LD Resources

© 1998 Courtney Wyche

My memory of my education goes back to nursery school. The school was Groveners in New York City, the burrow was Manhattan. My classroom was on the top floor of a four story building. There were about forty kids split up into two classrooms. The rooms were divided by a wall divider. I can still remember hearing a kid in the other room crying at nap time. The class was made up of mostly Hispanic children. There were four black boys and one Korean girl. There were six teachers that would move between the two rooms and help us with the finger painting we were doing or watch the group of kids that were playing with blocks.

In the summer of ’85, I was five years old. My mother and I walked in and the older female teacher Janet K. took my hand and told my mother that I’d be fine, and the door closed. The only male teacher, George, was setting out colored paper that was in a lot of different shapes on the work table, and the younger female teacher, Janet M. was setting up the painting materials. She helped me hang up my stuff in the little cubby which was a chair and over it was a shelf that we put an extra change of clothes in and our bedding in. After that, I went over to the male teacher and asked if I could make a bird, and he told me that I should go play with the other kids at the blocks corner, and I did. This was where I met Wendy, Angela, and Latoya. We made a bed that we all could fit in. That was fun and the other kids wanted to play so I decided to play with the others in the sandbox. When I went over there the teacher asked me why I moved, and I told her that the area was getting crowded and that I wanted to give someone else a chance. The teacher was happy with that answer.

The lesson that I learned that year was how to get the other kids to do things for me. Things like getting them to walk or work with me and not with another kid.

The first grade was at a public school called PS 145. The class that I was in consisted of 30 kids. There was a small problem; I was the only kid that could not read or write her name legibly. The teacher was an old mean lady who had no idea about how to handle a child that was not able to follow the work. She called me names and told me that I was not smart. The class would do an activity that involved cutting and pasting words onto a paper to make sentences; I had trouble with this because I could not comprehend putting the sentences together. To help out at home, my mom would work with me. She would have me read and write. This did not help all that much and the classroom situation started to get out of hand because the teacher was being unprofessional. She would become really nasty if you did not do something the way she wanted you to do it. She became physical when someone lied and she would hit them. My mother thought this lady was unfit to teach and I was pulled out of her class. I was moved into another class where the teacher had more patience. I had more fun in this class. My best subject was art and resource because in these classes the teacher would not tell me if I was doing something wrong because in those classes you could not do anything wrong, only something different.

In the third grade at PS 75, I started to have a better view of learning. I was in a class of 45 students. We did not read much in class but took a lot of notes for science and other subjects, and I had considerable trouble keeping up. Then we had a part of class where we would go into another class and the teacher would read to us or have us read out loud. This was the worst part of my day because I could not read at the same level as the other kids. My teachers had absolutely no patience with me because I held the other kids back, or that’s what they wanted me to think. I would do the best I could to work fast, and at one point I could not keep up at all, so I would try to remember everything that was told to me. This was the worst thing that I could have done. I mixed and matched everything the wrong way and never had any work in. The teacher told me that I would stay after class and write down the night’s work. My teacher got tired of this routine quickly and started to let me copy from a sheet of paper. For math we were doing adding and subtracting of large numbers, and this was where things got to be too much for me. My mother started doing work for me. I would work on one thing, and she would work on another.

My mother was aware that I was having trouble with the work and that I was not happy with myself, so she worked it out with someone so that I would have a resource teacher. Two other kids and I were in this class for about forty-five minutes. In this class, we would read and go over simple reading, word parts, and math. I liked this class and had fun. We got a certain number of check marks on our boxed cards and when there were seven check marks, we would get a prize out of the teacher’s tin box. This class helped me out a lot. I learned to read a little better, not enough to read out loud to the class, but enough to make me feel better for a while. The teacher had this game that we would play called 7-up. This was a game we would play when the teacher was tired of having to explain things to us. I don’t remember how the game went, but I do remember that they never picked me, and I don’t think that I ever really cared.

There was this book sale in the library about two times a year that I loved. I would buy about four books for a low price. I would do my best to read these books by myself. The resource teacher said that it was good that I tried to read on my own. I was happy with myself only two times a day,when I was day dreaming and when I was reading to and for myself.

The fourth grade at PS 75 was bad for me. I was older and had just come back from a long vacation. I thought that this year would be fun, and parts of it was, like being part of the older group and getting to play in the big playground, having a longer lunch time, playing kick ball in the gym, going on trips to Riverside Park, and being able to go to school by myself. The first day of school my mother took me. I did not know any of these kids because they were not the kids from third grade, but we spent the first day getting to know each other. Then the second day was when things went amiss for me. First, I was on the city bus going to school with my father, and he then told me how happy he was that I was a big girl now and going to a big girl class. So I entered the building by myself and found my classes. There were about thirty kids walking around so I grabbed a chair and waited. The teacher told us all to be quiet and then he told us the way the classes would go. After he said gym, I lost him. Then when he said computer class, which was next store, I totally blanked out. First we talked to all the teachers that would be teaching us. We talked to the art teacher, the computer teacher, and the science teacher. The only parts of the day that I hated were spelling test days and reading out loud days; everything else I could handle.

