You Mean, I Am Not Dumb?

You Mean, I’m Not Dumb? At an early age, Davis’s strengths were obvious. He is a collector. He collects license plates, maps, bumper stickers, scout patches, bottle caps, people he has met, and facts he has heard. Davis listens intently for new information to collect. You only have to tell Davis something once and he collects it, holds onto it to build it into something more. He uses collected information to make connections that amaze. Davis is a builder. He loves to build towers and anything with wood and tools. And, since he has learned about Buckminster Fuller, he has been trying to build shapes like geodesic domes and dodecahedrons. One day, I am certain, he will build a dome large enough to live in. When Davis was in 3rd grade at Grace-St. Luke’s School, after just two weeks of school, the teacher called home. Davis was breaking down in school, she said. At every opportunity, he was avoiding taking part in reading. During Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) time, which is 20 minutes every day, Davis would ask to build with the LEGOS instead. If she insist that he read, the only book Davis would choose was the Guinness Book of World Records, which is mostly pictures. Davis had done poorly, notably poorer than all the other students, on his spelling test last week. When she asked him if he studied the words, he broke into tears. At the start of this week’s spelling test, Davis put his head down on his desk. He didn’t even try the first word. She said she did not know what was wrong, but that she had seen enough students over the years to know that something was wrong. The teacher suggested that Davis be tested immediately by the school psychologist. She could pull Davis out of class for testing during the next week and have results the week after. I told her to set up the testing. Two weeks later, I asked the school psychologist if Davis could attend the meeting with his dad and me to get the test results. Even though he was only nine, I could trust him to sit still and listen. I also knew that he would have ninety-nine questions for us if he did not have a chance to hear the test results for himself. Davis is a champion questionasker – so much so that a friend of ours nicknamed him “99” because that is the number of questions Davis can ask about any given subject, or so it felt to our friend. Davis, his dad, and I joined the school psychologist and Davis’s teacher in her

office. The school psychologist recapped all the early childhood history she took, the information she got from the teacher about Davis’s classroom behavior, and the information she got from us about Davis’s eating and sleeping habits. Davis would look at me every few sentences for reassurance, not understanding completely why we were there. The school psychologist held the papers with the results of the intelligence tests close to her chest. She rattled on about stanines and norms. Numbers aren’t my thing, so I was struggling to stay focused. She summed up her first round of tests, “What these series of tests show is that Davis is actually very intelligent.” I felt that we already knew that. To my right side, I saw Davis lean forward so that he could see the school psychologist and get her attention. “Excuse me,” he said scooting onto the edge of his chair. Quietly, he asked, “You mean, I am not dumb?” Everyone looked at Davis. It was like we all realized at once what this kid believed about himself – that he was dumb because he could not read and spell like everyone else and that being dumb was his lot in life. My heart ached with his pain. “No Davis,” the school psychologist answered, “You are not dumb. Actually, you are very, very smart.” There was not time to react, really, because the test results continued. In the achievement tests, the news was not so good. On oral expression, comprehension (when a passage was read to him), and logic, Davis was skilled above grade level. But, in all of the subtests related to reading, Davis’s performance was very low to even non-existent in word attack skills. Among the fog of all this heavy information at once, I heard her say, “His point gap is 46. That is the largest point gap I have ever seen in all of the kids I have tested.” What is a point gap? I wondered. “Davis is dyslexic,” she concluded, “Very dyslexic.” We had a word, dyslexic, and a point gap, 46. But what did it all mean and what were we to do now? I was shocked. Scared. After just a few seconds living with this news, I felt horrible guilt. We had a smart little boy who could not read or spell and was in the third grade in a school he loved. He had been there for four years, day in and day out. He loved his school so much, and we loved his school so much, that we moved his two sisters from the “best school in town” to Davis’s school, Grace-St. Luke’s, in order to be one family at one school. Davis was so excited to have his sisters join him that he took them as his Show-and-Tell their first week at GSL. We were thrilled that our kids would

