NCLD: What did you think when your mom told you she was writing a book about you and your family?
Charlotte Farber: I was really excited and really happy because we've been through a lot and I thought it was a good thing that the story would get some notice.
| Fashion designer Dana Buchman's book A Special Education: One Family's Journey Through the Maze of Learning Disabilities written with her daughter Charlotte, describes the gradual discovery of Charlotte's learning disabilities as well as Buchman's own path to self-discovery. NCLD had the privilege of interviewing both Dana and Charlotte when the book was first published. In this exclusive interview, Charlotte Farber speaks out about what it’s like to grow up with a learning disability. |
NCLD: You weren't worried it would be embarrassing or that she'd put things in it you wouldn't want people to know?
CF: No, not at all. I've wanted to write a book by myself about learning disabilities, and then I thought this might be even better.
NCLD: Did you read the manuscript while she was writing it?
CF: Yeah, I read it every once in a while, then I sat down one day after she was finished and read it through and thought, “Wow, this is amazing!” Of course, there are always new anecdotes and there were a couple of times where I thought, ”Wait, I don't remember it happening like that.” But, really, everything in there was really very good. Mom did well.
NCLD: What was the hardest thing about growing up?
CF: I know that I'll always have to work harder than most people to do things they take for granted.
NCLD: Was there ever a specific point in your life when you thought to yourself “Hey, I seem to be different from all the other kids?”
CF: I knew I went to a different school from my sister Annie but I thought that was just because they didn't want us competing, or something like that. No one really told me what learning disabilities really meant. I went to Gateway and I thought it was just a regular school and that I was just learning at a slower pace than Annie. No one told me about what it meant to have learning disabilities; no one ever talked about it. So, I'm not quite sure when I really discovered it.
Even now, [managing] money is hard for me. I have a hard time figuring out from five dollars what I should get in change. It can be really embarrassing when I’m standing there trying to figure the whole thing out and there's a line behind me.
NCLD: Of all the teachers you've had, which ones do you remember the most?
CF: There are two teachers I really remember. One is Ms. Pulnaco at Gateway School -- she taught me how to tie my shoe. We'd all have our desks in kind of a horseshoe, and she'd be in the middle and would do this little exercise to make sure everyone was focusing. She'd say, “Everyone stand up!” and we'd all stand up, and then she’d say “Okay, sit down.” She did that just to make sure we were all focused in. She taught us to [recite] the Pledge of Allegiance, which stuck with me somehow. When she taught me how to tie my shoe, she didn't do the “bunny thing” either. She just taught me how to do it. You go up, across, pull, loop, wrap-around, just like that. She had a very soft voice and she was very patient, too. And it's really nice to have a patient teacher.
And there was a teacher named Mr. Legrand. I'd known him for three years but we became close when I was in eleventh and twelfth grades at Churchill School. He became my advisor and my mentor; he wasn't technically my advisor, I mean he wasn't my homeroom advisor, but I went to him anyway. I loved this teacher because he was the one who pressed me on college; he told me, “Don't sell yourself short. Try getting into a mainstream college.” And I've always been a cautious person, I don't take big leaps.
I'm going to a mainstream college now, and I like a lot of the professors. But I still haven't found a teacher like Mr. Legrand. He was always there for you, helping you with everything from school issues to understanding things about the subway.
NCLD: Getting in to college is no small feat for someone with learning disabilities. What were some of the biggest hurdles you had to get over, and which ones were the hardest?
CF: One of the biggest hurdles in my education was learning to read. It was very difficult. I remember we spent hours and hours at Lindamood-Bell. I remember sitting there and struggling with things like the index cards and the exercises, like one where we worked with different colored blocks that we had to put together in different ways, and different exercises to help us visualize numbers and letters.
The teachers were very encouraging, but it was hard. We'd go through the alphabet, or do stuff with clay or shaving cream where we'd make letters. I'd get drilled with flash cards with prefixes and endings of words. And I had this thing called a sound sheet. There were these things called “tongue tappers,” and we'd do “clappers” where we'd clap out syllables.
And though the reading instruction worked, the math exercises really didn't. Even with all that hard work, it's not something that's guaranteed for everyone.
NCLD: What age do you think was the toughest for you?
CF: Well, there were different things in different years. Going to a mainstream camp, Buck's Rock Camp, was huge, because I'd never been to a non-LD camp before. And I love art and I went in there thinking that I'd just be doing that and that I wouldn't have to do anything that involved measuring or coordination.