Weeks went by and with every week the homework would get longer to the point where my mother would have to do some of it for me so that I would have it done. When she got tired of helping me all the time, she came in and talked to the teacher. I was tested to see why I could not keep up, and they decided that I needed to be in a special education class. This change was not bad to me. I didn’t even know about the change until I had to have my interview with the special education teacher. When my mother came to my classroom and told my teacher that I was leaving for the day, I was glad and didn’t think anything of it.

When we got to PS 163, I was amused at how the building looked, and then we got to the room where no kids were inside. We entered the room, and I sat at the desk. The teacher asked me to write a story off the top of my head, and I sat there and thought. The paper was huge, with lines large enough to fit letters the size of my hand. In the middle of two lines was a dotted line, and there were about four of these sets of lines, and at the top there was room for a picture. I was happy to write for fun. When my mother and the teacher finished talking, she told me that there were three boys in the class and that they were nice.

When we left, the teacher told my mother that I would start as soon as my bus service started. I still was not aware that I was changing schools. The next day the teacher told the kids that the skiing trip was on, and I was very happy. We had been planning this trip for a week, and I really wanted to go so I took the permission slip home and asked my mom to sign it, and to my amazement she would not. I asked why and she told me that I would not be in the class long enough to go on the trip because I was changing schools and that I could go on the next trip. I was so upset that from then on I was mean to everyone and made sure that I got whatever I had my heart set on. I was not going to be denied ever again, or so I thought.

I started school the next day. I was up at six and on the bus at seven. The minute I stepped on the bus, the matron told me where to sit, and then strapped me in tight. We were off to pick up the next unfortunate kid. When we got to the school and into the room, we were all introduced, and I being the only girl in the class, was put in the spotlight and then on the hot seat. The teacher wanted to know everything that I did in my last class. I told her the truth; that for the most part, I daydreamed, that I hated being in classes, and that I was in trouble a lot because I could not keep up with the other kids.

The guys in my new class were nice to me, and I started to have fun. Every day we had free writing and computer time. We had gym and and science class with much socializing. The class was exciting because there was not a lot of socializing problems except for the ones outside the class, and that was easy to fix.

Fifth grade was different than fourth. This year I was in the same class, and there were a couple of new kids added to the class. This red headed kid named Ian and I started to take music lessons together. I played the clarinet, and he played the trumpet. Music class was the hardest part of the fifth grade. I could not read the music or remember the fingering, and I had no time at home to practice.

I had a lot of trouble with math and reading, but the teacher taught me how to do my 5′s, 10′s, 2′s, and 11 times tables using my hands. Then we worked on reading to ourselves. I enjoyed reading to myself, and I was good at it. When the teacher started to teach us to read out loud, I was not the worst in the class, but I was not the best either. I was the one who would pass or go to the bathroom, and if there was no solution to it, I would read slow, skip words, replace words and just mess the whole thing up. As the year went on, I started to do other things that I was good at, like using the computer, writing stories, and be the leader in the class. There was this science fair that the whole district had that year. It was where several of the schools got together and showed off their projects. I did a paper on snails. I went out and bought two snails that stayed in water, and I had a chart up telling what type they were, their habitat, and everything else that I thought was important. I had two books next to the tank, and I won second prize while a girl in my class who had her father make hers, won first prize. I was upset because I did mine all by myself and worked hard. Sixth grade was very good because I was graduating and going to junior high school. I was getting good grades and having some fun. I felt like I was more normal than ever because I was reading better and writing neater and faster. I was even being asked to work with the smaller kids in the school and read to them and told them what I learned.

I looked for a junior high school that had a class for kids that needed more help than others, and I found one with the help of many of my teachers. Junior high school was hard because I was back to being in a class with over ten kids, and I got less academic attention and more disciplinary attention than I ever wanted. The class that I was first in was the lower of two classes, and the teachers were not going to let me have my way. I had to follow their rules and when I didn’t, I was in a lot of trouble with everyone, the teachers and the students.

In this new special education program, I was with two of the kids from my last school, and they reminded me of the trouble that I had. The first problem that I had was I could not do math as fast as the other students, and it made the work hard and unpleasant. The part that was the worst was the fact that the teacher didn’t do anything to help improve my math so we let math drop. The neat thing that we did was to invent something, and I thought this was going to be fun; however, my home life interfered with that and the project was a dud. The next thing that we did was go to the museum a lot and the museum of natural history. Every trip was a dream come true. I loved to look at the old statues and paintings trapped behind glass. When we were at the museum, I was not the worst student; I was just me. The assignments that we had to do were even fun, and I could do them without any trouble.

