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Meet our Friends, Part 2:
Teen Carmen Antonetty Take a Good Look at Growing Up with LD
As Interviewed by Hal Stucker
Carmen Antonetty is a junior at The Churchill School and Center. She lives with her mother and father in Brooklyn, New York. She tells her story in her own words. For Carmen, "Finding out that you have LD is not the end of the world. If you look at it right, it can be the beginning of the world."
 Carmen, left, with mother, Elaine Antonetty.
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My father was the first one to recognize that I was dyslexic. He would read to me and I would memorize the words, but of course I couldn't memorize every book I owned. So I would look at the pictures and say, "Oh, this is happening here and this is happening there," and he would say to me, "Carmen, that isn't what it says." So he realized right away that I wasn't reading anything, I was just making it up as I went along. It was really frustrating for me, too. My father would read me a book and I'd try to read it to my mother but couldn't remember the words, so I'd slam the book down and go off and do something else.
I was lucky, though, because I went to Brooklyn Friends School. It was a really good school, and they also realized I had a learning disability. In fact, they were the ones who suggested that I might do really well at Churchill School.
So, in the third grade, I started at Churchill. I met some of my best friends there"my friends Nia, Eakeyah, and Harlan. Harlan, I knew from Brooklyn Friends, but Nia and Eakeyah lived in my neighborhood, and we all rode the school bus together. They were older than me, and I really looked up to them; they were great role models. And it was really cool for me, a little fourth grader, to be hanging around with these six and seventh graders. They really helped me a lot when I first started, too, like telling me which teachers were cool and which ones would catch you if you tried to put anything past them. They were like guidance counselors, only less boring.
I've been dancing since I was about 3 or 4. My mom started me because I was so hyper; she said she wanted to put all that energy someplace really positive. But I really love it. I'm taking classes at Brooklyn Music School, and I've taken classes at Mark Morris' school and at Alvin Ailey as well. I perform quite a bit, especially in the summer"it's done a lot to help build my confidence, and it's really taught me how to focus and how to center. It's taught me that I can do anything I put my mind to.
This fall, I danced at Sigourney Weaver's wedding anniversary party. It was so great! This lady named Wumi, she's another role model of mine"she's a singer, actor and designer, a triple threat!"Sigourney Weaver asked her to perform for the party. So Wumi asked my friend Ousmane to be part of the performance. He's a dancer, and his mom is the artistic director for Maimouna Kieta, a dance troupe that I also perform with. And Ousmane asked me. The two of us choreographed the dance performance, too.
My goal now is to graduate Churchill and go to college. I'm thinking about University of North Carolina, and possibly Princeton or C.W. Post. I want to major in psychology and minor in dance and political science. I don't worry about having a learning disability"finding out that you have LD is not the end of the world. If you look at it right, it can be the beginning of the world.
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