How Resiliency Helped Me Overcome My Learning Disability
Before I talk about how resiliency helped me overcome my learning disability, I want to talk about what happened to me in eighth grade. The first day of school in 8th grade I remember coming home crying my eyes out. It wasn’t because I was being picked on by bully or a pretty girl broke my heart, but because I was taken out of mainstream education and placed in a self-contained classroom for four period. I cried because everyone would find out a secret that I had hid for years. I cried because if the other kids found out that I was in special ed and they would tease me. I cried…I cried because I felt like my school had given up on me.
Why me? Why was I the one under the microscope? Instead of the school system it was me being assessed by some psychologist and given the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, the Test of Written Language-2, the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration and the Conners Rating scale. Instead of the school system being diagnosed, it was me being diagnosed with a learning disability and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Instead of fixing the system, the system wanted to fix me when I wasn’t the one that was broken.
Instead of trying to fix me, the school system could have learned a thing or two. I could have taught it that my hypermasculinity masked my vulnerability and that sending me to the office or sitting me outside the classroom only reinforced the idea that I was unwanted, unteachable and undesirable. The system could have learned that I was just as smart as the gifted students but learned differently. The distractability, hyperactivity, restlessness and inattention were because sitting still at my desk quietly and doing worksheets for forty-five minutes was not how I learned. I wanted to work to my potential but I needed a compassionate teacher who would respond to my needs, not react to my behaviors.
Those seven years in special education nearly broke me. I had to fight my way through low teacher expectations, unwanted labels and stigmatization on a daily basis. When they refused to let me take a foreign language class, I bucked the system and took it anyway. When they refused to place me in advance English, I bucked the system and took it anyway. When the school took the gifted and talented students to Kings Dominion for math and science day, I bucked the system and went anyway. I was the inspiration behind No Child Left Behind.
My resilience made me unbreakable, my struggles became my strength. I was bent, but never broken, shaken, but never stirred. I succeeded not in spite of my learning disability, but because of it. The adversity and struggle molded me into the man I am today. I became the tree that grows in dry lands, extending its roots 30 feet deep down into the earth in search of water. A tree that can withstand hurricane force winds, winds that would uproot most trees from the ground. A tree firmly rooted in resilience, self-efficacy and self-determination.
When I graduated high school in 2001, I walked off the stage with my diploma and a big chip on my shoulder like I had something to prove. I had to show them that I wasn’t learning disabled. When I enrolled in college I didn’t tell them I had an IEP, I wanted to do it on my own and I did. I tell people, my degree from ODU was for the haters like my high school math the teacher who said I wouldn’t go to college and my Master of Social Work from VCU was those who believed in me.
I never would have made it through the storm if it were not for my parents, two of the hardest working people I know. My mother, born and raised of Tappahannock, Virginia, started off as a nurse’s aide and worked her way up to the director of her floor. When the nursing home she had worked at since I was born closed down, she took a job at a jail as a nurse. My father, he was state police officer who drove over an hour to and from work for over 20 years to provide for his family. He is also a Baptist minister, a pillar in the community who earned his doctorate in theology. My aunt use to say that he kept a gun in one hand and a bible in the other. The black church was the cornerstone of my resilience and optimism.
My parents instilled morals, ethics and values in me and my sister at very young age. I remember how frustrated they were when teachers would send notes home or call saying that I was acting up in class. I remember one day I had acted up so bad that my teacher called home before I got off the bus. My dad called me into my parents’ bedroom, we held hands and prayed. I thought I had got off easy until he pulled off his belt off and commenced to spanking my behind. I understand now that it came from a place of love and good intentions. He didn’t graduate from high school and he wanted me too. He grew up in the era of Jim Crow, an era where African Americans weren’t afforded the same opportunities or protections as whites. He and my mother knew my potential and it pained them to see me not applying it.
I never would have made it without Mrs. Tobey. A few months ago I prepared a presentation for a Richmond Association of Black Social Workers educational symposium. I went back and looked through some old IEP’s and report cards dating back to 5th grade. I only found a few favorable comments on my report card and one of them was from Mrs. Tobey. Mrs. Tobey was my special education teacher in sixth and seventh grade. Her comment read “The student is trying very hard. Encourage your child to write down study and written homework assignments in a small tablet.” It was the only comment that alluded to how hard I was working. The other comments read “The student is not working up to potential” and “The student does not seem to have a serious attitude about school”, it made think what was different about Mrs. Tobey’s class? Then I remembered the way she made me feel. Even though it was a special education class I never felt “slow” or stigmatized. In her classroom I felt like my life mattered, I felt like she was truly invested in me.
Every champion needs a champion and I had three. I had three people who believed in me at a time when I didn’t believe in myself. I had three people who stayed the course because they knew what I was capable of and wanted to help see me through.
