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 question-
asker – 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 dome-
shaped 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.