grow up with shared school memories. They still talk about the time that Davis threw up in the cafeteria and the lady covered it with pencil shavings. How could I have let this kid go to school for the past four years thinking he was dumb, hiding under the LEGO table? How many times had we told him to try harder? How scared must he be taking in all this difficult information? I had let him down. This news led also to a huge sense of betrayal and anger. Davis had been entrusted to GSL for four years and no one had said anything other than that he was a nice kid, a sweet kid, and a boy – sometimes boys do things at their own pace. Why had no one ever mentioned that Davis was far behind the other students in the critical skills of reading and spelling? Davis even assured us about the S’s on his report card, “S stands for super – that’s what my teacher says.” GSL had loved Davis, and Davis loved his school and his friends. Davis believed that besides home, GSL was where he belonged, that GSL had claimed him as one of their own. I had trusted GSL to be the experts in learning and teaching. As time went on, I learned that this blind trust was a false and dangerous assumption on my part. There was a tremendous lack of ownership of Davis’s situation on GSL’s part. Teachers feared being blamed. Many of the teachers feel that GSL is a school for gifted and talented kids only, that there is a stock kind of kid that fit them. There was a sense that Davis was not “our type” because he is learning disabled which means he must be dumb. There is deep confusion about the paradox that a kid can be learning disabled and be smart. This confusion often leads teachers to abandon kids because they are too much trouble, too complicated, and don’t fit the mold of the facile learner. The teachers’ mindset, therefore, is a horrible barrier to a kid like Davis with the drive to work through, work with, and work around his disabilities. The same mindset can be extremely resistant to change within a school system, change that could prevent kids from making it to 2nd or 3rd grade without learning to read, and no one mentioning it. The school’s response to our crisis was to advise Davis out. In the letter from the school psychologist detailing the test results, the school recommended that we withdraw Davis i.e. leave the community; leave home. My husband and I strategically divided the problem into two parts: the immediate crisis – that Davis could not read at a 3rd grade level -- and the bigger problem of how this

happened. We decided, at great personal and financial expense, to take Davis to a special program in San Francisco for 3 ½ months to learn to read. I left with Davis ten days after we got his test results from GSL. My husband hired help at work so that he could manage the schedules and needs of the two sisters left at home. There were lots of trials for Dad trying to be “Mr. Mom.” My cell phone rang with complaints about how he was upsetting their world. Trying to keep Davis motivated and happy and engaging in learning to read was also emotionally painful. In the mornings after our eighteen block walk to his center, Davis would complain about going in because the work was so hard. He just wanted to go home and be a normal kid. I had to harshly tell him that he had to stick it out. Davis was quite mad that this was happening to him. At nine, he could not understand a lot of things. Davis and I returned home three days before Christmas. Once Davis returned to school in January, I avoided all aspects of GSL school life. I worked with Davis in the copy room each morning for forty-five minutes before school started. But, I avoided speaking or talking to anyone because I was too mad. In April, I literally bumped into the headmaster in the hall one morning. “When are you going to come talk to me?” he asked. “I am not sure I can,” I said. He encouraged me to come. A week later I scheduled a meeting. Tom Beazley had been Headmaster of GSL for five years. He is affable, boisterous, and pragmatic. He has two daughters of his own; they were in high school at the time. My reluctance stemmed from not knowing if I could control my anger and hide my sense of hurt and betrayal. I feared that I would break down and cry and look stupid. The letter from the school psychologist that I had received recommending that we withdraw Davis from GSL school while I was in San Francisco trying my best to have Davis taught to read, was extremely hurtful. I remember my first words as I sat on the couch in the Headmaster’s office, “I don’t even know where to begin.” I was shaking. He took over. “I understand that Davis is doing fabulous,” Tom Beazley said. It was true. Davis was holding his own and fully participating in class in all subjects. Spelling continued to be difficult but Davis was working diligently. All his trend lines were swinging upward. His teacher was patience and helpful yet expected Davis to work toward his potential. The other kids, who wrote and called and missed Davis while he was gone, never teased or taunted him. “Davis will make it,” I said; “His dad and I will make sure of that.” A silence hung in the air. There

