If They Were in My Old School

Tomorrow I start over in my high school. I transferred mid-year to a new school. I was very miserable in my old high school. I won’t elaborate now on what happened or why I had to go to have a happy high school experience. I got lucky. Two days before the semester ended my parents were able to get me into a new school. I think it will be a much more welcoming environment.

I wonder how my old high school would have treated Stephen Hawking, or Helen Keller, or Erik Weihenmayer if they had been students there. The first two were communication impaired and required one on one assistance. Helen fingerspelled her ideas into Annie Sullivan’s hand. She was independently thinking, not writing, in her earlier years. Would she have been accused of not doing her own work? Would they have resented her noises and too visible disability? Stephen Hawking is needing a lot of support. Would he be seen as an expensive burden, or worth giving the trained help he needs? Erik Weihenmayer is blind. Who knows? He might hurt himself.

The reason I bring up these three amazing individuals is not to compare myself with them but to imagine how my old high school would have treated them in the years they were different, severely challenged in a big high school environment, but not famous yet. I think it is easy to know the answer. Maybe they would have decided enough is enough like I did.
Onward and upward. It is time to start over.