccable notes, that only I could translate and I made a point of writing essays that regurgitated the opinions of my teachers as discussed in class. I wore a path in the library carpet directly to the Cole’s Note section and specifically chose books that had been made to film, no matter how obscure. Imagine what I could have done if Google had existed back then. Anyway, all of my diversions to reading worked like a charm. Or so I had thought.

Until the day I was asked to stay after one of my first-year university tutorials.

Upon hearing my name, I froze; a familiar panic taking howl. In spite of the heat that instantly brightened my face and the pulse that throbbed hotly scorching my veins, I could not move. This should not have come as a complete surprise. After all,  everyone but me had had their midterm papers returned to them at the end of class.

My T.A was about five years my senior; a only fact that made the ‘no-notice’ discussion bearable. Well, far less intimidating than if it had been my professor that is.  As I approached the vacant seat reserved for me, she slid papers from a folder. Immediately, I recognized them as two of my own assignments.  One had been a five page, take home article; typed double spaced as required.  The other was a handwritten, in-class essay.

Hey, it was the nineties.

She tapped her capped pen on the typed title page. “Who wrote this?”

The question shocked me into silence. It was a long moment before I closed my mouth and blinked the dryness from my eyes.

“I did.” My response was not more than a squeaky whisper.

This, I had not expected. I had assumed and prepared for a bad mark and…

yet another conversation that gently suggested that I drop out of the class.  

See, dreadfully low grades mess with the bell curve and no professor wants that.  Thankfully, final grades depend on more than just the written component or I would never have made it out of fourth grade. It was always the shining marks I earned through oral presentations, class discussions and in group work that pushed me through.

“You didn’t get someone else to write this?” She peered at me without expression.
Dyslexic Writer; Brutal Truth 1995. Fraud
fraud

 

As the implication of what she was suggesting sank in, the stinging strain of tears flooded my vision.  My balled fists began to tremble beneath the table top with the hopelessness of my predicament. All I could do was shake my head. My future hung in the balance and under her severe scrutiny I was crumbling.  Finally, she sighed and pushed back into her chair.
 
“Then explain the drastic difference between these two papers.”
 

“Prep time and spell check.” I deadpanned without missing a beat.

 
Straightening again, she bounced her pen relentlessly upon my in-class essay.  It was a blur of blue arching from her fingers. Was she weighing her words or measuring my response? Suddenly the tapping stopped and the uncomfortable silence brought my eyes to her’s.
 

“This one is unreadable.”

 
I knew that she was not talking about my hand writing. It was my countless spelling errors and nonsensical rambling.  When writing, my thoughts stream so rapidly that the ink is unable to keep up. What is worse, is that I am blind to my own errors.  When I was able to type assignments,  leaving them to the last minute was never an option. My first draft was often in point form to get all of my ideas down. The second draft, I would string those points altogether into a coherent format. Then, I forget about it for as many days as possible.  The time I allotted was literally so that I could forget. My words needed to fall from my memory and sentence structure grow unfamiliar so that I could edit it better.
 
I was holding my breath waiting. Waiting to be expelled for fraud or being kicked from the program for being too stupid the belong.
Her next words changed everything. 

“You, my dear, are dyslexic.”

 
With that, she stacked my papers and aligned them perfectly by tersely dropping the edges on the table top with a clap. The expression she wore was unreadable as she pushed the sheets towards me. 
“I strongly recommend that you make an appointment to be evaluated at the learning disability center. “
 
I took little notice of my T.As leaving but she must have. Once I had composed myself, I realized that I was sitting alone in the cavernous classroom. Relief washed over me. I wasn’t going to be expelled.  And did I dare be hopeful with the idea of being evaluated at the learning disability center?
 

I am dyslexic and this my brutal truth.

1981 – Sour Note

Overwhelmed in Spring

It ‘May’ Not be you!

Is spring overwhelming?

