Please Help Him Find the Words
For every kid who was punished for the way their brain learns, not the effort they gave
I thought about the me, embarrassed, the one the teacher snapped out of a daydream. A question hanging in the air about the material I’d been tasked with reading, understanding, and memorizing. I had given my greatest effort, til nearly the point of tears, wrestling with frustration that never gave way to skill so desperately needed and wanted.
My failure to respond at the speed of the teacher’s impatience was all it took to seal the verdict: I hadn’t studied. I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Please help him find the words to show the difference between won’t and can’t.
To show the late nights spent rereading the same sentence until the lines blurred.
To show how the information went in, then scattered like birds the moment someone said, “Pop quiz.”
Please help him find the words to explain that his silence wasn’t defiance.
It was a loading screen no one waited for.
A brain buffering while the room moved on without him.
Help him say, “I am not empty. I am overwhelmed.”
Help him say, “I am not lazy. I am lost.”
Help him say, “My pace is not proof that I don’t care.”
And I want to let this version of me know something no one told him then:
he is no longer responsible for carrying the weight of someone else’s ignorance.
Not the teacher who confused struggle with apathy.
Not the adult who mistook processing time for disrespect.
Their lack of understanding is not his burden to drag through the years.
If he never quite finds those words in time for your question,
at least let your face answer differently than my teachers did.
Trade the raised eyebrow for a softer one.
Trade, “Why didn’t you study?” for “Do you want to walk through it together?”
Because sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a kid like that
is to believe their effort is real,
even when their answer is late,
and remember that their worth was never yours to grade.
Thanks for being you,
Brian
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