We had a meeting the other day with an entire entourage of caregivers. Two psychologists, a counselor, parents, school principal and six teachers but the student was nowhere in sight. It is clear that he was drowning in the overwhelming demands of high school. I was such a student.
I had struggled all through elementary school, but high school was another level of difficulty. I had moved out of a loving but crowded household at the age of 13. Another school private seminary had rejected me in eighth grade because of low entrance exam scores. But my father had connections. Both he and his brother, Francis, attended a Catholic seminary in the early 1940's just as World War II began. Some of his best friends were priestd now and my Dad took me to see the place, St. Joseph's in Princeton, New Jersey at the tender age of 12. I remember his words exactly. "It's not so important that you become a priest, but they can teach you how to study."
At the age of eleven I had expressed an interest in becoming a priest. It seems like a good idea at the time- being raised in a deeply religious family, it seemed to offer the opportunity to see the world and do good all at the same time. But by the summer of eighth grade I had started to change my mind. Girls had started to get my attention. And I said, "Dad, I think that I would rather wait until after high school to enter the seminary." My Dad knew better. He knew that if I did not enter now, that there would be little chance that I would be interested after high school. So I quote his reply in the previous paragraph.
I remember trying to read Great Expectations as a Freshman. I might as well have been trying to read Greek. (Greek would come later.) Every subject was far more difficult than I had ever had to do before, especially Algebra. I could say especially everything: World History, English, Latin, Algebra, and Theology. I think that they were all of the subjects. I pulled staight "F's". In fact the seminary school graded us with numbers and not letters. Under 70 was failing. So it came as a revelation once I left the seminary that a 69% was actually a D+.
I often feel a comradeship with failing freshmen. I know what it feels like to be at the bottom. I know what it feels like to be hopeless and overwhelmed. I was convinced that I was stupid. I know now that many of my problems stemmed from a reading disability. When I was in seventh grade, I could hardly read. I remember looking at the funny papers as a child, but only having the energy to read "Henry", a comic of few or no words. Somehow I was lucky. I wanted to read in spite of my disability. I pushed my way through my first book "The Longest Day" because I was interested in the subject.
I tell my Freshman that I am the only person at Analy High School to have attended five years of high school. My first year in the seminary was such a failure that they gave me the option of returning only if I repeated my Freshman year. Fortunately I wasn't alone. Dennis Greeley and Seth Copeland were my companions on this journey through a second Freshman year.
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