I'd been to another camp before this, Creative Arts Camp, and I took this photography class where the teacher had gotten everything set up just so and we had to follow all these instructions and I forgot or did the wrong thing, I can't remember, and he got really angry with me. So I didn't do any photography after that. And then at Buck's Rock, they had photography and I said, “Okay, it's been a few years, Charlotte, c'mon and try this again.” So there I was in the dark, trying to get the film onto this reel so I could develop it, and it felt like it took hours. They were knocking on the door asking, “You all right in there?” But my fine motor skills and my coordination weren't working very well in the dark. I just couldn't get it. And that was the last time I've tried photography or developing film. So, times like that were pretty tough for me.
NCLD: Which year has been the best so far?
CF: I liked my senior year [of high school], but I've also liked my freshman year in college so far. It's been rough and I've cried a couple of times, but it's really showed me how great it is to see your own growth. I mean, I really can see it.
Senior year at Churchill was a lot of big accomplishments too. I finished my Regents, I did my math Regents, and somehow I scored high on my biology Regents, even though I didn't study for the test very much. But I'll take it.
And I also won the Winston Churchill Award at my school. It was really exciting because I had no idea that I was going to win it. It was for the student who provided the best role model for the other kids. It was awarded at graduation and I didn't know I was going to be the one, and all of a sudden they announce my name and it’s like “Whooaaa!”
NCLD: What was it like growing up with your sister, Annie Rose? Were there conflicts between the two of you?
CF: There was the whole, “She's better with her coordination” thing. She could do dance classes if she wanted. I tried dance classes, and I tried to dance to [a certain song] and it was like I was going in the opposite direction again.
But we're best friends. We tell each other everything and I feel totally relaxed with her, because I know I'm not being judged or anything. That's really hard with people I don't know. And I think Annie's helped me with some of the social stuff too. I'm cautious, and I'm not the one who'll go jumping into the deep end of the pool and Annie is totally about jumping into the deep end of the pool.
NCLD: How has the transition to college been? What have been some of the difficulties?
CF: It's been one of the most difficult transitions I've ever had to [go through], but I'm pretty happy with myself and I'm making friends and gradually learning how to do the social thing. I don't get home very often because it's pretty far away, which is one of the reasons I chose this college -- so I'd have to learn to handle things on my own.
I've always had my parents for support and now that they're at a distance I really have to learn to handle things by myself. I was having a little bit of trouble with this one teacher, my art teacher, who didn't understand that a lot of the time things look jumbled up to me. And she didn't know I had a learning disability and I was trying to explain that I have dyslexia, and that things like measuring are hard for me.
And I wasn't explaining it very well and I don't think she understood me very well. So, I got really irritated and I went to the academic coordinator and told her I needed my psychological evaluation, which is usually confidential. And I showed it to the teacher, and she was like, “Whoa!” I think she finally got it and we developed an understanding. Things are a lot more relaxed now.
NCLD: Now that you're pretty much grown up, if you could say one thing to the Charlotte Farber of ten years ago, Charlotte at the age of nine or ten, what would it be?
CF: Don't worry, it's okay. You may not excel at some things, but you're going to excel at others. Yeah, you're going to need help with other things, but it's okay. Use the strengths that you have, work on the strengths that you don't have, get the help that you need. And try and find a mentor, someone who can help you along and help you pull yourself up, whether it's a parent or a teacher. And just remember that it's all going to take time and hard work.
If I had to say anything to a kid's parents about college, it's that they should let them try to get into the college they want to get into and support them. I was doing a talk at Churchill, about "Life after Churchill," and this woman came up to me and said, “My daughter wants to try and go to Emerson.” And I said, “Hey, support her on this.” And the woman said, “I don’t think it's going to work out.” So I said, “Don't worry. Just support her on this. You never know what someone is capable of doing.” I mean, I’m shocked every day that I can conquer a new thing. I often think, “Wow, I didn’t know I could do that.”
Even if she doesn't get in, there are other places. But at least give her a shot. It's really important for parents to work with their children.
It's really important never to forget the people who have helped you. I remember hearing a story once about a guy who was in the war and jumped out of airplanes. And after the war was over, he went and found the guy who packed his parachute and thanked him for doing such a wonderful job. And it's like that. Your LD dumps so much stuff on you that it's easy to forget to thank people, all your teachers and the people who supported you, the ones who did all those great deeds for you.
NCLD: What do you think that people will learn from reading your mom's book? What do you hope they’ll learn?
CF: There was a book I read not too long ago about gays and lesbians, and there was one part in it called “The Closet.” And the point is that we all have closets, things that we don't want to have revealed.
And maybe there are people out there who think someone like my mom is perfect, and this book shows that she's not perfect but she has the courage enough to open up her closet. And I'm afraid a lot of the time to reveal the real me, to open up my closet. And watching my mom write this book and reading what she's written about our lives has helped me [learn] a lot about how to open up.