A letter to one of my least favorite teachers

I despise her still to this day but she made me who I am today.

Dear Mrs. V,

This is a letter i will never give you. You were one of the teachers at my middle school and elementary school. You help kids who had ADHD. You diagnosed them and then help them. I had heard from friends who were in grades before. They were wrong. So very wrong.

You diagnosed me with ADHD because I wasn't able to tie my shoes, spell the word because, and the fact I liked to wander. I was slow. Slow in the membrane. The kids in my class could already read full books in 2nd grade and here I was reading comic books because I couldn't read, but instead, look at the pictures.

You brought me to your room, it was in the library in the back by the comic books. I had never been in there and you brought me there by myself.

And you did something that still haunts me to this day. You called me the r slur. You called me a retard. Five times in one sentence. That's what I was, so you opened a new world for me.

I was a retard. That was true. You told me to get out and so I did. I didn't tell anyone about that day until I left school. I left the school to go to one of the best private high schools in the nation.

You were surprised. Of course, you were. Everyone was. I was not a smart kid. I have never been a smart kid.

I have mastered my disability. Because of you. Because of the fact you yelled at me that one day and called me those harsh words.

A few weeks go by and you finally take me back into your classroom. There were a few other kids in there.

I was smarter than all of them. Why was I there? Right, because I couldn't spell a word or I couldn't tie my shoes. That's why I was there. Because I learned differently than others. I was stupid or a moron. I just learned differently.

After a few months, you finally helped me. You helped me in ways that I could understand. You figured out my way of learning. I couldn't sit down and take a test. You turned learning into games. You made it fun.

I could not read and you helped me. I always read word for word slowly. But you taught me how to make my words flow and actually sound like a story.

You helped me. You made me think I was stupid, but at the same time, you helped me.

By 4th grade, I was able to read and write. You helped me. Then I left the program. I was one of the only people in my class to leave that program.

I mastered my disability. But why did I do that? I did that because of the way you treated me at first.

You didn't treat me the same as the other 5 kids in the class. You called me slurs. You didn't call them slurs. You help them right off the bat, but you didn't do that for me.

They stayed in the class for all 9 years of middle school and elementary because you didn't call them slurs.

I spent 2 years in that class and not 9 years. All because you called me slurs.

And that's why I want to thank you. Thank you for calling me slurs, thank you for spending more time with the other kids, thank you for diagnosing me with ADHD.

Sincerely,

Chloe