I started to read in earnest when I was in fourth grade. Up until then, I was pretty much an average student. I did what I had to do in class but nothing really clicked for me. School was what you did and reading was an assignment.
The other notable thing about fourth grade, for me, was that I also learned to played the clarinet. Looking back, I think that somehow the process of learning to read music opened a pathway for me to really learn to read. Words and sentences suddenly made sense and stories hung together.
I also had a wonderful teacher that year, Mr. Oldham. He was quite scary the first day of school. He was over six feet tall, rather husky in build and was completely bald. I remember coming home from school and asking my mother to get me switched out of his class. She looked at me as if I were out of my mind and said no. That was unsurprising as she had never stepped in to intervene in school and I had never asked her to do so before. I must admit, I am forever grateful that she did not do as I asked.
Mr. Oldham was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He loved teaching children and was forever challenging each of us with new and different ways to learn. One of the things he instituted, for our class, was a weekly field trip to our local branch of the public library (which was all of one and a half blocks from the school.
He also read to us each afternoon. That was something I had never experienced before. My oldest sister would read to me on occasion (she loved playing teacher and I loved playing student) but that was when I was younger and she had less work to do for her own schoolwork. I recall Mr. Oldham read us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then followed it up with James and the Giant Peach. I was amazed at the idea of such exotic lands and stories.
The first book I read through, at age 8, was Little Women. I quickly ran through all of Louisa May Alcott’s books and was hungry for more. I would backtrack to the library every afternoon after school to pick up a new treasure and then head home to finish it that evening. By the end of the year, the librarians had given me permission to check out books from the adult section and I was off and running.
Unsurprisingly, my schoolwork began to improve dramatically. I was tested extensively and based on those scores and that of another boy in my class, a new curriculum was developed for a test class for the following year.
I remember finishing my work early in class and being given permission to go to the school library to wait for others to finish their work and was generally joined by the other boy I mentioned. What I didn’t realize was that others didn’t like that I had so much “play” time, which for me, was spent reading.
One afternoon, walking home from school with my best friend, she told me that when I was in the library that day, Mr. Oldham had talked to the class about me. Apparently, I was so “smart” that he couldn’t let me be bored in class and invited the kids to discuss why that might be. I was humiliated at being singled out and told my friend I wasn’t smart, just a little faster at writing and answering questions. She was happy with that answer but I was unhappy to be different from the rest of the boys and girls that I wanted so much to be a part of.
From that point on, I was always embarrassed by any sort of attention being paid to me. I became a very quiet and private individual and started my withdrawal from life. I would do my schoolwork to the best of my abilities but I would keep to myself. I stopped making friends and reading became my life. My friends were found in books, my teachers in the imaginations of some wonderful authors and my safe haven was found in the public library.
Perhaps, if I had been able to complete the test class year, things might have changed. However, true to our vagabond ways, we moved once again about eight weeks into the school year. We generally moved every year to year and a half. The constant moving made making friends difficult. That year, to add to the indignity of being singled out for my schoolwork, I was skipped a grade when we moved.
I was suddenly the youngest in the class, not to mention having none of the background of the prior ten weeks as the test class was built on its own subject matter and had nothing to do with what was ordinarily taught in fifth grade – for instance, I recall having to create my own language (written and spoken) along with designing a culture and history for the “people” who were part of it. What I was missing was knowing my multiplication tables and my US history.
So, solitude and my books became my reality. In the midst of a large and chaotic family, I was generally still on my own. I don’t think my family members noted my withdrawal from real life and I think my parents were probably happy to have a little more measure of quiet in the turmoil of our house.
When my parents marriage began to disintegrate, I withdrew even further. I didn’t want to go to school, I wanted to go to the library and spent my days teaching myself and so I did. I’ve wondered why the librarians let me spend day in and day out there without question but perhaps they knew I was safe with them and perhaps where I would be otherwise would not be so.
This began a pattern that would continue for several years. We would move, I would start school and at the first sign of nonacceptance by my peers, I would escape back to my safe zone. I still passed all of my classes with A’s based on getting my books and working through the assignments on my own. I would attend school for a few weeks at the beginning and end of a semester and it was enough.
