I didn't understand why I was special. Sure, every kid has wanted to be “special” at some point, but definitely not my brand of special. I was a little confused about my separation from my classmates, but being allowed to purposely miss class was any seven-year-old's dream, even if only for thirty minutes. I didn't mind until my difference made enjoyable separation into humiliating segregation.
At the beginning of my primary school career, I attended St. Albert the Great School. I moved easily between social groups as most little kids do, before social preconceptions are truly formed. Everyone was everyone else's best buddy, sharing blocks or shying away because of cooties. I thought I had a good handle on the rigors of elementary school. After all, my classmates and I were learning multiplication and cursive handwriting, which went beyond our realms of four-square games and jungle gyms, but we had never experienced the world of formal education; we were learned in the ways of children.
As most of my school years had begun, the preparations for my second grade year were hardly noteworthy. The flurry of back-to-school shopping encompassed the usual frenetic ransacking of local stores, along with the battle for the newest Lisa Frank folders, one fight I always lost. I got my dose of shots from the doctor and a proclamation of my fit-as-a-fiddle condition. Then the school year truly began as I marched to St. Al's armed with my useful-but-generic folders and crisply sharpened pencils.
Once inside those tiled and freshly waxed halls, I was bombarded with those aforementioned new subjects along with a barrage of school health tests. Eye, hearing, flexibility, coordination, and speech testing data were all collected and corroborated, while the appropriate assistants were dispatched to the needy students. Much to my befuddlement and slight excitement, I was called out of class because of one of those tests. A little apprehensive, I ticked off the tests in my head, while I also mused about the possible benefits of missing class time. No trouble with my eyes or hearing, as far as I could tell. Second that for flexibility and coordination because I was a rambunctiously active child. Speech? Why does that even matter? I could talk. In fact, my mother sometimes wished I would talk less. Moreover, what does that even mean? Trudging after the uppity therapist, I was led to The Tube. The Tube, my affectionate name for the speech therapy center, was hastily encamped in the parking lot and bedecked with school-themed decorations, ranging from inspirational posters, “Knowledge is Power,” to the wall of “Success Stories.” While staring at those seemingly happy, recovered kids, the therapist told me,
“Well, let's see here...we need to work on your speech.”
I stared at her blankly because I had figured that much out myself, so why was she telling me? I wasn't stupid, after all. School had always come naturally to me, and any of my previous teachers would attest to that, so being taken out for something not school-related seemed silly to me.
“It seems you have what we call, let's say, a speech impediment, which means you have something wrong with the way you move your mouth and form words. But don't worry, dear, it's easily fixed. You can rejoin your classmates once we've worked on it some.”
Suddenly I had somehow plummeted to being thought of as scarcely intelligent because of a slight lisp, at least judging by her tone. She continued to talk, but I hardly listened because my once great opportunity for free time had become a disadvantage. I thought to myself, “Well, maybe it's just this lady who feels like that. She doesn't know me really.”
After enduring a few more minutes of her peppy talk, I wandered back to class. Silently cracking the door into Mrs. Curtis' room, I took my seat and tried to proceed normally. A few weeks passed and I continued to be shuttled between class and The Tube twice weekly. Eventually my classmates caught on, but it was an unspoken understanding. School became a dreaded everyday nuisance because of the therapy and the new attitude of my teacher. I became a special case that said “Handle with Care.”
I had no love for learning anymore since I was forgotten during class discussions because of my perceived special needs. What I had once thought to be interactive and fun was turned into a barrier between myself and my classmates. No more did I find comfort in my books because I was reminded of my teacher's attitude, so I actually began to think of myself as dumb. Without my books, school was pointless and mundane. I had interacted with fictional characters for so long that I couldn't reconcile my present situation as reality. I slipped into a quiet existence, which only reinforced my teacher's belief in my stupidity. In seemingly no time at all, I left behind the energetic, eager second-grader and had become a detached, thick-tongued child.
My parents worried as parents often do. They had never thought my speech was a problem since it hadn't affected my ability to learn. They knew the two weren't related. My father had always read to me before bed, so he knew of my keen interest in reading and my eagerness to read aloud. From The Polar Express to Aesop's Fables, we shared that bond of reading. I marveled at the ingenuity of my favorite authors in dozens upon dozens of books I willingly devoured. I explored the snowy woods of Laura Ingalls Wilder's youth, tricked trolls with Bilbo and battled alongside the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in Narnia.
No longer able to endure it after several months, my parents spoke directly to the principal and I was removed from the program, much to my relief. Once I was away from that “therapeutic environment,” my speech impediment disappeared as many awkward childhood phases do. I can't say that I was one of the therapist's “Success Stories,” but I know that's not what was important.
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working
Current Music: Everyone's A Little Bit Racist - Avenue Q
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