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Caroline
1996

"I always knew there was something wrong with me. Just never really knew what it was."

Neither did Madison School officials who placed Caroline in "special education" classes at Jessie Beer Elementary School in the 1970's. Labeled "slow" because of an undiagnosed reading disability, Caroline found herself in a classroom with mentally impaired students. "I don't ever remember learning," says Caroline, "we just played all day. The teacher couldn't handle all these kids with different problems." Aware of her predicament, Caroline's parents asked for extra help for their daughter but were turned away because "they earned too much money." "It got to the point where I was called stupid so much I couldn't even talk." Ignored and "passed off," Caroline withdrew into herself.

In the sixth grade Caroline's mother pulled her out of special education classes. To keep up with her classmates who possessed the fundamentals she lacked, Caroline got by any way she could. Friends allowed her to copy off their papers. She developed an ingenious way of writing test answers in tiny script on her desk. Spelling tests particularly bedeviled her. She remembers asking teachers for help and being told "to go look it up in the dictionary." "Well" says Caroline, "How do you do that if you can't spell?"

By the time Caroline reached the ninth grade, she was ready to quit. "I cried all the time…I could not get through it."

Unwilling to disappoint her mother, Caroline stuck it out. Eventually, she was transferred to a vocational program where the course work was "easier."

Even after graduation from high school, Caroline still nourished a desire to someday go to college. Keenly aware that to do so she needed to improve her reading skills, she searched throughout the area for an adult reading program. At that time, however, no such programs in Mansfield existed, and Caroline set aside her dreams.

Instead, she went to work and married and busied herself raising a family. At the age of 32 with a son asking for help with his schoolwork and a new job requiring computer skills she realized things had to change.

By chance, Caroline discovered she was probably dyslexic. A school psychologist referred her to the adult literacy center at the Mansfield Public Library. In July of this year she entered the program and is now moving forward. "I'm putting little things together now. I know more than I knew before. I can sound out words." And dyslexia isn't an unfamiliar word anymore. Armed with books and tapes on the subject, she is plotting a course of action.

Reflecting on her progress, Caroline admits to "changing a lot." "What happened to me is not going to happen to Liam." She is now fighting to get her son the best education she possibly can. Caroline believes reading mastery should be the school's number one priority. Individualized attention is crucial to the success of students outside the mainstream she feels. "You don't overlook kids with learning disabilities. You get them tutors." And that's precisely what Caroline is urging her son's school to do - get more volunteer tutors.

"Education lets you look at things in a different way" notes Caroline. "Anything that is strange and out of the ordinary amazes me. I want to learn about all kinds of people how they live and what they believe." Ultimately Caroline hopes to translate her interest in people into work as a counselor.

"All my life people have told me you can't do this, you can't do that. Well, I'm older now and I don't believe it."

by Chris Monnier