22nd
March 2012
Dear Cassi,
There is a bit of business that happened in
middle school that would be a major shaping agent for the next six years of my
life. Up until the age of eleven I was classified as learning disabled.
Understand here that schools get more funding for the learning disabled so they
have no interest in curing this problem.
Now it just so happens that the school also
gets money for the honors students and that one can be both. This contradiction
is most perplexing given that a student must have problems to be learning
disabled and yet must be more capable than average to be in honors.
So they tested me for honors aptitude. I
went into one of the buildings with a math teacher who had these blue eyes that
darted about the room as if he were on drugs. They gave me an English test.
What the math teacher was doing there I cannot say but they gave me a set of
pictures and told me to write a story.
When I was done they explained to me that I
would be graded on how many long words I used. I think this was words over
seven letters however I cannot recall. As the written word and I had never
gotten on well I had written my story in the smaller words I was better with
and so had scored poorly.
Then they saw the word ‘jalopy’ in my story
and decided to count it even as it was one letter short. That day I became an
honors man and the school put a few more dollars in their budget. I only made
it through honors classes because they gave me special consideration.
Still the truth in this regard is that my
learning disorder was like a broken bone that had healed wrong. The problem
progressed only because it was never looked after and I suffered so that they
could make a few extra dollars.
Hear the roar of the all mighty dollar,
little sister
Richard Leland Neal
Also
updating today!
Random Street Theater a Comic
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