Chani's Story
"Chani's Story" or it's previous name "The Chanela Method" is the story of a dyslexic teenager who because of late assessment and treatment looked and functioned on the level of a person with mental and social retardation.
Chani suffered from a deep feeling of failure, rejection from her peers, and from disappointment from her parents' hopelessness with her.
Throughout the years, until the primary neurological reason for her condition was found and w unique coping methods were developed that saved her from the emotional and intellectual abyss in which she had sunken and brought her academic abilities and personality from potential to actuality.
Dr. Amala Einat- author, chief expert on the topic of learning disabilities, responsible for the field of emotional support at the Dyslexic Student Support Center of Tel-Hai Academic College, lecturer on the topic of learning disabilities, evaluation, and treatment at the Tel-Hai Academic College.
Among her books:
· Key to the Locked Door, Breaking Through the Barrier of Dyslexia, United Kibbutz Publishing, Red Line 2001
· Parents Against the Barrier of Dyslexia, Key to the Locked Door, United Kibbutz Publishing, Red Line 2003
· The Chanela Method, Cherikover Publishing, 1985
· Learning Disabilities - The Challenge, Itav Publishing House, 1997
"Everyone read from the beginning. I didn't. Everyone wrote; I didn't. Over the months, years, I looked at the birds outside, at colorful workbooks. I only liked pictures. I understood quickly, that something's not right with me. That I'm different..."
The children also understood. Understandably. It's interesting that this angered them. I always kept quiet. I didn't bother anyone. I just sat with my pictures, and this irritated them. They complained all the time to the teacher that I was bothering them and that they can't stand me anymore. Maybe because of the very fact that I was different, not like everyone, so they didn't know how to act with me. The teachers treated me differently. The teachers, in the beginning, still tried to put on pressure on me to learn. My teacher came to me each time, showed me words, letters. Apparently a little something was absorbed, if not, I wouldn't have had those terrible moments (it seems to me they were in 3rd or maybe 4th grade) where the teacher asked from me to read out loud. This was a nightmare. Even the few words I knew got stuck in my throat, like stones, suffocating. Everyone looked at me, from every direction with gaping mouths and scorning eyes. I couldn't. I wanted. So much I wanted. But it didn't come out. It was awful. In the end, just a whimpering cry came out like this, something strange. And from my crying I heard the strangling laughter of the children through my hands that concealed my face. And there was another similar attempt. She wanted me to participate in a class conversation, to say something simple. I said something and I saw everyone's smiles. I think they laughed before I opened my mouth. Getting stabbed with laughter from every side. After this attempt, it seems to me, I cut myself off from the class completely. I sat by my table, alone, with the drawing books that she gave me, different from everyone. It was like I wasn't. I didn't even dream. I turned the pages in the books, and around me there was a large empty space. At home, Dad spoke then about the possibility of moving me into a lower class. It didn't matter to me. Anyways, it was all the same. Lacking reason like in a blank dream. I think that the teacher, all of the teachers, stopped paying attention to me. They didn't expect anything from me. I wasn't a factor in the class. Not active, not passive. I had my table. I left. I came. I didn't bother anyone. Maybe they didn't even see me anymore. The final difficult times that remained for me were the hours in the help class; there they tried to teach me the letters, the vowels. They taught and I forgot. From one moment to the other I forgot the sound that belonged to the shape or the shape that belonged to the sound or both of them. It was just all lines and dots jumping, confused with no meaning, no significance. I had then a week of crisis. A nice teacher worked with me who tried endlessly but unsuccessfully to put in my head even a small sign. I think I really did like her. I wanted to help her. I worked hard to identify the shapes that she showed me. But nothing helped. Actually, I really worked hard, it was like a dividing curtain would come down all of a sudden, and I didn't grasp anything. Once, I scratched myself with my fingernails, so that something would remain. Something. When this also didn't help, I understood that I'm not normal and that nothing will change my situation. This was the worst week of my life up until now. Afterwards, I didn't want to go to her anymore. I would scream and kick. In the beginning, they would drag me with force. Later on they stopped. They gave up. At the end of the year there were two children, who scraped with a razor blade my face from the class picture.
You ask how it was outside of the classroom, besides studies, with friends? What can I tell you? There were different levels in our class. There was the queen. There were princesses. Then, there were all the rest. Then, there was nothing. And at the bottom of nothing, at the lowest possible level, there was Chanela. I was really a concept. When somebody was called with my name, the intention was not worth anything, stupid, that's the way it was in the beginning, always, if something needs to be done that nobody wants to do, Chanela. If there was something that everyone wanted, it was clear that this wasn't Chanela. If I would try something myself, it doesn't matter what, they would think deeply with this nullifying look of "anyways you won't succeed. Why do you try at all?" I was never invited to participate in any game, in any mischievous class plan (not to relate to me was a real honor), and then when they were caught, and everyone was punished except for me, their looks were full of hate.
