Coping
with a Learning
Disability (Difference).
The
story of living with his dyslexia, by Taylor V. Beattie.
"Thank you,
Mr. Short".  End
of the school year, second grade: It was sometime during the last week of school,
my second grade year. The teacher, Ms. Baugher, asked me to meet with her in the
back of the room. In a gentle, inviting tone she asked if I would like to stay
in second grade and help her with the incoming class. In my young mind, I knew
that I was not qualified to be her aide or teaching assistant. In fact, I was
pretty damn sure that I was not qualified to move onto the third grade…and that,
I realized was the bottom line of our conversation. I was going to be held back.
But she left me
some wiggle room and seeing the seam in her proposal, I declined the offer and
returned to my desk.
That night my
parents were more direct regarding my status for the following year; there was
no wiggle room. I liked Ms. Baugher and the notion of spending another year with
her was not all that bad. On the other hand, the embarrassment of staying in second
grade while my classmates moved on to third would be exquisite. I comforted myself
with the notion that I had the summer to get used to the idea that I had flunked
second grade, and summer, in those years, was forever. Something was
interfering . . . This was not the
first signal that something was interfering with Taylor Beattie's ability to learn.
Three months into kindergarten at another local independent school my parents
were summoned for a terminal parent teacher conference. It seems that I was struggling
with my ABCs and with counting. The punch line was that I was not a good match
for that school and it was suggested that I be withdrawn. A crushing blow to be
sure. I seemed normal to my parents in every way, emotionally, intellectually,
but the teachers were seeing something different in the classroom. I was withdrawn
immediately with a great deal of bitterness and prejudice toward a school that
offered little assistance short of showing a 5-year-old the door. Opportunity
presented itself in Wilmington Friends School, which took me in immediately .
My year in kindergarten ended, so far as I can remember, without issue. First grade. First grade, however,
was a different story. The first words that I learned to recognize vice read with
any constancy were SEE ME! burned in red across the
top of my lacerated work sheet. My poor mother would cringe when she saw the first
grade teacher standing with me in car pool line, a plump, white knuckled, fist
full of the red inked casualties that were my handiwork. Somehow I survived first
grade. My performance in second grade, however, called for drastic measures, this
incidentally, was ok with my parents, as the school was engaged and working a
solution rather than throwing in the towel on their son. First
day of second grade. In
spite of my hopes, my summer between the second grades did not last forever and
in a aura of 'déjà vu', I reported back to the old second grade room. While experiencing
some embarrassment meeting old classmates headed to third grade (residual twinges
still tickle my gut today) things were going ok. In fact I knew most of the boys
and one in particular has become a valued life long friend. Math. After
sitting through the introductions, rules of the classroom and so forth, we started
our first class…math. The book was the same text used the year before. I turned
to the first page with the teacher. The touch, smell of the book was very familiar
to me. I ran my hand down the smooth new page and wondered what had happened to
my old book. Sitting in a trash heap somewhere? What happens to old textbooks?
Perhaps I could have used my old book again this year. By now Ms. Baugher and
the rest of the class were six pages ahead while I considered the disposition
of used textbooks.
Ms. Baugher referred me to the head of the lower school, Mrs. Anne Smith. Mrs.
Smith, for the purposes of the school in those days, was the learning specialist.
I spent about
an hour with Mrs. Smith while the rest of the class was at art, music or some
other special. In that hour I was given a number of square peg in round hole type
tasks and a few problem solving exercises. I remember that I enjoyed talking through
and solving hypothetical problems. Mrs. Smith reported back to my parents that
she believed that my problems could be associated with a disorder that she had
been reading about recently called dyslexia. Be that as it may, she believed that
the problem was not serious and that I was capable of being an effective student
at the school, with some additional help. My parents were not thoroughly convinced
that I had any disorder and sought an outside opinion. Meeting
the psychologist. I
have a relatively clear memory of my one and only meeting with the psychologist,
whose office was in a dark, musty building, located some where downtown. He impressed
me as a pleasant and engaging adult who made me feel quite comfortable. However
he did have a distracting habit of constantly cracking his knuckles while we talked.
Which, as I think of it now, the knuckle cracking may have been and indicator
that he was struggling with some problem of his own. Anyway, after an hour or
so we were through. He told my father that I was an auditory learner, that I possessed
high verbal ability, that I was certainly intelligent and certainly dyslexic.
However, they were not to worry because dyslexia normally disappears around the
onset of puberty… "He'll grow out of it". My
parents. No
parent is particularly receptive to the notion that their child is anything but
normal. My mother continued to insist that she knew deep down that I was intelligent
and, therefore, normal. My father, a physician embraced the words "he'll grow
out of it" and saw the solution in tutoring and athletics to refine coordination.
