Like stars on earth, every child is special

CEBU, Philippines -  Looking at the eight-year-old kid on screen, I knew something was not right with him. He disliked school and failed every test or exam, and was belittled by his teachers and classmates. I even thought that if I would continue watching the movie, I would take on his silly ticks. But the other side of me forced me to finish it, so I continued.

Another one of those annoying kids, I mumbled. But the longer I watched the movie, the clearer I was the talent and wondered about that kid on the screen. Unable to contain myself, I continued watching.

The film explored the life and imagination of eight-year-old Ishaan. Although he exceled in art, his poor academic performance led his parents to send him to a boarding school. Ishaan’s new art teacher suspected that he was dyslexic, and helped him to overcome his disability.

Dyslexia, according to Wikipedia,  is a broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or comprehension accuracy in reading. It can manifest itself as a difficulty with pronunciation awareness, pronunciation decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid naming. Dyslexia is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as those in relation to impaired vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading instruction.  It is believed that dyslexia can affect between 5 to 10 percent of a given population although there have been no studies to indicate an accurate percentage.

There are three possible subtypes of dyslexia: auditory, visual and attentional.  Reading disabilities, or dyslexia, is the most common learning disability. Research has considered this to be a receptive language-based learning disability.

Towards the end of the school year, Ishaan’s teacher organized an art fair for the staff and students. Ishaan, with his strikingly creative style, was declared the winner and his teacher, who painted Ishaan’s portrait, the runner-up.

My heart swelled with childish pride after I finished the movie. I recall having almost the same childhood experience. Being the youngest in the class of almost seventy students in public school was never fun for me. I was my classmates’ victim of silly pranks and always ended up crying. I thought I was the only kid in the classroom who was not good in anything. Like Ishaan, I hated reading and writing.  I felt like I alone was cursed and that nobody wanted all the love I could offer.

However, I had banked her patient smile and a lot of magical moments in my heart. I can still see her smile in our summer classes in reading when I was six. I remembered sitting on top of stacked books at the dining table because we could not afford to buy a high chair. My first oratorical contest at seven, and the way I bowed before the crowd where I could see her. The times I insisted washing the dishes with her, and the unforgettable bear hugs and kisses she gave me, and still gives me, each time I got home from school.

Yes, my mom was truly a brilliant teacher to me, like Ishaan’s teacher in the film. She taught me to read, write, add, subtract, and even taught me how to dream big. Those were the same difficult things, but she would always smile, and still smiles very often. When I could not get things right, she would require me to come home early after class. She did not get tired, nor upset, nor worried. She would always repeat things over and over again as if teaching me was the most pleasant thing to do.

Parents could be our best teachers in the process of promoting and supporting our social, intellectual, and physical development. And even if I have gone through my baccalaureate degree, I would still go back to school and study-because my mom taught me, like Ishaan’s teacher did, that like stars on earth, every child is special.