My Educational Life by Vincent

My Educational Life by Vincent - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

As a young child, I never liked school and it seemed for a long time that school never liked me. Going to elementary school was like living on the island of misfit toys. However, in this case, I was the misfit. Dyslexia can do that to any young scholar; it controls how a person feels, is motivated, becomes easily frustrated, and discouraged. It was near that time, that I decided to tackle dyslexia and become the best and brightest student in my school.
During my first few years of school, I was not a very good reader, especially when reading aloud. I was poor at math, a horrendous speller and had some of the worst handwriting in human history. I would often sit at my desk feeling like everyone around me was learning, and I was playing catch up. I was “held back” in first grade, and struggled through second and third. My reading and writing didn’t seem to improve at the rate of the other students. It seemed that my frustration and confidence was in direct correlation with my poor grade. I was hopeless.
I started seeing my school's reading specialist, Mrs. Williams, to help with my many issues with school. It was her diagnosis to my parents that changed my entire outlook and success in school. Being diagnosed with dyslexia was difficult for me at that age but eventually became the very learning style that separated me from my classmates. Dyslexia, also known as a reading disorder, is typically referred to as a learning disability characterized by trouble reading despite a normal intelligence. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include sounding out words, spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, pronouncing words when reading aloud, and understanding what was read. In a very short time, however, and with the help of my parents and a dyslexia expert, I began to see my dyslexia not as a learning disability, but rather a learning style, and once understood and managed, an advantage that my classmates did not possess.
I immediately started to apply the techniques that the expert taught me, and slowly but surely, my grades started to improve along with my confidence and love for school. I still hated the pre-teen part of school because I was treated differently by teachers and students alike for being different, but the school work began to get easier and I found interest in most subjects. At this point in my academic career, I decided to make it my goal to never get anything less than an A in a class ever again.
I remind myself daily of the goal, I have kept every report card and standardized test result showing my dedication and fruits of my labors. Besides keeping a perfect grade point average, my attitude towards school has changed, and I actually started to enjoy going to school. I’ve made numerous friends, I participate on two varsity teams, being named a captain to one, and all because I overcame what most would consider a learning disability.