For almost five years now, I've struggled with a decision I made. Not because I don't like it, but because of other people's expectations and perceptions. I'm a people pleaser, always have been despite any outward appearance of being defiant. So its been a hard fight for me to fight. The decision? Not to go back to school.
For years, I've known that my strengths were in analytical fields. It wasn't until eighth grade however that my issues academically fully flared. I always knew I was nowhere near the best when it came to my essays, and that's why my dad often helped me with them. That was a perk to having a lawyer for a father. Writing was definitely a strong suit for my dad. But in eighth grade, I had an English teacher that to this day remains ingrained in my head as my least favorite teacher.
This teacher seemed like she was impossible to please. I know a lot of my classmates felt that way, (especially band kids, but that's a story for another time) but for me, it was worse. I was used to getting A's and B's on my assignments, even on my essays. (Up through that point ALL my classes were honors classes) She however kept giving me D's on papers. She was never satisfied even when Dad helped me with my papers. That was when she gave me a D simply because my papers were too good and she assumed I plagiarized. So of course my grades in English fell.
In the end though, I have to thank her. Due to my English grades falling, I no longer was eligible to be in Honors English my nineth grade year...which meant I was able to then get the best teacher I ever had. (No offense to my mother who was my fourth grade Math, Science, and Geography teacher, but I'm sure she'd make allowances knowing what this teacher did for me.) While she taught Honors English as well, she taught mostly regular English. It didn't take my teacher long to notice that I was really good at the analytical parts to English class, like grammar for example but not so good with the writing.
However, since in Montgomery County Maryland, writing is compiled with a time factor, we didn't think too much on the fact that it could be something besides I just was getting anxious under stress. (We by that point knew I had anxiety) It also was a very strict format that neither of my parents were familiar with, which made it a little more difficult for them to help me. One of the things my teacher did was gave me all the time I needed to write my essays (Called BCRs and ECRs - Brief Constructed Response and Extended Constructed Response) in class and she never made me time myself at home. In so doing, she alleviated the stress of time. However thanks to Montgomery County testing rules, when exam time came, she couldn't do that for me.
This posed another problem however. I had returned to my usual straight A's in English every quarter. BUT in Montgomery County, (I don't know if its still like this or not since its been 9 years) the grade that mattered was your semester grade. They figured out your semester grade by some mathematical equation correlating your quarter grades and your final grades. And for some odd reason, your final grade factored into your semester grade more than your quarter grades. And thanks to the timed factor of tests, I always did horrible on my tests. 1. I never finished them in time. 2. I can't write an essay worth a darn, so I'm sure the graders were super confused when they read my writings. (They had to send the exams in to the county, and the county hired graders to grade them)
My parents also hired a writing tutor that year for me (as well as a geometry tutor, but that was a different story entirely). They were trying and so was my English teacher, to make sure I succeeded in school since I didn't have a piece of paper that said 'This student has this learning disability'. Thanks to that teacher, I managed to pull off C's for my semester grades.
Tenth grade I took a turn for the worse since I didn't have a teacher that went above and beyond the call of duty. He was your average teacher so he didn't extend a helping hand to me (though admittedly he was impressed when I memerized a speech I gave as Tyresias-a blind prophet from the odyssey-and gave me bonus points for it.) So I didn't do as well with my quarter grades, though they weren't terrible persay either. In the end, my first semester grade was a D, and barely so if I remember correctly.
Then the tides changed back in my favor. That was the year I moved to Utah. Despite the challenges it presented moving in the middle of the school year-not limited to grades not transferring well and the finding my social niche-My grades drastically improved. Alta High School/Jordan School District (though they split the district recently and now Alta is in the canyons district.) didn't focus as much on writing, so much so that I qualifed the next year for honors English (Though I didn't take it because I hadn't been in honors English for two years and wasn't comfortable moving up). But we felt the good grades were too good to be true. Next year I didn't do as well, but I still did better than when I lived in Maryland.
We for my senior year requested a specific English teacher (my Academic Decathlon Coach). However because we requested her, and my previous year's grades were good enough, the school automatically put me in College Prep (Honors) English. At least I assume that's why, since we didn't request Honors English. She taught regular English as well, but for some reason I landed in her honors class. I did mediocre in English that year, which only proved it was a good thing I didn't take AP English my senior year. (Yeah crazy enough, that was my original plan at the end of my junior year... then I realized how crazy it was to go from regular English to AP.)
Then college came around... And that's where things got messy. All my classes involved writing. My dad was no longer around to review all my papers. And even if he were, that was a lot of papers to review all at once. Not to mention we also came back to the issue of timed tests. I found that college was a whole different world than high school. Almost nothing ever made sense, not even the subjects that I had done well in in high school. Testing especially became stressful, and every test I found myself with my hands on the sides of my head, my brows furrowed deep in concentration. And that just was to understand the test questions. Forget about getting the answers right. (Which I usually didn't, because even when I thought I understood the question, it turned out I didn't and thus I picked the wrong answer)
Over the course of time spent in grade school, my parents had the intuition to enroll me in a few testing skills classes, I had a lot of therapy to help with anxiety and issues from my childhood, and a few organizational classes. I tried to use what skills from those classes that I could. But often times it proved difficult. A number of classes didn't want you to write on tests for example, so I ended up staring at questions until I understood them.
