“I felt like an elephant on stilts.” - JT’s reflection of her experiences with the Arrowsmith Program and Eaton Arrowsmith Redmond

My story at Eaton Arrowsmith.

My name is JT, I am eighteen years old, and I started Eaton Arrowsmith when I was eleven years old, and it has improved me to an unfathomable amount. I will never forget the day I could finish a whole novel of Percy Jackson and when I was able to ride my bicycle without training wheels.

Before Eaton Arrowsmith

Before Eaton Arrowsmith I struggled with math. Oh, the horror of math. Holding all the numbers in your head, I could not do any addition, where the answer was beyond ten. You were supposed to hold it, six plus seven and I was supposed to do it without counting? Just make up a number that was past ten? What would be the number be in one’s place? How should I know? I needed paper!  And the multiplication math questions I loved were anything times ten and anything times one. My elementary school teachers asked me these questions and I did not know how to respond. Why other kids could do it, did they just intuitively know these math questions? I felt embarrassed. And I kept fighting with my mom who thought the math answers were so obvious.

I struggled to read. I wondered why other kids were reading chapter books while I was stuck reading picture books, why other kids my age could read Harry Potter and I could not? Isn’t a colorful book better? I felt embarrassed when other kids looked at me as I was reading my Dr. Suess picture books. I indeed attempted to read a bit of a novel, I would take one glance at the novel; and they were all just uncomprehensive tiny clumps of words to me. I could not enjoy a novel and felt reading one was unnecessary, laborious, and tedious. How could other kids do it?

I also could not ride my bicycle. I cried. All the other kids around me, my sister, my friend, my sister’s friends, even three-year-olds could ride bicycles. I liked going around on my bicycle, but I liked the comfort of my training wheels. How could people ride without training wheels, balancing my bodyweight which was large in comparison onto two thin tires, sounded crazy? I felt like an elephant on stilts. Multiple times my mom would try to let go of my bicycle, I was too scared, I felt I would definitely crash into the concrete. I saw some seven-year-olds laughing at me as they rode past me, I was eleven and I was on training wheels.

All of this depressed me, how could I graduate high school, and go to college. Do I have a chance to live a normal life? To finish high school like other regular people. Forget about graduating high-school, what kid can graduate high-school, if they cannot even do basic math and read a chapter book, and heck forget about college, I didn’t have a future. I was the lonely dumb freak at school. I didn’t have a future; that is what I thought.

Then my mom sent me to this school called Eaton Arrowsmith.

I did not know the purpose of this school. My mom said that she hopes here at Eaton Arrowsmith I can make friends and have an opportunity to learn. I took try outs at Eaton Arrowsmith and watched a student do Symbol Relations (clocks). My first exercise was clocks. At first, I did not understand the exercise I procrastinated, it killed me to do it. Why did analog clocks exist? Why not just a digital clock. My time was 1600 seconds, oh boy was I ever going to get through this.  But then I wanted a life, I wanted to live like other kids, read chapter books like other kids, ride my bicycle. And so that is when I decided to do the clock exercises. I mastered two hands in a couple of months, then three hands, and then four hands, and then six hands. I decided to pick up a Percy Jackson novel, I was going to finish it. Suddenly when I picked up the book I could understand it, I could understand where the book was going, the character talking about his feelings, going about his life, and the actions the character were doing and how it led to other things and the characters passing various places. I was amazed that I could read chapter books.

I was also eleven I finally outgrew and stopped watching Sesame Street. I started watching Flash on the CW. I have a newfound appreciation of melancholy and can appreciate deeper and more complex emotions in characters, like I can appreciate the book Macbeth by Shakespeare. I am also able to now read that.

My mom also sent me to a bike camp, I went to learn to ride a bike without training wheels, all the kids were much younger than me. The biking exercise was that the teachers would hold onto me, and as I rode onto this the thin triangular ramp, they would let go of me. I rode and almost fell a couple times, but somehow, I made it right to the end of the ramp, where the biking teachers would catch me, and I was amazed. Enough of the ramp exercises and soon enough I could ride in circles, I would even ride my bike with my bottom up, or while letting go of the biking handles. It was one of the best days of my life. Soon I returned to that same park I rode my bicycle but this time without my training wheels, and when I zoomed past those seven-year-olds, I saw their disgruntled looks, and that day I felt was the best day of my life.

Next for math was Quantification Sense (Q-sense), oh boy. Math to me was like Sisyphus pushing up the boulder up the steep hill in Tartarus. If Hades were to torture me in Tartarus, it would be by making me do endless math. It was the most infuriating part of my life, and many tears were shed, my face was red as a tomato. But you know it did open a window for me because in the exercise you are adding very small numbers together multiple times before you get a bigger number, and I could kind of do something if it was like nine plus five, because that is like nine minus five plus ten. Another thing I did to assist me in Q-sense, was I would draw a multiplication table and fill out the multiplication table. But after many tears and many fits, I mastered off of it. I was finally off of it.

My mom then homeschooled me through all of fifth grade math and I finished a whole fifth grade math academic book. And after Q-sense, I could add numbers past five with another number past five, I could add either 6,7,8,9 with 6.7,8,9 I knew the answer, I could do it in my head. And actually do multiplication other than anything times one or ten. My mom enrolled me to a private school with regular academics, and I thought algebra was surprisingly easy. It took a while for my mom to teach me Algebra 1 but once I grasped the algebra concept, I could do it easy-peasy, and I actually enjoyed it, which I thought never in my life I would enjoy.

I always would hear my mom, grandma and grandpa speaking in Mandarin. I would listen in, but all I could hear was Kong wong wong. I really wanted to understand them. What were they talking about? What were they saying? Were they saying anything about me? I felt frustrated when my mom told me to try to interact with my grandma and grandpa. And I kind of felt like I should have, after all they travelled fourteen hours on an airplane just to see me. And you know my mom would speak Chinese to grandma and grandpa and I cannot just expect my mom to translate their whole conversation in English. It all started when my mom would speak Chinglish, I would understand the English words my mom said, then wonder what the whole sentence was that my mom was saying and inference what the Mandarin words meant, between those English words. I just mastered 10 hands in the clocks exercise, I was happy we were walking in the park my sister was saying, “The watermelon I ate today was delicious,” in Chinese and I repeated what I understood to my family in English and my family was amazed.

Also another thing…

The teachers and the students are very kind, I’ve never had a community that accepted me. In public schools, everyone saw me as a freak. Here at Eaton Arrowsmith, I have a friendly group. They would smile and wave Hi. In public school, I was so used to sitting on the steps of the stage in the cafeteria room or sitting at the allergy table, other kids would tell me not to sit next to them. So when I started Eaton Arrowsmith I sat at a table by myself, I met this one friend, he went over to sit next to me, and since then I have been sitting and talking with other kids.

I also like how at Eaton Arrowsmith the teachers manage everything well and the kids are not pushy, in other schools’ kids can be pushy, peer pressure you, attack you and bombard you about doing drugs or follow their political beliefs, here you have a place to be safe.

Also, the teachers are very friendly. I especially appreciate Ms. K! She always welcomes her students with the calmest smile and a warm welcome.  And also Mr. Ben, I was always too scared to start writing the ideas I had in my head, but with his kind words and words of encouragement, I started writing and it’s one of the hobbies I do most.

Now I am eighteen.

Now I am eighteen. My dream is and I hope to be a doctor for kids with autism and a novelist, and one day even make my novels into graphic novels and movies. That would be awesome!