Last year this time, I felt completely overwhelmed.  There was something every day. And by ‘something,’ I mean that one thing that has the potential to flick an entire day into a  tailspin.  It is imperative that I be hyper organized. I am a working mom who volunteers and my kids are enrolled in multiple extracurricular programs.  My husband is the key to daily success. He is almost as essential as the over-crowded, colour coded, calendar.

One thing can derail everything!

 

A missed appointment, a car in need of repair, or a last minute meeting at the school can throw the entire schedule off kilter. 

When that ‘something’ happens, it is like grasping at ink in water.

 I juggle three and a half lives; mine, my 2 kids and 1/2 of hubby’s  (this is a settled upon agreement). When a wrench is tossed into the mix, all the balls come tumbling down and pummel me into a migraine.

Last May, the dentist had left a friendly voicemail reminding me of an appointment for my son. Unfortunately, I was listening to the message at the exact time that we were expected in the office.  I had been defeated and promptly fell apart.  How could I have missed this? I am organized and put appointments in my phone and on the calendar!  What made me ever believe that I was capable of managing 3.5 lives?  Fail!

Determined not to have this happen again, I programmed a reminder of this dreadful month into my cell. It went off.

Brace yourself!!! It’s May! Mark everything on the Calendar!

I read this and laughed because I was on the ball. All scheduling was in order and under control.

it May not be you
May

A few days later, it happened.

May tends to inspire spontaneous activities.  The nicer weather encourages teachers to hastily squeeze in last minute field trips, fund raisers, and short lived sporting events. Everything gets crammed into the last two weeks of May with very little notice to parents.

‘Short notice,’ ‘last minute,’ and ‘spontaneous’ are the sworn enemies of ‘A’ personalities and most highly functional moms (and dads)!

The long weekend in May is a common target date to launch meetings, first practices and exhibition games for summer sports and activities. It’s like a race to schedule before we all lose that Monday. All the while, spring programs are only counting down the number of weekly meets until the end of year celebration. This does not mention the everyday icons on your calendar; vet, dentist, doctors, birthday parties, oil changes, cleat shopping and on and on.

Double bookings are my favourite! You must divide and concur or you will never survive!

 

It is as if May just smiled with a head tilt and said….

“Happy Mother’s Day!”  

 

Now, every appointment, activity, and obligation you have ever known will come crashing down upon you in the form of a voicemail, permission form, or smartphone notification.

What I am trying to say is, that it May not be you!  You May be highly functional and uber organized; May is not. In fact, it was sent here to test our sanity and remind us that sometimes, some things just cannot be done.

You are not alone. May you remain calm and stress-free.  June is on its way! Give yourself a break!

 

1984 Brutal Truth: Fever

Fever

Every day in school a feverish nightmare was likely to occur.  Back then I was unaware of my learning disability and knew nothing of dyslexia.

This is my story.  A brutal truth, unknowingly living with dyslexia in 1984.

1984 Brutal Truth
Fever

“…fever…”

Fever should rhyme with never. Right? This was my only thought as I stared at the foreign word. Standing at the front of the room, I could barely see over the podium. I clutched the open book in my hands. The black letters swelled as the many faces of my grade four class blurred and shimmered in my peripheral.

“What?” Mr. Moir asked not bothering to leave his desk.

Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose from beneath his glasses. He was a stout man who liked to wear the color of oatmeal. Across the top of his shiny head strands of hair laid like lines in the sky after an air show. There was no sympathy in his expression once he dragged his palm down his rough chin. He looked tired and even a little annoyed. Meanwhile,

I was the one facing my worst fear;

standing in front of my entire class reading a passage I had never laid eyes on before.  It took everything I had not to cry or pee my pants and my teacher looked bored.

He scratched the air with his finger as a gesture for me to bring the book to him. When I did so, I pointed at the word with my chewed down finger nail.

“Fever.” He said these two ugly syllables in a way that showed his crowded bottom teeth.

I had never been eye level with Mr. Mori before and did not care for it at all.