The next learning experience that I found to be useful was the community service that I did that first year. The two classes got together, and we went to this place where we would get a partner and a name and address and would go to this person’s home and do the errands that they could not do. The work was going out and helping the elderly people get the weekly supplies because they could not go to the store and to the cleaners. The only thing that I had trouble with was the money. The money was taken care of when the eighth graders I was with paid for everything. I just helped carry the bags. This was fun because I got out of the classroom. In eighth grade I switched classes and was in the seventh and eighth grade room. This year the Board of Education changed the rules for grades so that you graduated to junior high school from fifth instead of sixth grade, so the year that I was in the eighth grade, there were many younger kids to deal with. The teacher had even less time to help me, and I needed all the help I could get. I took Spanish and World History, two of my hardest classes. Art, science, and reading were my favorite courses in school. For reading,we had a large bookshelf that had every book I would ever want to read on it. I was reading a book a week and for me that was great. In science, we had to dissect a frog and I could not wait. I was the best. I made all the cuts for my group, and one of the other kids did the writing. I got a B on that project.

This year for community service, we were working at a drop in center for the homeless. We would go downtown and when we got there, we would set up the table and help make the food and serve it. We would also play games with the people and help them get ready for an interview. These people had three meals a day, took showers, and got some new clothes for a job interview. It was a good experience to help people. I learned how to be social with people who are less fortunate. We had to write about the way we felt after each visit, and I wrote the same thing each time. I wrote that I was glad that I had a home and good family. The teacher was not satisfied with this and kept giving me a bad grade and asked me why I kept writing it if I knew that I would get a bad grade. I said that the grade was not going to change the way I felt and that as long as I felt this way, that was what I was going to write. The teacher told my mother that I was disobedient and that I was going to need to start following the rules of the writing assignment. My mother told me that I was to do as he said in front of him, and at first I was angry that she sided with him and not me. When we were at home, she told me that she had to say that to him or he would have started trouble. I was so happy that I didn’t realize that there had to be a catch that was most likely not to my advantage. And there was. My mother said,” You don’t have to write what you feel exactly, just make it up.” I was so disappointed that I could not argue from that point on. I just wrote whatever came to mind, and in the end I was writing the truth and enjoyed it.

In the ninth grade, I was at Landmark High School on 59th Street. It was supposed to be a school for LD students. At first I was amazed at the work we did and that kept me from seeing that I was not a good student. At least not at this school. There were three schools in the same seven story building. My school was made up of 150 kids and seven teachers. They had team teaching and would put two classes together for the three classes we had; humanities (History and English), Math/Science, and Advisory. Each class was about one to two hours long. Humanities was fun. We did a lot of reading and video taping. I was in charge of the cameras when we used them. We read and acted out Twelve Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet. We also acted out a mock trial, and we went down to Wall Street. The trial took one hour and then we were dismissed. I was not sure how to get home so I followed my teachers back to school and then got on the bus home. The teachers did that a lot. They would take us to different places and then expect us to know how to get home. I was the only person who had trouble because it was hard for me to use a transit map. As I traveled more, my sense of direction got better.

The math/science class was the worst class in the time that I was at Landmark. First, I was not given a placement test and was put in the class with all the other kids who had no trouble with math. In fact, they were advanced, and I was still having trouble with my multiplication and fractions. There was no way that I was going to be able to do Algebra and keep myself from going crazy. I was there one hour early and stayed late to do work and get help. This not only did not help me, but it made my life worse. The other kids would come in and the teacher would tell them that they should get to school early like me to get help. This made them spite me even more than they did.

Advisory was the only class that I did not mess up in, but I still got a bad grade. This class was the only class where we would spend almost all the class time outside taking a survey on something or visiting the library or museum. I liked this class because I was not on the spot, and I was learning at the same rate as the other kids. I had one advantage in this class; I was one of a few kids who liked going to these places and was pretty familiar with the things that we were seeing. The other problem was that I could not do the assignments that the teacher gave to the groups. I could not work with the other kids in my group because they were all better at reading and writing. I was only able to tell them what to do and help them do it. I could not do the things by myself.

In the middle of the year I told my family that I wanted to go to boarding school. They agreed and started to look into various schools. For the rest of the year, I was looking at schools that were for LD students. The Landmark School in Massachusetts was the first school that I looked into, and the one that I wanted to attend. I was all ready to go there when my aunt gave me this large folder that said The Forman School on it and as I looked through it, I knew that I was going there. All my friends told me that I should stop and realize that I was not going any where, but I told them that I was going to get out of public school and do something with my life. Over the summer I decided that Forman was the best thing that could happen to me and that I was finally getting somewhere. The school called and told me that I could come in for an interview. On a Saturday, I got dressed up in a long multi-colored skirt and a white blouse, and my aunt and uncle drove two hours to get to the campus. The minute that we stepped into the office, I could tell that I would be seeing more of it. The lady who interviewed me was nice, and she spoke as if I was all ready in, and that made me happy and tingly. A few weeks went by and I got a letter that told what I would need and when I should come. I was accepted.

