The Mind is a Gift

It was a cold and snowy day in January. It was one week after mid-terms at my high school and my mom took me to a doctor. A doctor who studies people’s heads. I forgot the word for it. He did a couple of short tests and then said that I had something called dyslexia.

Being a 16-year-old and being in 10th grade isn’t easy with dyslexia. I get in trouble for stuff that isn’t my fault. I often space out and am not able to follow multi-step directions. I also have trouble remembering key terms in English and math. My teachers often say I don’t try hard enough and that I never study. At first I had a huge difficulty in English, not to mention my English teacher is 24-years-old and only had one year of experience of being a teacher. We had many meetings with my English teacher and as time went on, he understood and later accepted me.

Math is very different. My math teacher continues to say cruel things to me, such as I don’t study and I’m just lazy. He is aware of my dyslexia, but probably doesn’t understand it. I also have no friends in math and since my teacher doesn’t understand, I feel alone and give up easily. In math, my dyslexia effects me with memorizing formulas, times tables, and important rules. I have a great difficulty with taking notes because I have trouble reading and trouble putting them in the right places. I often miss taking notes and my teacher gets upset. He also gets upset when I guess answers on our work sheets instead of trying. But what’s the point of trying if I don’t even know how to do it? I went to talk to him, but he just yelled at me. When ever I feel afraid, I often hear the person yelling, but I don’t hear any words.

So I have difficulties in Math and English, along with a few other subjects, but despite all that, I love playing my guitar and bells. In middle school I got an award for playing the bells in my school orchestra. Also, despite hating reading and seeing words mix up, I love to write. My writing may have terrible grammar and spelling, but as long as I can read it and write about anything, then I love it!

I discovered my writing talent at age 12 when I was first noticed by my 6th grade English teacher. She said despite my poor grammar and spelling, my stories are always interesting. This year I got an award from NJCTE for scoring the highest score for writing from my school. I was also noticed by my school’s Board of Education. One of my teachers also recommended me for the “You Are a Star Award” at my school. So despite having dyslexia and having many who don’t understand me, I will continue what I love doing.

Like everyone else, I have a dream. My dream is to become a teacher because there will be other children like me and they will need someone to understand and I want to be there for those students because no one should suffer alone, like me. Dyslexia is not a curse, it’s a gift.