Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff Read Online Free Page B

and boring tests, the doctor explained to my mom that I was what they called “dual exceptional.” It sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t mean that I have any special dueling abilities like the swordsmen in The Three Musketeers. It also doesn’t mean that I have a major psychiatric disorder like multiple personalities. That might be kind of cool in a weird sort of way. What “dual exceptional” means is that I am what they call “gifted.” This means I’m pretty bright, and yet I’m also learning disabled. This makes school challenging for me.
    Yes, you can be gifted and learning disabled at the same time. The two words are not a contradiction in terms. I once heard a comedian refer to the words “jumbo shrimp” as one of these conflicted phrases.
    I’ve learned to accept the fact that I’m an enigma to some. Still, it is a bummer to be misunderstood. The whole syndrome can sometimes make me feel like I am on the outside looking in. Everyone else seems to be getting it, and I’m not.
    What really burns me up, though, is when teachers don’t get it. In middle school, I took Language Arts with Mrs. Smith. She had piercing brown eyes that made you feel like you had done something wrong. Her no-nonsense, rigid posture made her look as though she’d forgotten to take the wire coat hanger out of her dress. Her face was angular, stiff and white, like a freshly starched and laundered hanky. A smile rarely creased her well-powdered complexion. I could imagine only an intermittent smirk grazing those thin red lips as she X’d her way through someone’s failing test paper with her glorious red marker.
    I was enrolled in Mrs. Smith’s gifted section. That first day, she not only set down the rules of her cellblock, but she handed out copies of them for us to memorize and be tested on the following day. I knew right away that I had better “advocate” for myself. This is just some big, fancy-shmancy term that means to stand up for yourself. In my case, trying to explain, for the umpteenth time, about my learning disabilities. Basically, I have lousy reading comprehension and my handwriting is the pits. So I told her that I have ADD and that I might need to take home some reading assignments because my concentration is better when I am in a quiet setting. I went on to explain to her about my “fine motor skill” problems, which make my handwriting look like chicken scratch. I asked her if I might be able to use my word processor at home to do written assignments.
    As I explained all this to Mrs. Smith, she gave me a squinty-eyed look down her bespectacled nose and said, “You are no different from anyone else, young man. If I do for you, I have to do for all the others.” She snorted once and then added, “I will not give you an unfair advantage over your peers!” And with that, the bell rang and a herd of students swept me away to my next period.
    The comprehension packets were rough. You had to read them, digest them and write an essay on them, all within the forty-five-minute allotted time. Not only couldn’t I finish the reading, I couldn’t write my essay fast enough or neatly enough to be legible. The result was that each paper came back decorated by Mrs. Smith’s flaming red pen. She was like the mad Zorro of red X’s.
    One day, after she had handed me back my fifth X’dout paper of the term, I approached her desk for the second time.
    â€œWould you mind very much if I completed the next packet at home, Mrs. Smith? I think I might do better where there is less distraction.” Then I backed away from her desk as though I were within firing range of her loaded mouth.
    Mrs. Smith bit her thin red lips as her trademark smirk spread across them. “It’s against school policy, young man. No unfair advantages. I have treated all students the same in the thirty years I have taught