Here lies the insidious nature of a LD, in that most students with learning disabilities
have average to above average scores on intelligence tests. It's in the achievement
assessments where individuals with a LD lag behind peers. There is a large disparity
between ability and performance . Therefore without a diagnosis it is often inferred
that those with a LD are some how holding back or are simply lazy and undisciplined
in their approach to schoolwork. Fall
freshman year. Our
freshman English instructor was a Scots gentleman named Ambrose Short. He was
a tall man, balding and reminded me very much of the British actor, Alistair Sims.
Mr. Short was from the old school: we were expected to stand when he entered the
room and he taught from a lectern. As students we were addressed as Mr. or Miss.
An early requirement for Mr. Short's class was to memorize Rudyard Kipling's "If"
and Ernest Henley's "Invictus". Mr.
Short was a man of expectations, discipline, and standards. He expected the poems
to be memorized by a certain date, failure to do so meant detention. Memorization
was not a strong point for me. I had the attention span of a three-year-old in
a K-Mart and could not focus long enough to sit down and memorize the poems although
I had tried. This was bad. I was on the football team. As
a freshman, I was little more than a blocking dummy, but I showed promise. I was
having success at something and I was part of a team. Detention meant missed practice
and missed practice meant I would not play in Saturday's game. Coach Tattersall
was a man of expectations and standards also. I reported to Mr. Short after school
to serve my detention in despair. Mr. Short looked up from his papers over his
bifocals and said, "Mr.
Beattie, you will go to football practice as I do not have the time for you right
now". I hi-tailed
it down to the locker room.
I hi-tailed it down to the locker room and was out on the practice field
before anyone knew that I was missing. It was one of those wet, blustery, cold
October days that lets you know winter is inbound. I used to love to play football
in that type of weather: cold, muddy, raw. I was in the act of getting in a three-point
stance when I spotted Mr. Short making his way across the field toward our group.
He was dressed for the cold, cashmere greatcoat, Scots plaid muffler and fedora
hat pulled low against the wind. In horror I knew Mr. Short was there for me!
The coach confirmed the same: "Beattie,
go over there and say your poems for Mr. Short!" I
stood there with Mr. Short off to the side, helmet off cradled in the crook of
my arm. "If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming
it on you…" I recited the poems cued by Mr. Short as needed. Eventually satisfied
with my progress, Mr. Short told me to come by his room the next day at lunch
and recite the poems for record. The poems were internalized and I had no trouble
reciting the same for him the next day as he ate a sandwich in his room. Certainly
the extra attention from Mr. Short helped. But I will also tell you that the extra
(undesirable) attention afforded me by the older football players for reciting
poetry during football practice was a motivator in itself. An
intervention. When
a kid is struggling in class, the knee jerk reaction is to yank him from sports
or other positive things where he is having some success. Mr. Short realized this
and somewhere during the school day struck a deal with Coach Tattersall. Together
they practiced an intervention that met the standards of Mr. Short's class, the
expectations of the varsity football team, and my need to be good at something.
Now there are
those who would maintain that the extra time afforded to me by Mr. Short was not
fair to the other students in his class. Again, I like Richard Lavoie's thoughts
on the concept of fairness: "Fairness means that everyone gets what he or she
needs" . What else did I need? As an auditory learner I could not (and still can't)
take notes and listen for one activity cancels out the other. A small tape recorder
to record lectures would have helped. I managed in language arts on my own. I
was not particularly setting the world on fire, but I coped. Tutors. All
math (and sciences incorporating math) required a tutor. Tutors kept me focused
and on task. With the aid of a tutor I caught up on a year's worth of chemistry
in three months. In the end, administrators, teachers, and coaches at Wilmington
Friends School ensured that I got what I needed. As a postscript to this vignette,
Mr. Short died of Hodgkin's disease before the end of my freshman year. He was
sick when he trudged out on the practice field that blustery October day. It was
a five minutes of his time and I received what I needed. In
high school my parents and I had expected that I would "grow out of it". So while
I struggled through my senior year in high school, I did so with the notion that
I had grown out of my dyslexia. In fact my parents and I ensured that any mention
of a LD was expunged from my record as we felt it might hurt my prospects for
college. Accepted
at a small liberal arts college. I
was accepted into a small liberal arts college where I played football, wrestled
and, if the mood struck me, went to class. I was out in three semesters (what
my father would call a Christmas graduate). I came home worked in Pole & Line
construction and went to night school, eventually working my way into the full
time program at the local university. While I was no longer playing football or
wrestling, my life lacked structure and I was eventually dropped from the University.
