FACILITATOR IN BUSINESS
At school I was
classified as "dumb" not only by the teachers but my peers as well. I was judged
and sentenced and put to the back of the class. My crime, I think deeply and slowly before
I reply, I take information apart before I form my "own" opinion. I would always
be the last (and this got up everyone's nose). Therefore I was told repeatedly that I was
"thick".
However, the teacher asked me (aged 10) to "listen to them read", the three boys that were deemed thick also. I did as requested. I was tough. If they said a word wrong, I made them repeat it and write it down ten times, if they didn't know the meaning of the word, I handed them the dictionary before they were allowed to go on with the story. At the end of the chapter if they couldn't summarise what they had read, or have an opinion about the book in general I made them read it all over again. One of the boys started to cry and said I was "worse than the bloody teacher".
The result: two of the boys got into grammar school and the boy who cried improved his reading level by 2 years above his actual age group. Yet the teacher got the credit by the parents because they had no idea who helped their children. Therefore who trained who?
I also made a point of asking the boys from the start what they wanted to become when they left school, and therefore had a base to work from.
I was asked by a friend of the family how I was enjoying school. My reply was (aged 9) that the whole system was wrong, I proceeded to state a long list and finished with "this is why I'd do better to teach myself". My mother told me to shut up and go upstairs. I'd guessed at that age nobody liked a smart mouth. Therefore who is a child or an adult?