I felt I was different from my brothers and sisters and friends and cousins.
Vincent Massey was a senior school program for students who were sixteen years old to twenty-one years old. Every student was handicapped. When I went to Vincent Massey, I wanted to learn things that would help me get a job and be part of the community. I wanted to learn to read, write, do math, take care of children. I felt left out, frustrated and bored because I wasn’t learning things.
When I went to school they didn’t teach me to read. They taught me yoga and crafts. I was upset with the work training that I had to do. I had to go to a park in winter to paint picnic tables. I had to pac potatoes. frnally, I told my sister that I didn’t want to do that anymore. It was cold at the park. The work was dirty. I had to come home dirty. I didn’t like it. My sister talked to my parents and they told the teacher that I wasn’t to do these things. My principal was mad at my sister. My brothers and sisters didn’t have to do that thinks at their school. I didn’t feel I was being respected.
I was bored at that school. I felt bad sometimes. I didn’t really have any friends. I liked some of the kids I went to school with but I only saw them at school. I didn’t do things with them on the weekend. We lived far from each other and we needed support to get together. My friends were my brothers and sisters and their friends and my relatives.
About ten years ago, a friend of my family, Paul, said he would help me to read. He taught me to read words from the sports page of the newspaper. It was fun. When Paul was teaching me, I felt good about myself. I realized I could learn to read. I made a decision to do something about it. My teacher didn’t support me. They told my sister that she was not being fair to me. They said I couldn’t read. They were wrong.
If I could change the school I went to I would change the subjects. I wouldn’t want crafts. I would want reading and writing. I had cooking classes but only watched the teacher. I would want to participate more. I would want to learn how to use the library.