I remember, for a long period of time, I tried to be nice to them. I invited kids to my house. There were those that came. They would eat and tell secrets without me and afterwards leave without me. And I remained, still, alone. I was always alone. Afterwards, there were my embarrassing attempts to get onto the soccer teams (I really didn't kick badly after all of my "private lessons" with the lame ball, that hurt, and how so), but only boys played, and they rejected me, obviously, and the girls made fun of me. Not a wonder, I was quite a scene with my torn exercise shoes and funny looking socks, and above them my fat legs.
Then came the period of crying. They would make fun of me. They would "sing" me "Chanela, Chanela, Come take a test Chanela, We want Chanela, Read us a story, Just Once, Never!" And they would ask, "When will you finally be a shorthand writer in the Knesset?" and "When will you finally be a broadcaster on the radio?" There were a lot more creative insults and I would cry. Later on I stopped. I became paralyzed. But they didn't give up. They would come to look what was happening with me, they would check up on me. They would dig around in my bag. They would look through my workbooks. They would touch me.
Once, on the class trip (dying from embarrassment until today), in the shower, I heard noises, like someone was climbing up the walls. I was alone. I was startled. There were whispers and laughs, "Move already, Give me too, Never, Yaaalah. " I got dressed on the wet soap. Outside, the girls were waiting, they explained that the boys just wanted to see if I'm normal, maybe with my body something is different. I didn't cry then. They went after me slowly, spreading out. All of a sudden, I grabbed a rake; I don't know where it came from. I turned around and ran after them. They tried to stop me, but didn't succeed. I hit, hit, hit, hit. My face hurt me. My mouth. Everything was closed, clamped tight. "Come close, come to me. Just try it. We'll see you." They ran away; like dogs they ran away. Looking like frightened dogs. ("We tried to calm you down. You must have thought we wanted to attack you. What kind of look you had in your eyes. Anyone who came close, and the rake that you held. That was scary.")
Call the teacher. She took me into the room. And I yelled and screamed. "What's going to happen to me? What are they going to do to me? I'm never going to be ..." Until I calmed down.
When we returned home, I was of course in an argument with all of the children, and nobody even wanted to look at me. They pushed my table, separate, completely to the side. Then there was a class conversation about me. D. tried, as far as I remember, (even though that she, herself, was angry at me most of the time) to explain to the children, that I have something special, a sort of disorder. At the beginning I didn't pay attention. Anyways, I never heard what happened in class. But the silence became stronger and stronger in the room. I began listening, that they have to treat me more carefully, to try to help me. All of a sudden I was terribly afraid, from the silence. From what I have, or don't have. From what they're saying about me. From the rake, I ran home (Mom). I climbed into bed and buried myself under the covers. I didn't answer (Mom), I covered my head. I didn't answer.
Afterwards, there was a lot of whispering between Dad and D. at all hours of the day, and Mom was walking around on the hill from far away without coming close. And me, at school I had the ball and the voraciousness, and at home, sleep. Nobody succeeded in waking me up. Hours. Today I understand that it would have been impossible to get hit all of the time and to stand up to it. I was forced to find a way not to feel, to know, how could it be different? All of my life then was like a bad dream. I wanted to erase it all. To be erased. The kids treated me with mercy after that conversation. After time, they got fed up with this too.
It turns out that despite all of the good that happened, there are fears that you don't get away from. Even to read out loud (and today this isn't a problem for me, really) I don't dare try publicly, at ceremonies or parties. Never. Maybe this is the outcome of that terrible attempt in front of the class. And in general, these memories of the long and humiliating loneliness, the fact that I was a retarded girl...yes, I know what you want to tell me now. I hear your angry voice, "You were never retarded!" but why's it important what name you call it? It's practically the same thing. I spoke differently. I walked differently. I didn't understand almost anything. I was different. What does it matter what name you call it? There are always chances that the child is disabled and not retarded and they just don't reveal it. They don't always find it. Think about how many retards like this there are walking around in their own personal hell...terrible. If they could only find them and treat them earlier. If everything that happened with me didn't happen. If they would have known immediately what to do, and would have treated me like they should have, everyone, the kids. They would have prevented a lot of long pain and anguish. Good, this is really a dream, quite stupid. The main thing is that in the meantime I was saved from the swamp and I'm o'kay now, and that's it. It's enough for me. When it comes down to it, nobody has a past that's entirely pink. I meet up today a lot with friends. We speak, and it turns out, that everyone more or less hurt in a one place or another. Everyone went through difficult things in all sorts of areas. The main thing is they find the opening of relief. They overcome and continue despite everything. And they succeed despite everything. And the pain, the pain...
Taken from the book "The Chanela Method"/ Amala Einat, Cherikover Publishing, 1985