Anxiety and depression had set in my second semester and I had become so discouraged that it became hard to even go to class. It didn't help that I spent my entire first semester hearing 'You got into BYU and you are in the honors program, so you are the cream of the crop.' The only reason I got in was because I got a 30 on my ACT and went to a program they do for minority potential students, and freshman weekend. While I was surround by kids with 3.9 or higher GPAs and had done pretty well on the ACT. People who didn't appear to be 'stupid' like me. So, in short, I flunked out my entire second semester. First semester was filled with C's and D's despite my efforts. I had been put on Academic Probation for the next semester. (However I chose to withdraw from BYU. It wasn't my cup of tea, and not just academically.)
The following summer was filled with what seemed like endless therapy sessions, and countless visits to the local community college and its guidance counselors. I even visited their disability advisor, only to hear that without that stupid piece of paper that says I've got a learning disability, its entirely up to my teachers to help me or not. I had decided the best course of action for me in the way of writing would be to take remedial writing classes.
BUT it was not to be. They did some placement testing, and of course I did too well on the English portion that I couldn't be placed in remedial English. So we went to Sylvan Learning Center to see what they could do for me. Well that turned out to be discouraging too. When they did their evaluative testing, they came up with results for the most part I had always known. I was smart on the analytical side of things. But my reading comprehension especially was low. That of a ninth grader. Which to them seemed odd because my grammar and vocabulary were at college level if not above. Based on my testing results, they recommended highly getting tested.
I didn't. My therapist for my anxiety (who I didn't like to be honest) seemed to think that it was not crucial. But to me, I felt it should have been something we did anyway, if anything just to have that extra validation that I needed extra help. Well it was in thus manner that I started a semester at SLCC and with only 9 credit hours. (I had to take that many for some reason. I can't remember exactly the details, it might be related to him being able to still claim me as a dependent or something) Again, I slowly felt myself getting discouraged, tests were still hard. Though thankfully at least my sociology teacher was amazing, he never made me use the scantron, let me write on my tests, and so on so forth. Best part? There was no essay writing in that class. So I pulled off a B. (He told me I could have gotten an A if I attended everyday, but hey.)
All in all, I liked going to the community college. But I had to pick the next semester, at the advice of my anxiety therapist (best advice she ever gave me was to focus on one thing at a time) whether I would get married or go to school. Well I REALLY wanted to get married, and honestly, by that time I was so frustrated with school and certain I wouldn't succeed, that it was rather easy to stop school.
I had thought at the time eventually I might go back. I did try a class once since getting married at the community college, and once online. It only proved that school was just not my thing. Again I found myself discouraged, not doing well, super stressed, and so on. Now, I know for certain, school just simply isn't my thing.
I don't regret making that choice for one minute. But like I said before, it makes life a little more difficult. Especially in this day and age, its expected you at least get a bachelors degree. If not, you are a failure. If you flunk out of college, it's because you are stupid. Its really hard to find a good job now with only a high school education under your belt. I applied to countless jobs in the first year of marriage. So many I lost track. I had two crappy restaurant jobs where both of them I was being paid minimum wage. The first one wasn't so bad, I loved who I worked with, I had fun yelling back to the cooks 'Five in the door, 2 patties 1 dog!' (I worked at Five Guys). I started out as a busser, but even that I loved.
Red Robin... the job I had for nine months but wish I had never had. I KNEW without a doubt I was being taken advantage of... They underworked me hours wise but overworked me with stuff to do simply because they didn't expect any of the other hosts to do anything. I did all the closing duties, all the opening duties. sometimes all at once and I was supposed to do a half hour opening duty job PLUS an hour long closing duty job in absolutely no time at all! They kept asking me to come in later and later, whe I had to open the store. At first it was half hour before it opened, then 115, then not at all. And then when they sent me home in the mornings kept getting earlier and earlier. I ended up only being there for half hour fourty five minutes a lot of days. (Which i didn't find out until I moved on to a law firm that what they were doing was illegal.)
Now I work at a law firm, and I have a lot of credentials under my belt, and I get paid better than what my husband makes at his full time work, and I'm only part time. Especially now that we have a child. I'm trained in the document center, so I know how to do all the copy machine stuff, mail machine stuff, and I'm also trained as a receptionist, and I'm trained on the filing for offsite. In the document center, I seemed to often be used as the fountain of all knowledge especially since I've now worked in the firm for just over four years, and 3.5 of them in the doc center.
So frankly, I can hardly say my high school education hasn't gotten me anywhere. I'm hardly a failure. And I'm definitely not stupid. I work hard and I pick things up fast. If that isn't enough to prove I'm all right, then lets add to it the fact that I also am a mother to an eight month old. I'm pretty sure motherhood is the hardest job in the world. Not that I consider it a job. And there is no doubt that my son loves me, just the way I am. He doesn't know that I'm 'uneducated' by the world's standards. And if he did, I'm sure he wouldn't care. All he sees is that I'm a mom. I also have a wonderful husband who loves me, and would do anything for me. I may not be in perfect health, bu I'm trying to get better.
THAT is success/
Success is not measured by how much school you complete or by having the highest paying job. Success is how you deal with what you are given. And I've done pretty well for myself, especially when you considered I was brought into this world with basically nothing and spent 7.5 years in foster care. (And spent time battling racism and social stigmas and so on.) Success... I've found a great deal of it.
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