Jessaca Willis's Blog - Posts Tagged "personal-share"
Personal Share: The Girl Who Learned to Believe in Herself
Every single person has the power to change someone’s life. They might not even realize it’s happening, but our actions and our words matter to those around us.
I’d like to share a story, a story about a girl who learned to believed in herself.
One of my favorite toys, when I was 4-6 years old, was a "laptop” with learning activities. It had at least a dozen different games to learn about spelling, rhyming, word puzzles, syntax, and more. I loved learning; I loved reading and writing, and always wanted to get better. At the time, I didn’t see my struggles as failures, but as obstacles that I was meant to overcome.
When I was 7, my class had something called Writer’s Workshop, a time when every student spent an hour writing/illustrating stories to then share with the class. It was my favorite activity, and it was how I decided I wanted to become an author.
But when my mom got a new job out of state, we had to move, and I left behind the school and teachers that inspired me.
At my new school, at age 8, I was put into a reading group because I read slower than other students. It was the first time I started feeling ashamed to read out loud, especially when it came to words I didn’t know. Suddenly, "not knowing", suddenly “learning” was becoming synonymous to “failing.”
I remember being 11 and my best friends making fun of me for how I read out loud, and how when I wrote, I wrote like I was “trying to sound smart.” I felt ashamed for trying to be something I wasn’t, for trying to be smarter than I was, and once again, learning and growing started to seem taboo.
I remember being 13 and realizing I was dyslexic. In some ways, it was actually a relief to learn that there was a legitimate reason I had always struggled. In other ways though, it also made me feel “less than” and “stupid.” My dreams of becoming a writer died because only "smart people" without learning disabilities were writers.
Fast forward through my gradual disconnection with school, and I’m yet again transferring school districts to attend an alternative school/learning center. Immediately, this too made me feel inferior, because the stigma of alternative education was so strong.
But it was in this school that, for the first time since Writer's Workshop, a teacher told me that I had a talent for writing. It was here that I started enjoying writing assignments again and going out of my way for opportunities to share my story and words. It was at here that I decided to go to college because I realized I wasn’t “stupid” and I did enjoy learning. It was here that my passion for writing was revived.
It would take me a decade to finally publish my first novel, but without that one person who believed in me, I don’t think I ever would have.
Our words matter. Our encouragements matter. If we all just supported one another instead of tearing each other down, think of the kind of world we could live in. I truly believe that, together, we as human beings can overcome anything.
I’d like to share a story, a story about a girl who learned to believed in herself.
One of my favorite toys, when I was 4-6 years old, was a "laptop” with learning activities. It had at least a dozen different games to learn about spelling, rhyming, word puzzles, syntax, and more. I loved learning; I loved reading and writing, and always wanted to get better. At the time, I didn’t see my struggles as failures, but as obstacles that I was meant to overcome.
When I was 7, my class had something called Writer’s Workshop, a time when every student spent an hour writing/illustrating stories to then share with the class. It was my favorite activity, and it was how I decided I wanted to become an author.
But when my mom got a new job out of state, we had to move, and I left behind the school and teachers that inspired me.
At my new school, at age 8, I was put into a reading group because I read slower than other students. It was the first time I started feeling ashamed to read out loud, especially when it came to words I didn’t know. Suddenly, "not knowing", suddenly “learning” was becoming synonymous to “failing.”
I remember being 11 and my best friends making fun of me for how I read out loud, and how when I wrote, I wrote like I was “trying to sound smart.” I felt ashamed for trying to be something I wasn’t, for trying to be smarter than I was, and once again, learning and growing started to seem taboo.
I remember being 13 and realizing I was dyslexic. In some ways, it was actually a relief to learn that there was a legitimate reason I had always struggled. In other ways though, it also made me feel “less than” and “stupid.” My dreams of becoming a writer died because only "smart people" without learning disabilities were writers.
Fast forward through my gradual disconnection with school, and I’m yet again transferring school districts to attend an alternative school/learning center. Immediately, this too made me feel inferior, because the stigma of alternative education was so strong.
But it was in this school that, for the first time since Writer's Workshop, a teacher told me that I had a talent for writing. It was here that I started enjoying writing assignments again and going out of my way for opportunities to share my story and words. It was at here that I decided to go to college because I realized I wasn’t “stupid” and I did enjoy learning. It was here that my passion for writing was revived.
It would take me a decade to finally publish my first novel, but without that one person who believed in me, I don’t think I ever would have.
Our words matter. Our encouragements matter. If we all just supported one another instead of tearing each other down, think of the kind of world we could live in. I truly believe that, together, we as human beings can overcome anything.