Again I went back to night school. About this time the Athletic Director (Coach
Tattersall) of Wilmington Friends School called and offered me a job as head wrestling
coach. I readily accepted the job and learned to translate the structure and discipline
that I demanded of my wrestlers into my own life. I gritted my teeth and compressed
three years of undergraduate work into three semesters. I graduated with a BA,
last in my class, last in my major, but I graduated. As a young adult I surmised
that since I had grown out of my dyslexia (if I ever had it at all) obviously
my problems were a character issue. My reality was that I was in fact L/D… lazy
and dumb. The
Special Forces Qualification. S
ince I had entered the military I had wanted to be in Special Forces, a Green
Beret. In those days just to be accepted for the training you had to have been
in the Army at least four years, be a qualified paratrooper, and pass a battery
of physical and mental tests. Once
in the course it was an arduous six-month to a year's worth of tough dangerous
training before you were awarded the Green Beret. The attrition rate at times
approaches 60%. But things weren't looking good for me in September of 1987. I
was in the middle of my re-test for the long-range land navigation final exam.
This is a twenty-four hour, 30-kilometer event to test navigation skills, endurance
and ability to work independently in the woods. Failure (you got two chances)
meant relief from the course. Success meant you moved on to the next series of
challenges. Failed
at the first attempt.
I was in trouble; I failed at the first attempt. Somewhere in the process of plotting
my current position and the position that I was to move to, I reversed a set of
numbers within the eight-digit grid coordinate marking a spot on the map. The
number reversal put me well out of my way; I could not make up the time lost and
failed. Sympathy was in short supply as I was dropped off in the middle of the
woods for my second and final chance. I was advised that historically only about
3% of the first time, navigation failure "lug nuts" ever made it on the second
attempt. At the
first navigation check point the instructor gave me my new set of coordinates
and informed me that I was not moving fast enough to successfully complete the
course. I was in trouble. My feet were shredded with blisters and I was out of
water. No time to stop at a stream for a drink, I was minutes from the final spot
that I had (hopefully) correctly plotted or I was minutes from failure and relief
from all chance of being what I wanted to be in the Army. I was dizzy as hell
and my legs were rubber, but I was mad. How had I been so damn stupid as to reverse
the numbers during the first attempt to put myself through so much agony? Muttering
to myself I stumbled into the last point with minutes to spare. I passed the course
and eventually earned the "Green Beret". The Instructors at the Special Forces
course did not cut me a break nor did I expect them to. A dyslexic moment while
operating behind enemy lines could get myself and others killed or captured. I
became acutely aware of my occasional lack of attention to detail in reversing
numbers and letters. Under these circumstances I always have another soldier check
my work…I know my limitations. Coping
in the present. I
have recently learned that Learning Disabilities are forever. You don't "grow
out of it". It appears that dyslexia has, and will continue to be, my constant
companion. Our long distance phone bills usually reflect dyslexic tendencies as
I have reached out across the US and overseas contacting strangers and making
new friends. I have reversed the numbers in the dialing. ATM machines also present
a challenge as I often forget my PIN number. Actually, I remember the numbers
but not the sequence and the machines are inflexible regarding the sequence thing.
Once I've cracked my own code at the ATM, the next problem is what to do with
the five hundred dollars I just withdrew and how to explain the same when I was
sent for fifty. Recently,
I experienced a great deal of anxiety over enrolling in and attending graduate
school. This strikes those who know me as odd. As a Special Forces officer, I
have routinely operated in hostile areas under dangerous conditions with little
trepidation. The difference? In a hostile, uncertain environment my training,
experience and confidence mitigate risk and associated fear. In an academic setting
my experience conjures my demons: frustration, humiliation, shame, and embarrassment.
In spite of it
all, some dyslexia-induced competencies have evolved:
-I am tenacious… I have learned to never give up. Never.
-I am goal-oriented…I always have something to work toward.
-I am a problem
solver…I have nontraditional problem solving skills which count when time is at
a premium or a unique solution is needed.
-I am a motivator…I know what it
takes to get myself and others up the hill.
-I am an effective leader…I know
my limitations so I delegate tasks and authority to those who can get the job
done.
-I have empathy…I have been odd man out, the bottom of the class, the
"how not to" example. The
bottom line and I think the simple key to success in coping with a LD, is to manage
it, recognize it, and accept that it exists. I have learned to embrace the lifelong
interventions (I get what I need) and most importantly in my mind, I do not to
let the notion that I have a LD control my life. I
am a Regular Army officer, a soldier, a paratrooper, a Green Beret, a son, a husband,
and a father. I am successful at all these things and whatever else I care to
add to the list in the years to come. Yes, dyslexia has been my constant companion,
but it is not what I am. Thank
you, Mr. Short! LTC
Taylor V. Beattie.
e-mail:
beattiet@leavenworth.army.mil
Your experiences.
Please do e-mail us your own experiences
so that we can include them - anonymously if you wish - on this page.
A
social worker writes of her experiences with words.
Whoa!
Major Flashback.
Success
with the Direct Learning Reading Comprehension Exercise. | 
