A classroom full of flowers II

　　The next afternoon i asked my colleague not to come into my class again. I needed to handle the kids my own way. I returned to my room and made eye contact with ea ch student. Then I went to the board and wrote ECINAJ.

　　"That's my first name," I said. "Can you tell me wh at it is?"

　　they tole me my name was "weird" and that they had never seen it before. I went to the board again and thi s time wrote JANICE. Several of them blurted the word, then gave me a funny look.

　　"You're right, my name is janice," I said. "I'm lea rning-impaired, something called dyslexia. WhenI began school I couldn't write my own name correctly. I couldn 't spell words, and numbers swam in my head. I was labe led 'retarded'. That's right---i was a 'retard'. I can still hear those awful voices and feel the shame."

　　"So how'd you become a teacher?" someone asked.

　　"because I hate labels and I'm not stupid and I lov e to learn. That's what this class is going to be about . If you like the label'retard', then you don't belong here. Change classes. There are no retarded people in t his room."

　　"I'm not going to be easy on you," i continued. "we 're going to work and work until you catch up .you will graduate, and I hope some of you will go on to universi ty. That's not a joke---it's a promise. I don't ever wa nt to hear the word'retard' in this room again. Do you understand?"

　　they seemed to sit up a little straighter.

　　We did work hard, and I soon caught glimpses of pro mise. Mark, especially , was very bright. I heard him t ell a boy in the hall, "This book's real good. We don't read baby books in there." He was holding a copy of to kill a mockingbird.

　　Months flew by, and the improvement was wonderful. Then one day mark said, "but people still think we're s tupid because we don't talk right." It was the moment I had been waiting for. Now we could begin an intensive f or. Now we could begin an intensive study of grammar, b ecause they wanted it.(to be continued)

　　By janice anderson connolly