Made of Stone

 

At 15, I taught myself how to read, at 16, how to write. Those things were a monumental task for me to achieve, especially since I had been considered brain-damaged by my father, learning disabled by the system, and “retarded” by my grandmother.

There were no expectations for me, whether small, large, or great expectations; no one expected me to learn anything except for George, an all-around personal assistant to my father.    

For five years, from 9 to 13, I was placed in Clearview,  a school that was more of a daycare center than a facility for higher education.  While there, I did not once open a book to learn to read.  I did not need to, as it wasn’t a requirement at my school, which wasn’t much of a school.

It wasn’t until I was sent to a real school, Bancroft Jr. High, at the age of 14, that I realized reading was something I had to learn and not something that just happened naturally, like walking or talking, which also presented challenges for me. 

Born with a hearing deficiency, my speech wasn’t anything less than incoherent words scrambled together in an inconsistent pattern that made no sense to anyone. The difficulty I was unaware of was that I could not decipher particular sounds or separate speech from noise quickly enough to understand what people were saying, which proved to be challenging in a classroom full of rowdy kids.

However, once I heard the term “Learning disabled” and addressed as such, I felt embarrassed and ashamed, especially after being placed in a program for the educationally handicapped, E.H. for short. 

That realization of not being like the other kids made me decide to teach myself how to read at the age of 15. Of course, I wasn’t completely illiterate; I had prior reading training before my father gave up on my education and any potential for my future. I was very familiar with the many adventures of Dick and Jane, along with their very playful and friendly dog Spot, while my 12-year-old brother was just reading about the many adventures of Tom Sawyer and his best friend, Huckleberry Finn.

Frustrated and feeling defeated before even attempting to learn to read, I approached George and asked him an earnest question, “Why am I so stupid?”

He sat me down and started talking about clay. He explained that a child is like soft clay, easily molded and shaped. As the child gets older, he becomes increasingly harder to teach if he isn’t first taught the basics, just like soft clay becomes increasingly harder to shape and mold when it is no longer soft.  

“For whatever reason,” he said, “You were not taught early on, and through the years, your brain hardened, and therefore, it is no longer going to be easy for you to learn.”

Disheartened hearing that as well as discouraged, George then asked me if I was familiar with the statue of David by Michelangelo.  Having visited a few museums, I was vaguely familiar with the statue, at least enough to answer his next question: “What is it made out of?”    “Some kind of stone,” I told him, not understanding what David had to do with my struggle to learn.

“Correct,” he said, “to be precise, Marble. Yet, with the right tools, Michelangelo was able to carve out David.”  He then explained that I needed the right tools because, according to George, though I was no longer soft clay, I was still capable of being chiseled into a work of art; it’s just going to take a lot of dedication, patience, hard work, and, of course, the right tools, starting with the right books to read, which, according to Geroge, was McGuffey Readers, a series of books that helped him learn to read when he was a child.

The following year, I embarked on the journey of teaching myself how to write. Although I more or less resemble the Moai statues of Easter Island, known for their massive stone heads, rather than the graceful form of Michelangelo’s David, I believe I have exceeded my initial expectations and achieved a great deal.