Life With Dyslexia

(To start this is going to be part of a challenge I'm going to impart myself to become a better writer-day 1 out of 30 :))

Background,

Hello Steemit! My name is Jack and I'm a 17 year old from Georgia. I was Diagnosed with dyslexia when I was young enough to get tested. One of my favorite hobbies is programming and I'm currently working on a game in Decentraland( a tutorial of which brought me to Steemit). I plan on going to college next year and studying computer science which (hopefully) will land me a job at a cool place. I also love to swim but my swim career is coming to an end as I finish this school year.

Life,

  First grade- I can vividly remember, it was the beginning of class. I was fiddling with my pencil and paying attention to the teacher. She was describing some wheel shaped spinney and pointing at some glue stick, but what?? The class seemed to nod as if they could understand what she was talking about, yet I was stuck in the middle of the class my mind a void as to what we were supposed to do. Begin! she said, marking the beginning of the station circuit I look to my friends to copy what they were doing but how could everyone know what to do but me? How was that even possible? I repeatedly looked to my classmates for help, asking for what to do. The annoyed look they gave me! It was if I was asking 1000 questions, was I an idiot? I constantly needed step by step instructions to make what was a shoddy piece of paper with glue attached to it. Time seemed nonexistent, I was in paralysis. The teacher instructed us to move to the next station which was on to the spinney wheel thing. Again bombarding my classmates with questions I was unable to figure out what was going on. I asked and asked until finally...finally  we finished. This being one of the stressful days of my elementary school career.

   sixth grade - It was meet your teacher night, so me and my mom went to go check out what I had in store for the year. Every classroom my mom would tell the teachers to make sure I'm paying attention if It seemed like I had zoned out. She told all four of them(we switched teachers for each subject) that I was dyslexia and would have trouble paying attention during class. I hated this! Why would she tell them I'm different? I couldn't stand being looked at like I was the idiot in the class. I didn't want any less treatment than my friends. I could be smart too! By the time we got about half way into the school year, my Language Arts teacher assigned us a two day project where we would make a restaurant menu. This was wicked cool for me! I have always been interested in cooking and recipes. I spend the entire day working on it while away from swim practice, and had the perfect recipes that would have made up an awesome menu. I was on a call with my best friend telling him I was positive I'd get a 100 the next day right? Wrong, I got a 70 on it. Probably one of the most devastating days  of middle school. Everyone else had just copied a menu from a local restaurant and gotten a 100 on it! Unbelievable! It ruined my entire day.

  Seventh Grade - Language Arts class, we were all instructed to write a phrase from a short reading we had just read on the board, I accidentally capitalized the 'A' in 'As' which was not at the beginning of sentence. The teacher looked at it and made a joke severely embarrassing me in the middle of class. How could it be this late into my life and I still can't get my letters and structure right?

  High school - I'm currently enrolled in high school and am ready to go to college. One of the current struggles I'm facing as far as my school years goes is standardized testing. While I've developed my struggles with Language Arts and reading have faded. Unfortunately, one of the problems I still face is answering tricky questions. My score on the SAT and ACT have been incredibly low even though my reading comprehension has increased tremendously!  Why can't I be like everyone else? There's more, I've found things very interesting. I know what I want to do with my life and have began to pursue those dreams already. I'm now ready to fail, even if that means life will give me a C when I deserve an A.  In fact I hope it happens, because the more I learn the more tools I have under my belt. 

Conclusion,

  First hand thoughts, we need to not look at our dyslexics as people with disabilities, rather abilities. We do what we love and will thrive towards our goals. Sometimes we just need a lot of direction. Failure is not a setback but something to shove into our foundation. It makes us people and strengthens us. Don't look at us as lesser look at us with untapped unbound potential. If you're an educator or parent of a child with dyslexia do your best to be able to tap into that potential because it is much needed. :)

(I have read a few books on Dyslexia and this is what I discovered + related to my own life)

Lessons to be learned-

1. Dyslexia is another way of thinking, not a disadvantage
2. Dyslexics only like to pursue what they like but when they do they put themselves on full-throttle. They will not only discover the bare minimum but the maximum.
3. Be patient with Dyslexic's but still expect full potential.
4. If allowing someone diagnosed with Dyslexia to read a book make sure they love it(not like it literally has to be love) and I guarantee they will read it in an extremely short period of time.
5. Be patient, be persistent.

Side note,
I have not told almost anyone I have dyslexia at school or at swim but this is my way of telling the world who I am and to embrace myself and for that I thank Steemit :))