Читать книгу Becoming a Counselor - Samuel Gladding T., Samuel T. Gladding - Страница 29

I thought I had some intelligence as teenager, but compared to the top tier of students at Decatur High School I was on a secondary level. As Jo Dee Messina’s lyrics would later describe, but in another context, I was “above the below and below the upper.” I did not have a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics mind, and I was not especially fast at picking up complex concepts. To make matters worse, my spelling and pronunciation of words were abysmal. When I was told to look up words in the dictionary, I often failed because I could not decipher the letter the word began with or certain vowels and consonants. For instance, when the orchestra from the Baptist Children’s Home visited our church—and they did so twice—I could have sworn the minister said their orphanage was in “Hateville,” not “Hapeville.” To house orphans in Hateville seemed very odd and ungodly!

There was also the matter of leaving letters out of words or adding them in. For instance, I spelled “library” as “libary” until my first year in college. To rectify this problem, I later married a librarian. Then there was pronunciation. I usually mispronounced words I had never seen before, even one-syllable words. I also eschewed words that began with certain letters, like “w,” because I could not get the sound right. (That is why I do not live in Washington—the state or DC!)

To combat my deficiencies, I developed a routine for studying and completing my homework. It involved rote memorization. After supper, I went to the room in the back of the house, which had a desk, a lamp, and space for my schoolbooks. There I tackled my homework assignments starting with the hardest one first. I was focused and occasionally would finish before my bedtime at 11 p.m.

I cannot say I enjoyed this weekday routine of memorizing, although I liked learning and my ritualistic behavior helped me get better grades than I would have otherwise. I was at peace knowing I was doing the best I could, but my biggest wish was for a more functional brain.