Today, I downloaded an audiobook by Daniel Quinn titled “If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways.” Because I’m familiar with Quinn’s work, I have an idea of his direction, but the title intrigued me because it reminded me of something that happened to me in kindergarten.<\/p>\n
I loved school, and one of my favorite things about kindergarten was that my great-aunt was my teacher. Aunt Opal made school so much fun! My\u00a0parents are retired educators, so I don’t have to tell you that school was always in session at my house. By the time I went to kindergarten, I could read and write, so kindergarten was playtime. I was elated to attend the 1st grade when the school year ended.<\/span><\/p>\n I will never forget that first week of school. People always seemed to look at me funny when I was doing my work. I didn’t have the vocabulary to express my feelings, but I felt\u00a0I was doing something wrong<\/em>. I remember how\u00a0slowly<\/em>\u00a0the teacher would walk by my desk as she watched me do my assignments. I don’t know my first-grade teacher’s name, but I remember how she made me feel.\ud83e\udd74<\/p>\n About a week into my 1st-grade year, the principal came into the class and talked to the teacher. She then came to my desk and told me to get my things. Apparently, there’s a rule about how old you have to be to start school, and I was a November baby, so I wasn’t old enough to be in first grade. So, you guessed it,\u00a0I had to walk the green mile back to kindergarten.<\/em>\u00a0I was so embarrassed. I waved to all my friends as I left the class and returned to Aunt Opal’s class. Except this time, I was going back to kindergarten with the “babies” when\u00a0I was supposed to be a “big girl.”\ud83d\ude29<\/span><\/p>\n So, I’m sure you’re wondering how Daniel Quinn’s book reminded me of this. Well, not only did they send me back to repeat kindergarten, but they also told my mom that I had a learning disability and would probably need to be in a\u00a0special class<\/em>.\u00a0What they really told my mom was that I was the “R” word, but I don’t want y’all writing me because I used the wrong word.<\/em>\u00a0\ud83d\ude01 They told my mom that\u00a0when I wrote, I turned my paper upside down and wrote from right to left. But when I finished, you could read it from left to right. True story.\u00a0In fact,<\/em>\u00a0if you hadn’t seen me write it, you would have no idea what my process was. \ud83d\udca5<\/span><\/p>\n My mom didn’t give their recommendation a second thought. She knew my process, and she also knew it was perfect for me as an\u00a0ambidextrous, left-dominant, dyslexic child<\/em>. But it was flawed to a right-handed teacher who always managed to land her printed letters on the double solid line perfectly and never made her lower-case letters smaller than the middle-dotted line on the pages of my Big Chief Tablet.\u00a0It should be noted that she had a #2 pencil. I had to use the big fat jumbo pencil.<\/em>\u00a0If you ask me, my process was exceptional, given what I had to work with.\ud83d\ude0f<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, that day, they sent me back to kindergarten with a “learning disability”\u00a0label. I felt like I had flunked kindergarten. Like\u2026really? Who flunks kindergarten?! It was terrible, but I couldn’t change my birthday, and my parents couldn’t get around the law. So\u2026I went to kindergarten two years in a row. I was humiliated, and I was five.\ud83d\ude2d<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the initial setback, I overcame the humiliation, made new friends, and found my stride in school. I promised myself in primary school to catch up and graduate with my\u00a0actual class<\/em>. I went to summer school to catch up and kept my promise. I graduated high school a ‘year early’ to everyone else, but it was ‘right on time’ for me. To this day, I have two high school reunions. The one\u00a0I was supposed to be in<\/em>\u00a0and the one\u00a0I was forced to be in<\/em>.\u00a0This journey taught me the power of resilience and determination.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Reflecting on my journey, I shudder to think what would have happened had my mom listened to those who tried to tell her that I could not learn in a mainstream class.\ud83d\ude31 My life would’ve been predicated on\u00a0who someone thought I was<\/em>\u00a0based on their perception of me. The truth is,\u00a0I do have a learning disability called dyslexia<\/em>, but I wasn’t diagnosed with it until I was in college. Before that time, my mom worked with me and taught me to pay attention\u00a0to how I needed to learn.<\/em>\u00a0Let me be clear:\u00a0The only grade I had to repeat was kindergarten.\u00a0\ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffe\u00a0<\/em>This experience underscored the importance of individualized learning and the need to understand and accommodate different learning styles.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n My mom taught me that if I need to turn the paper upside down and write right to left, then that’s what I\u00a0need to\u00a0do.\u00a0That’s\u00a0precisely what I did.\u00a0Guess what?<\/em>\u00a0When my teachers and professors saw me doing it, they were fascinated. It was like anyone else if they didn’t see me do it.\ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/p>\n Listen, the universe is vast, and there are countless ways to do things.\u00a0Don’t let somebody put you in a box so they can understand you.<\/em>\u00a0If they can’t catch up, let them keep going.\u00a0\ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffe You were meant to be you, and only you can be the person you were meant to be.\u00a0Embrace your uniqueness, for it is what makes you special and valuable.\u2728<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Hey Siri, play \u201cDifferent\u201d featuring Clyde Carson by Goapele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, I downloaded an audiobook by Daniel Quinn titled “If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways.” Because I’m familiar with Quinn’s work, I have an idea of his direction, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[107,105,106],"class_list":["post-10076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-storytelling","tag-creative-learning","tag-dyslexia","tag-learning"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n