Quick Essay

Sarah- an essay.

“If you were in my body right now, you’d be very cold,” she said. Strange way of looking at the situation, I thought. She could have just asked to turn up the heat. That’s Sarah, though, an unusual young girl. I am her stepfather. Growing up in a home with a hardworking single mom, her older sister taking care of her most days, she was bound to learn some of life’s lessons the hard way. Determination and perseverance are traits I have admired in my younger daughter since she first decided that being “different” from her classmates and friends kind of stinks. She, through some stroke of genetic luck, has a brain that learns differently than most. Rather than getting caught up in the cycle of labeling, accommodation, and correction she experienced at school, she has chosen to leverage her unique view of the world and overcome whatever obstacles are before her. When Sarah was nine years old and in fourth grade, we discovered she couldn't read. She masked this fact with an incredible memory. Able to recite entire pages of text from her favorite books, she had learned to memorize instead of learning to read. To correct this situation, she was faced with spending the evenings working with a specialized tutor instead of playing with friends, participating in sports, or other normal kid activities. How long this would take was anyone's guess. It could be a few months or a few years before she learned to make sounds out of the symbols on the paper in front of her. With great resolve, though, she attacked this challenge and taught us all a lesson in the process. Her teachers at school were very supportive, offering to test her verbally instead of on paper. She scored very high on this type of exam, but wanted to be like the other kids in her class and refused special treatment. She spent extra time with the tutor, scheduled sessions on the weekends and missed out on birthday parties, play dates, and a whole summer’s worth of fun. Then, things began to...