Julie

My daughter has a learning disability. I remember the parent/teacher conference I had with her 3rd grade teacher. After two years of attending a special reading lab I was aware that my daughter was struggling. I had also noticed that she didn’t write if she could avoid it. She was always getting her twin sister to write for her. I went to the conference that day ready to ask a lot of questions. I couldn’t figure out why she was making A’s in everything but didn’t really seem to know how to read or write. I wasn’t prepared for what her teacher would tell me. She began by saying, “Oh, Julie can’t learn, but that’s OK, she’s a pretty little girl and will grow up and get married and be taken care of so don’t worry.” Well, that was just the beginning of a battle that would last all the way through school and beyond. Eventually Julie was tested and it was determined that she had a severe learning disability. Because so much time had elapsed and because of the insensitivity of her classroom teacher she had lost a lot of ground and we basically started over. I have never seen a child work so hard just to keep up but she was the most determined kid I’ve ever known. Sometimes we would be up until 1 am working on homework. She would get so frustrated she would explode. No matter how tired or how frustrated she was she wouldn’t give up until she had everything done. When she was ready to go to high school we met with her counselors to prepare her class schedule. Trying to be sure she had all the required courses for college entrance we asked if everything was in order. They responded, “Why, these kids don’t go to college”. I couldn’t believe it. I asked if anyone had ever asked her what HER plans were. It just seemed to be a struggle every year. We had to literally fight the system. Julie did go on to college. It wasn’t easy but she went through with the same determination she has always shown. I recorded all of her text books on tape each semester. Services for the blind would have taped the books but you had to submit the list of books 6 months in advance. Often the text books would change at the last minute and the tapes would be no good. She also taped all of her class lectures and then she would send them to me by mail and I would transcribe them. We used the transcriptions to outline notes and it also allowed me to quiz her orally on the information. There were so many times that I thought if it had been me I would have quit a long time ago. I was never sure just how far she would be able to go but she never once entertained the idea of quitting. It took her 8 years to get her degree in education but she graduated with a 3.85 grade point. Today she is a kindergarten teacher. She has defied every educator that said it was impossible. Her students and parents love her and I know why. She has the ability to relate to children and especially those that may be struggling in one way or another. I can’t explain it but it is truly a gift. We all have challenges of some kind or another and some far worse than others. But, we have also seen people overcome adversities we couldn’t even imagine. My daughter is my hero and my admiration goes way beyond just being her mother.