I want to share someone else's story as if I were seeing things from their perspective.
It was difficult to exit public school where I spent my first three years with my friends in my neighborhood. I didn’t fit into the school because I couldn’t understand the lessons taught, couldn’t communicate with my friends, and didn’t fit in with school events. I was diagnosed with 1% in speech at age four, and I couldn’t communicate with others. When I was a child, I had an auditory processing disorder (sensory processing disorder, attention deficit, and autism) which resulted in lagging speech and the need for therapy. My speech was brought to my mother’s attention by the public school staff, who said that I would fail in the future, and I should be medicated. My mother took me out of public school to get me help and to deal with my disabilities. She did not want me to fail. I left, without hanging out with my friends, the classroom experience, and the events that public school offered.
My mother personally taught me my lessons and spent a lot of money to get me help and classes that were tiring to me so that I could succeed. After many years of therapy, I started to resent it, even though it helped me. In middle school, I caught up with others students and was able to work through lectures, taking notes and participating in class discussions and presentations despite my disabilities. When I went to high school, I chose a school farther away, because it offered me a small community and the attention I needed. The school was not easy to attend because I lived twenty two miles from the campus and needed to take Regional Transit to get there. Compared to going to a local school, I chose to wake up an hour and a half earlier than normal students who attended my local high school to take the bus and light rail to get to school. At school, I involved myself in academics, leadership, clubs and student government without trouble. The public school said I would fail in third grade and needed medication when I was young. I didn’t fail. I succeeded and maintained a 3.7 GPA in high school. I did not take any medication. I love going to school every day and never want to miss a single day of school.
As I continued to college, it became clear to me how much the years of therapy had helped me adjust to the academic environment. Using visual learning it became possible for me to compensate for my disabilities. It also became a dreaded fact about myself that I'd scorned and attempted to hide from everyone. I was afraid that if others found out my disabilities they would treat me differently. They would change their behaviors to help me understand the conversation. I fear I can’t live a normal life with people knowing that I have an incurable disability. It's hard to continue academics where every test you are not in class with the others taking their test. It still is a difficult path for one to take. To try everything in your power to learn and grow as everyone else. Afraid to be left behind. It's even harder to realize that you can’t retain information as fast or as smoothly as others. That you have to take a longer, more time consuming route to learn the same information as others. Amidst the vast amount of frustration, I knew that in the end of the college road, all students including myself would graduate, and I could congratulate my classmates and myself. In this difficult path I have taken, I succeeded when people said I would fail; I completed the same things as others in my own pace, and I graduated.
