Lochie had never really had any problems with math. He sometimes said that he could see the answer, but, because he couldnt show the working out or process, he often failed regardless of having the correct answer.
His math teacher at high school was possibly oblivious to Lochie's problem with reading as he always managed ok in this class. At least up til half way through year 8.
The regular maths teacher was absent and relieving teacher was a young guy in his early twenties. The teacher was trying to be mates with the kids and goofing around a bit.
He handed out a worksheet with lots of wordy written maths problems. The kind that say "if a train was travelling at 80kmp and left the station at 9pm blah blah".
Lochie looked at the worksheet. The words were all melting into each other.
"Excuse me", he said. "I can't do this kind of problem. I can't read it".
"Come on Lochie, I can tell you are smart, just do it", replied the teacher.
"I can't. I can't read the question", Lochie continued.
"Listen, do the maths sheet or go sit outside", said the teacher getting flustered.
"I would rather die than have to do this worksheet", said Lochie.
"Fine," said the exasperated teacher. "Go lie on the road then, that should fix it".
Lochie got up and ran from the classroom. Berwick High School was a large school and over 36 buses were due to arrive as well as about 400 cars to pick up students as the end of the day was nearing.
The teacher chased him out only to find him lying on the road out the front of the school in tears.
He pulled Lochie off the road. Lochie was hysterical. He kept repeating that he wanted to die. He wasn't as clever as other kids. He couldnt do things and felt he was retarded.
The school phoned and said that Lochie had been involved in a behavioural incident. I sighed and left work early to go pick him up.
When the situation was explained to me I was furious. The school made it seem that the teacher was severely traumatised by Lochie's actions.
I took Lochie home and left him for a while to calm down.
We had a chat that night. Lochie explained to me that he often felt like dying. He said that the last time he was in English and the teacher made him read out loud and the other kids laughed, he wanted to stand in front of a V-line (country) train and make it all end. The only thing that stopped him was knowing he had football that night.
At that point I decided that school was not the right place for Lochie.
Many people thought I was crazy, but as a mother, to hear that a son was so depressed he wanted to die, well, you just take away the problem.
I stand by my decision. The option was to take Lochie to a community school. As a youth worker, I knew that there were many kids in those schools with drug issues and the last place for a depressed kid was a community school with access to drugs.
Leaving school at 14 began a new chapter for Lochie.