My behavior drove my mother a little crazy. She told me she could understand if I “ditched school” to party like my siblings had done but to go to the library was insane. It was rather telling that no one thought to have me go into therapy to see what the problem was but instead they wanted to simply force me into going into class. Which I would do and then stop again.
There were two times I made an enormous effort to change. Once when I lived with my father for less than year (when he also got my glasses that I had needed for three years but were too expensive for my mother to consider buying for me. I was, by that time, so near sighted, I could not read any blackboard in class at all.) The second time was when I, along with my little brother, lived with my eldest sister and her family.
My mother had decided to commit herself to a mental institution as she thought she was insane. She probably was but not nearly as troubled as the rest of the patients around her. The few months I lived with my sister were wonderful. Anything I learned about good parenting came from that time. I also was able to get the dental care that I needed desperately (as I had cavities in most of my visible front teeth that would have caused me to loss them fairly quickly.) I went to school and was a model student.
When my mother was released and we went back to the projects where she lived, I continued to go to school at the school in Santa Monica I was at while living with my sister. Mid-way through the second semester of tenth grade, I was told I had to go to Venice High School, which was a Los Angeles city school. There was nothing wrong with Venice except that they did not teach a single class that I was taking.
Rather than allow me the ten weeks at Santa Monica to finish the year, their decision was to give me five drop fails, have me take five classes that I would not pass (due to the time left in the semester), not count my first semester as they did not teach those glasses, and add two years to my schooling as they would not accept the classes I took the previous year either as they did not teach those classes.
My decision was that I would stop going to school and get my GED as soon as I was able to do so which would take almost two years of waiting. The drop fails had taken away my only chances of a college scholarship and no one thought to tell me about grants and student loans. I figured that college was impossible for me and no one ever thought to tell me otherwise.
And so, I stopped going to school again. Finally, during the next school year, a counselor made a suggestion that I agreed to. I could go to their continuation high school (a school for troubled kids) and take as many classes during what remained then of my eleventh grade year. If I could pass enough classes, it could put me back on track to finish school on time. The only caveat was that I was only allowed to go in on Monday to receive my assignments and then to return them on Friday and take whatever tests were necessary. They didn’t want me talking or interacting with the troubled kids and making friends with them. This worked well with my withdrawal from society and so I agreed and was back where I started from.
I finished many classes during that time period and was able to attend my full senior year of high school at Venice (though I still had to take seven classes per semester instead of the standard five.) The classes were not challenging but it was enough to be done with it and I did make one good friend during that time period. For me, it was a wealth of good times to have someone to talk to.
Because of my experiences, I decided that when I had children, I would make sure I lived in the same house in the same town while they were in school and I did accomplish that. I hope it helped them and I think it did. None of the three of them had a hard time coping with life the way that I did.
It wasn’t until I became a Christian and found my true family that I felt like I fit in. There are still times when the old feelings of being too different and not quite normal creep back, especially when I am in a group of people I haven’t met before. The difference is that I now know how to deal with it properly as I am able to take my troubles to God. I’ve learned that we humans may think we are smart but really, we know nothing as everything we study is based on a fallen world. That puts me on a even keel with everyone else.
If, for some reason, you feel like you don’t fit in and that there isn’t a real spot for you to be yourself, take heart. God knows who you are. He created you for a special reason. No matter what others think about you, good or bad, you were made to be exactly who you are. Rather than working at fitting in or, as I did, escaping, you should look for the one who created you just as you are. He will give you love and acceptance and will guide your path so that your special gifts are made clear and their purpose is put to use.
God loves you and he has a plan for you. Don’t let the rest of the world turn you away from that plan. If you are a Christian, ask God to give you guidance. If you haven’t made that commitment, ask God to show you clearly that he is God and that he sent his son, Jesus, to give you a way to salvation and a full life.
He will answer that sincere prayer. Jesus says he stands at the door and is waiting for you. All you have to do is ask him to enter your heart and life and he will. He died to pay for your sins and rose again to provide those who follow him with eternal life. When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit enters your heart and becomes a part of you from that point on. You, like me, will never be alone again no matter what the rest of the world says, does or doesn’t do.
I pray that you will ask God to show you how real he is and that you accept his gift of salvation. If you do so, you are now my brother or sister in Christ and part of my family in God.
1 Corinthians 26-30
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.