Retard

When I was a child, I was in a special education resource room for 2 hours a week, for speech impediments and dyslexia. I understood the speech therapy classes. Hell, even I knew I couldn't talk properly. No one, however, bothered to explain why I was in the retard room. I didn't even hear the term dyslexic until after I was an adult. Having been put in the retard room, I was, obviously, too stupid for the mainstream.

This was a serious fallacy on the part of the children. Back in the 70's, as I have explained in other posts, there were limited facilities for children with a wide range of difficulties. Pretty much everyone with a mental or physical handicap passed through the special ed room at some point in their school careers. Not realizing this, I grew up assuming I was stupid.

Having more interaction with the "special" kids than most mainstreamers, I did know a few children who were actually retarded. I knew they were dumb, but that didn't bother me as much as how they looked, dressed, talked. Some of them couldn't unconsciously control their lip muscles, and would drool. Some had the physical characteristics of Down's Syndrome. Some had deformed limbs. One was a dwarf. One was in a wheelchair. In later years, my school became certified for teaching blind students, and we had a group of about ten. Not all of these kids were stupid. The dwarf, in fact, still lives here in town, and owns her own business. But children, like all people, are prejudiced against those who are different.

The word retard makes a great insult, does it not? It says so very much in only 6 letters. It knocks the person right off his ass, and down on the ground with the other animals, where he belongs, and raises you up a notch on the ladder of evolution. Retard was a common childhood insult when I was growing up, and I admit I used it as much as anyone else. At the same time, I had an empathy for the mentally disabled, having been in class with them, and been judged (even by myself) as one of them.

Oddly enough, when I was in the 6th grade, the school put together another resource program-- one for gifted students. I was the only person to be both in the smart class and the retard class at the same time.

I didn't belong in the smart class. I was, after all, a dummy. The school actually did make the mistake of putting far more children in the advanced class than truly belonged there. By some act of god, the administration realized its mistake, and corrected it the next year.

Even though I was an idiot, I loved the advanced class. We played around with logic, math, art.... I even got my first introduction to the computer-- an Apple II, which ran a form of BASIC. One of our projects was to learn to program the thing. Odd task for a retard.

In seventh grade, I stopped going to the resource rooms for anything other than the advanced class. It was just as well, because by this time, I knew I was not retarded, and I didn't understand why I was there. This would have been the perfect time for someone to sit down with me and explain dyslexia, and the point of the exercises I had been blowing off for the last few years. Had I understood there was an actual reason behind them, I might have applied myself.

In the seventh grade, the classes were divided by ability, in the hopes of better preparing everyone for the rigors of high school. Suprisingly enough, I was placed in the highest class for everything.

The peer pressure in Jr. High school is greater than at any other point in a person's life. A twelve year old will do almost anything to fit in, if only temporarily. I remember a girl, who lived on the next block. She was 3 years younger than I, and (still) in special ed. We had played together after school and in the summer for years. One day, I saw her at her locker, being bullied by my classmates. The only excuse I have is that I was 12. I joined in, attacking her just as visciously. She ran away in tears. And for a day, I had friends. Until those friends remembered that I was just another dummy, and turned on me, as I had done to Rebecca. Rebecca herself never spoke to me again.

In the eighth grade (the last before high school, for you foreigners), we were lectured time and time again over the importance of our educations, and how our choices now would influence our high school years, and our ultimate success. We had to meet with the high school counselor, to plan our freshman courses. As I had been in the band in grade school, he automatically arranged my schedule around band. I was too shy to tell him I had planned to drop band, and let him put me in whatever courses he liked. One of those was Algebra.

I was afraid of algebra. Not realizing that I'd already been learning it for a year, I refused at first to take it. There was another class, Introduction to Algebra, that I wished to take instead. It seemed logical. I didn't know algebra-- I needed introduced to it. The counsellor explained to me that it was the same class as Algebra 1, only broken down into two years. He told me I'd be bored stiff in a week. He also explained that for college, I needed to take geometry, trig, and calculus. He told me if I took the Intro course, I would ruin my life. Shyly, I agreed, aghast at my nerve in daring to argue with an adult male in an authority position.

Of course, I did well in algebra, and successfully managed my high school math career. Yet at odd times, I would remember that the intro class would have ruined my life, and I worried about those students condemned to take it.

I also began vaguely worrying about the retarded kids. How were they supposed to grow up, move out of their family homes, get jobs? What were they supposed to do with their lives? At that time, I had no answers, and I generally forgot about it within a few minutes.

One of the retarded students was in my gym class and had the same lunch hour I did. Valerie was the ultimate bully magnet. She actually was mentally handicapped, and as such people often are, overly trusting and friendly. I remember one lunch period, a group of kids were picking on her. They'd taken her lunch, and were playing keep-away with it. I wasn't 12 any longer. I grabbed the lunch, gave it back to Valerie, and told them to leave her the hell alone. Of course, the gang turned on me, but I felt I was far better able to handle it than Valerie was.

The kids left Valerie alone for a time afterwards, and she took to following me around the school like a lost puppy looking for a boy. I wanted nothing to do with Valerie. I was (almost) as shallow as the kids who had been picking on her. In order to discourage her, I was brusque and rude, but not outright hateful. Eventually she drifted away.

At the daycare center, one of our girls was severely handicapped. She was in a wheelchair, in diapers, could not speak, and could not control most of her body. She had to be fed, changed, dressed, bathed. I worried about her quite a lot. What was going to happen to her when her parents passed away? Who would care for her? Why would a loving god put her on this earth?

At the time, the only care facilities I was aware of were long-term nursing homes. I didn't know about group homes such as the one I would soon work in.

I had to leave my apartment while they renovated, so I moved back home. I needed a job, and in a small town, a person with little education and no transportation doesn't have much in the way of choice. It was the nursing home (I'd worked there before, and had no desire to do so again), one of the 3 fast-food restaurants, or the home for disabled. I didn't want to work in the home-- it was nothing but a nursing home, after all. I didn't want to repeat that experience. Mom just about literally dragged me to the home for an application.

I walked in, and was visibly impressed. The place looked homey, didn't smell like urine, and had pictures a person would actually like on their walls. The director impressed me as well. We got along famously. One of the residents was home (had a broken leg), and I was able to meet her. One of the requirements for taking the job was to have dinner with the group, which enabled me to meet them all. I liked what I saw, and took the job.

I have come to learn more about these people than I ever would have guessed. Something I was always vaguely aware of has become real to me. They are human beings, with the same emotions and needs as we all have-- no matter how well our brains process information, or whether we can involuntarily control our lips. We all need to give and receive love. And what's on the outside matters not a whit.