Special Learner

It is important to me that we come back to the fact that children did not plan or choose the lives they are living. They have to cope with the families into which they were born or adopted. They have to work with the bodies they received at conception. They have to learn with their own particular sets of abilities and limitations. In spite of their differences, all children are worthy; all children are precious; all children are unique individuals in spite of the labels we sometimes put on them. This poem is a great reminder.

 

Special Learner

I didn’t choose to be this way

I wanted to be smart

To gain your praise, my friends amaze

with gold stars on the chart

You’ll never know how very much

I wanted to be fast

To turn in work with time to spare

Instead, I’m always last

I don’t know why I ask you things

then ask you to repeat it

I don’t know why I try to

fi nish work and can’t complete it

I don’t know why for me it’s hard

to grasp the things you teach

It seems I almost get it

then it slips beyond my reach

My heart’s desire is to inspire

succeed, achieve, and fl ourish

But I’m a kid in desperate need

of one who’ll teach and nourish

All my expectations,

all my hopes so wild

For underneath the labels, see?

I’m just another child

 

Click Here to print: SpecialLearnerPoem.pdf