My first grade teacher, a surviver, due to oversight, of the Salem Witch Trials, once consoled my parents that, "some children just aren't 'readers.'" This was poor solace to the man and wife who had seen their young son climb over furniture, stand on his head, throw fits, lap the house, and do just about anything to avoid a book. Ink was like holy water to this hell-spawn. Just not a "reader." My second grade teacher, an angel of the Atlanta public school system, advised my legals that I had what modern medicine called a "learning disability" and required special education. "Special" in the "air-quotes" sense of the word.
So I was taken in the second half of my second grade year to the "special" trailer to meet with the "special" teacher and read cardboard-paged books printed in primary colors. I was also tested. There were intelligence tests, Rorschach tests (inkblot cards), and the kind of psych tests that get you prescription medication. And I was given prescription medication. Ritalin for my newly discovered ADD, then something stronger for my still more newly discovered ADHD (the 'H' is for "hyperactive"). After much poking and prodding of yours truly, my parents were handed the good-news/bad-news diagnosis of "gifted dyslexic." The "gifted" meaning I was in the right 99th percentile of one set of tests, the "dyslexic" meaning I was in the wrong 99th percentile of the other.
I was enrolled in the Schenck School, an area institution specializing in alternative education methods for unique little people such as myself. I attended Schenck for two years: third and fourth grade. And would you believe it, they made a reader of out of me! I still remember the first book book I read. It was about a haunted house. I sat in my mother's lap, slowing deciphering words at a time, then memorizing what I'd read for fear that I'd be unable to duplicate my feat.
My eager expectations of rejoining my unspecial friends in the fifth grade were interrupted by the news of our move. It was nothing to me that Minnesota public schools lead the nation by a litany of metrics. I was not a radically satisfied customer. Recourses, however, are few when one's age teeters on two digits. So fifth grade was to be at a new school in a new state. Provisions were made, through my mother, for both my "gifted" and my "dyslexic." I was enrolled in the high-potential group which met several days of the month and did high-potential stuff. I also met with the "special" services lady every so often to make sure I was doing well. And I was. In fact, remarkably well for one in so many exotic percentiles as I.
I then moved on to the newly constructed middle school where I did less remarkably well. I may have my years turned around, but I seem to remember doing alright in 6th grade, very poorly in 7th, and not quite as very poorly in 8th. Then came high school and its gentle, precipitous decline of scholastic performance, culminating in the spectacular Senior Plummet. I was able to retain my honors ranking by special dispensation of the principal, thanks to the saintly lobbying of my mother.
And then college. I began this blog in my sophomore year, 2005, by which time I'd already managed to fail a class. F. Not D- or F+. I went on to fail four more classes (though one of those I had stricken from the record, clever me). I was also under the shadow of a looming D when C's were all my academic probation would allow (cleverness saved me there again and inspired this post). And there were the three separate occasions on which my parents declared that they would not finance the remainder of my academic disaster (each occasion a successively nearer miss).
I have told my friends and I have told my mother and I have told myself that I hate school. That school has been a painful difficulty from the time I was tantruming my way out of Pat The Bunny. That I'm just not a "student." That my 99th percentile "gifted dyslexic" brain and the modern academic complex are simply insoluble. That a life in academia has whittled away my patience. And that I am bursting at the seams to spread my wings and begin my life. That is what I tell everyone, including myself.
Thursday was my last day of class ever. I wish I could say that this blog post has been simmering in my brain for the last day and a half, undergoing draft and re-draft, the way one obsesses over conversations past, waiting for the perfect words to capture the auspice of the occasion. The truth is, Sam just sent an email asking when I graduate. I was explaining my itinerary when I realized that this last Thursday was the end of a 17 year academic career. That it was anything more than a widening of my Tuesday-Thrusday availability.
I usually like to end my blog posts with a sarcastic remark or ugly quote. Today I'm going to end with advice which is intended as an allusion to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and not The Matrix: Know thyself. Knowledge is not knowing your times tables or your spelling or your European history or your advanced biology or your prepositional logic or your polymorphic object oriented computer languages or your Stanislavsky technique or your Twentieth Century feminist existential philosopher/playwrights. The most difficult thing in life is not doing what you love, but knowing what you love. Most people grossly misunderstand themselves and have the worst sort of misconceptions about what they love. This ignorance is a sure cause of much sorrow. Know what you love, and never forget it.
Be well, do good work.
- Scott