was no way out so I just hung this next statement out there. “This never should have happened.” I teared because it was all so close to the surface. I didn’t know if he was going to be defensive. Thankfully, he just listened. While Davis was being taught to read each morning from 8 to 12 for 3 ½ months, I was teaching myself about dyslexia. I read articles, books, pamphlets. I listened to radio lectures from the Charles Schwab Foundation for Kids with Learning Disabilities in Palo Alto. I joined the International Dyslexia Association and received their scholarly publications. I joined an organization chaired by Dave Neelman, founder of Jet Blue Airlines, called Smart Kids with Learning Disabilties. I heard Mel Levine speak. I read about successful people who had miserable school careers like Sir Richard Branson, Paul Orfalea, Richard Ford, Charles Schwab, Einstein. I read one book called The Mind’s Eye by Thomas G. West who said he realized only after his child was diagnosed that he too was dyslexic. I called him up and he told me school would be hell for Davis but that his dyslexia would offer gifts in life. I called my husband up and asked if he had trouble learning to read, and he said he did. I guess one doesn’t remember to mention that during courtship and early marriage. His father, Davis’s grandfather, then admitted that he did, too. In the San Francisco Chronicle I stumbled upon the obituary of Eileen Simpson who wrote one of the few memoirs by dyslexics titled Reversals. I found a copy at the used bookstore on Union St. and read that, too. I pulled from my bag a stack about three inches thick of articles that I, non-expert parent, had found and read about the science of reading, about the early warning signs of learning problems, and about the emerging brain research that informs about learning issues. For 3 ½ months, as Davis crawled to sleep in the domeshaped camping tent that he set up in the corner of our bedroom in San Francisco, I read long past midnight, trying to find ways to help my son. I made my case to Tom Beazley about why Davis should not have been left to fall further and further behind for years. Loving him, as they did, was not enough. I challenged the school, I challenged Tom Beazley, to own their portion of creating Davis’s situation in the first place. I assured him that my husband and I were not litigious people, but that many people are. That said, I proceeded to tell him the exact sequence of depositions and records I would request in order to prove Educational Negligence and Malpractice, terms I had actually read about during the last seven months.

I listed their professional development records as well as their screens and assessment policies and procedures as top documents of interest. I also cited the federal education disabilities laws that I had been studying. What all I said was not exactly a tirade. But, it was not exactly polite conversation, either. When I stopped and rested my case, Tom Beazley stared at me for a minute without saying anything. Then, he looked away and grabbed his chin with his hand, in the ponderer’s pose. I figured he was gathering his thoughts against me. I feared his reaction but I guessed I deserved it because he had endured my blow. He turned back to me and started speaking quietly and slowly, staring at his hands. “You know,” he said, “I was prepared to be polite, hear what you had to say, and to defend what we do. I can’t believe I am about to say this, because in many ways, it kills me, but, you are right. I have sat here, fought back my urge to become defensive, and listened to all that you have passionately learned and shared, and, you have sold me.” I was stunned. I figured the purpose of our meeting was for me to vent, which I had. But, now, we were actually at that second problem – figuring out how Davis’s situation happened and keeping it from happening to another little boy and another family. Tom Beazley asked me to come back in one week and give the exact same presentation to all of his division heads, the school psychologist, and outside counsel. I told him that I would be there with multiple copies of all the materials, but that I would clean up the tears and the temper. He encouraged me not to lose the passion. These meetings were the first steps in many, many changes that GSL has made and continues to make to keep situations like Davis’s from happening. The changes started with changing the entire reading curriculum from kindergarten through fifth grade. The school has collected information and committed to building a system with safeguards so that no child falls behind without notice. I now work with GSL coordinating the parent education program, bringing in speakers, and facilitating discussion groups that inform parents about how to be collaborative partners in their child’s education, about the importance of not deferring all the responsibility of your child’s learning success to the school. I am trying to express is the courage it takes to own a problem and make changes and why it is necessary to always be assessing, changing, listening, and evolving. It is important that a community own its

problems and work to solve them. The act of collaborative problem-solving strengths the community. Davis is thriving. Things get hard, but the school is collaborative and focused on problem-solving situations so that Davis can succeed without their changing their standards of success. They don’t give Davis a pass, in other words, but are willing to recognize his weaknesses and help him find other routes to success. In fact, Davis was awarded one of the highest scholarship awards after his 7th grade year at GSL. Davis is more accepting of the fact that reading and spelling will always be hard for him and that by nature, schools want things and people to fit into molds. Davis still loves his school and never questions where he belongs or who claims him.