Tenth grade was a challenge but fun. The work was not hard, but not easy. The teachers were nice and supportive. From the start, I was getting better grades and the ones that were not so good got better. I was taking Math, Art, World History, English 10, Biology, and LT. I loved each class. I left every class with something, whether it was a page of well- taken notes, or a picture I was proud of. After classes I would do a sport ; that was the hard part. I was on the volleyball team and had no idea what to do. Volleyball was new and at times I liked it, but at the same time I hated it. In the end I got the Most Improved Player Award.

I was in a bad dorm with girls that no one could control, and I was not used to this kind of chaos. At night the dorm would be so loud that the people on the other side of campus would complain. It was very hard for me to do my homework because people would rush in and disturb me. After a while, I learned to ignore them and concentrate. In my Biology class there was this kid who had long, blondish brown hair who sat in front of the class. I wanted to get to know him; I thought I would start by acting smart in class and try to get his attention. After a month without a response, I was getting an A in the class. One day for no good reason I walked into class and started to play with his hair. To my surprise, he did not stop me. From then on we started to talk more outside of class. I would go to his dorm, and we would run around outside. He turned out to be pretty nice.

At Thanksgiving he left the school, and I was upset but I did nothing to find out why. One day I received a letter from him explaining why he left. From then on we always talked on the phone. He became my best friend and helped me get by the year.

Eleventh grade was not as hard academically. I was taking Latin I, U.S. History, Language Training, Algebra 1a, English 11, and Psychology. The hardest class was Psychology because I was one of the only two juniors in a senior class, and the class was going faster then I expected. The teacher’s name was Mr. Haylon. He was a young man who didn’t believe in learning differences and did nothing to help me in the class. I would have trouble understanding the way Freud thought, and Mr. Haylon told me that “in college the professor will not stop and explain things to me and that I needed to listen more”. I received a low B in the class. Psychology was the only class that made me feel like a stupid person. I felt this way because I was getting anything but negativity back from the teacher and the students. There was no one class that went great, but they all were not as bad as Psychology. In History I had Mr. Brady; he would spend a good deal of time telling me that I needed to grow up and that hurt because I was tired of people telling me to grow up and act your age. I wanted to act in a way that was not stressing and still get my work done. I did not want to act like an adult. I hated him for trying to make me. I felt that I had been doing nothing but growing up at home. This was Forman and I could be a kid. Adults want a kid to be an adult when they want them to be, and a child when they’re being an adult is not to the adult’s liking and that can mess up a child. There was a lot going on that year that also messed me up. I was about to lose many good friends because they were graduating. This was an event that happens to everyone, but it was the way that they were leaving that got to me. They started to become distant, mean, and it seemed that they felt that I was not good enough to be their friend. I gave them up and tried to start new friends and a new attitude. My grades went up about three points in each class, and I thought I felt better. I was about to be a senior and I was happy.

Twelfth grade started out well. I was the editor of the yearbook and a student leader. I was one of the students in charge of the big brother, big sister program. This program was for the new students who came in. There would be one student leader that was given from two to five new students to look after and help. I was given this girl who was very troubled, and I spent a good part of my time trying to help her change. I can’t say that my trying to help her hurt my grades, but she did put a serious emotional strain on me. I was spending too much time on her. The kids in the dorm would taunt me for standing up for her, and after a while I decided that she was not going to change and that I needed to leave her alone to deal with the people that she upset herself. Along with other problems, I was trying to get all my college applications out to the schools and that was hard because I had the applications filled out, but I did not have the essays written. Then when I had the essays I did not have the checks. In the end of January I had everything ready and sent off. The next step is to wait.

The things that I did to keep from having a nervous breakdown at this point were photography and yearbook. Photography was a relaxing class. I would go in the class, develop a roll of film, then in the next class I would print the pictures. Printing was the most enjoyable part of the whole class. I would leave the class knowing that I did something good, and I would feel better about myself. The yearbook was another event that made me happy. I was in a way the leader of the group and that made me look at myself with more respect. My friend Susan and I were the senior editors. We would have meetings at first once a week, then whenever we had a deadline to meet. In the time in between, we would all take pictures and Ms. Rader would have them developed.

In October in my Senior Support class we started to write this paper about our educational journey, and it took me forever to get to this point and I am glad that I am finally here. I am done at this point because I can’t write about what is going to happen in the next three months because it did not happen yet. When it does, I might write about it.