“Fever.” I echoed in a whisper. “But it looks like never,” I dared to explain.

His face crumpled as if he were refraining from saying,

‘stupid girl.’

Then, from behind me, the tempered giggles and snorts that I ignored, became alive. The entire room erupted into laughter and I saw the jagged line of Mr. Moir’s teeth again. He too was laughing.

My face grew hot and my eyes burned. I felt so small and naked.  Ice cold realization hit me;

this was where my nightmares lived. 

Closed in by the chalkboard wall, the giant teacher’s desk, and the podium, I was trapped by fear and humiliation. This moment stretched on and slithered around me, swaying the room. Once the clatter of laughter subsided there was no apology or even pointless face covering. I was not asked to return to my seat. Instead, mercilessly, Mr. Moir pointed to the podium.

“Proceed.” He said as if nothing had happened.

I was not yet freed from this nightmare.

I am dyslexic and this is my brutal truth.

1981 – Sour Note

1986 – Sad

1989 – Panic

1990 – Fear

1992 – Anger

1993- Crushed

1995 – Fraud

1992 Brutal Truth: Anger

Anger

This is my story.  A brutal truth, unknowingly living with dyslexia in 1992.

Dyslexia: Anger
My Brutal Truth: 1992

High school is a lonely and unkind place for a student struggling with a learning disability that no one talks about.  Anger is an emotion easily sparked.

“What is wrong with you?” Her question alone was heart-wrenching but the tone nearly earned her a slap.

The lines being read aloud were slow and careful.  The unbearable silence that followed her intrusive question made me tremble.

A group of us had gathered in the only classroom with a carpeted area and fabric covered furniture.  I had just landed a speaking role in the high school play and we were meeting to do a run through. Clueless to what that meant, I hadn’t known to be nervous. I was still humming from the excitement of being a cast member. This was a really big deal for me. There were many exceptionally talented kids at my school. The auditions had been a testament to that. Beautiful voices, amazing dancing, and tremendous acting commanded the stage and I had not felt worthy to claim a spot.

There I was, with the script in my hand, sitting among the best and brightest.  I was in awe. Then the reading began.

Cue the panic.

The lead male role was awarded to a very popular, charming and ridiculously hot senior who was a triple threat. In fact, he still is.

When he read, my heart swelled as I listened in amazement. No one seemed uncomfortable or worried about reading their lines. I, on the other hand, was fearful of peeing my pants. Luckily, I only had two lines, one in each act.   There was plenty of time for me to find them and burn them to memory before my character was introduced.

The star of the show was speaking very slowly and carefully. This affected me deeply. I was thrilled that he read like me, except without any of my visible anxiety. So, when the girl beside me interrupted him with her outrageously rude question, I am sure I bared my teeth.

“What is wrong with you?” Her wrinkled nose and furrowed brow froze on the last word.

A long, dreadfully awkward moment passed and something inside me fractured for him. He looked to her and then passed his gaze over all of us.

“I’m dyslexic.”

He said this evenly; simply.  There was no apology. It was a fact that he shared in a way that made it her problem, not his.

The breath I released once he returned to his lines was one that I had been holding my entire life. I was amazed by him and this revelation of not being alone was truly freeing. A bubble of glee made me grin when the ignorant girl beside me raised her script to conceal her blazing cheeks. It was a beautiful thing.

Even to this day, he has no idea how the delivery of those two words changed my life.  Before then, I had never heard of dyslexia nor had I known anyone to openly admit to something so hushed with such confidence and conviction.   He is unaware of the impact that he had on me that day. And I wish I could say that I was no longer afraid, but that would be a lie.  Just learning that others struggle and prevail with dyslexia was immensely inspiring.

For that, I will continue to write.

I am a dyslexic writer and this is my brutal truth.

1981 – Sour Note

1984 – Fever

1986 – Sad

1989 – Panic

1990 – Fear

1993- Crushed

1995 – Fraud