This summer, I decided to take summer classes online so I could graduate a semester early. I was super excited to finally be able to work at my own pace, which is why everyone loves online classes. Though that is one benefit, I didn't realize that I would have to get used to a different learning style that I haven't been exposed to since high school. Every time I log on to complete assignments, I'm reminded of my elementary, middle, and high school days.

In the fifth grade, I failed my very first test. I will never forget the disappointment of seeing a failing grade at the top of this paper that just didn't make sense to me. Math was never my strong subject, but that year, everything had gotten so much worse. I started skipping homework assignments because I didn't have the energy to try to understand the jumble of numbers in my Practice book.

I knew that I was smart. I took charge during group projects (even though I hated them), I could read higher level books faster than the other kids, and I could diagram a sentence like nobody's business. But when it came to Math, and sometimes Science, I just could not get it. For the first time, I felt dumb. Everyone else in my class would raise their hands and eagerly volunteer to perform decimal addition on the projector for everyone to see while I cowered at my desk. My worst fear was that the teacher would call on me, partly because I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of the class, but also because I just didn't feel like trying to understand something that I knew I couldn’t.

It was torture. I would stare at the paper, trying to make sense of what I saw, and just feel completely lost. All I could do was stare. I felt physical pressure in my brain and I would start to hyperventilate. The only thing I could do was stop. This worked at home, but not at school.

Even as I moved on to middle school, no one could understand that I was just not a Math and Science person. My teachers told my parents that I could get better grades in those classes if I just studied a little more or paid more attention, but even when I put my doodling aside and devoted entire nights to reading chapters of my Biology textbook, I just could not get it. Everyone else would celebrate their straight A’s while I crumpled my failing tests into my backpack. It was like trying to learn another language.

But when I was in my Creative Writing and English classes, I felt like the smartest person in the world. Even though I stuttered when I spoke and talked too quickly, when I wrote, everything just flowed. I wrote stories about amazing things and essays about content that really interested me.

High school was the same. During some Math classes, I would cry in the bathroom because my brain felt like it was under extreme pressure that I couldn’t handle. English class was my comfort, where I felt like I could take over the world if I wanted to. Once I started going to Emerson, an arts/communications school, I always felt that way. I was finally surrounded by people who learned the way I did. My classes weren’t a breeze, but I felt challenged instead of tortured.

Now, I’m taking two HTML/coding classes and a Black History class over the summer, and I feel like I’m back in high school. In college, I’m used to reading excerpts, analyzing points, and discussing them with my classmates. Everything is about exploring and developing. In my online classes, I just read the textbook and answer discussion questions day after day after day.

Lately, I’ve been staring at my textbook attempting to make sense of what I’m reading. Coding was always a breeze to me when I taught myself, but trying to actually learn it is much different. I feel the familiar brain pain, the feelings that I’m dumb, that I’m not good enough, all because I understand things a little bit differently than others do.

Math and Science are not bad subjects. I love that there are so many initiatives to get girls coding and into Science labs, but our school systems need to stop putting so much emphasis on these subjects and only these subjects. It makes students feel like they’re dumb just because they think creatively. There are so many Math and Science kids who can’t stand to be in English and History classes as well. I’m done with meeting so many kids who feel like they’re not smart just because their school is telling them that if they don’t understand something, it’s their problem.

This Math/Science emphasis that has lasted for so long has caused people to laugh when I say I want to be a writer and my grandma to desperately try to push me into medical school for my entire childhood. It’s why performing arts departments have dwindling funds and why art programs are cut altogether while the Science department gets a new lab that everyone knows no one will ever use.

I want to see a world where kids aren’t made to feel dumb just because Math and Science are foreign to them. I want learning to empower my children instead of making them feel like less of a person.