My year-two teacher is remembered in my family for telling mum and dad I would never read.
Despite this definitive diagnosis nearly four decades ago, this year I earned a PhD in education. But I did not pursue this degree because I loved school. I did it because I hated school.
Primary schooling was miserable for me. Nearly every teacher singled me out for scorn, not because I was naughty, but because I could not learn from the ways they were teaching. I was sent to the reading tutor. I was sent to the speech therapist. I was sent to the child psychologist. If not for sport and art, I would surely have been sent to the principal's office.
As a rubbish learner, I took refuge in those things I could do well. My artwork was included in shows, it won awards, and I sold limited-edition prints at the age of 17. Sport treated me even better. I captained the football (gridiron), wrestling, and lacrosse teams in high school, and played all three on the NCAA level in university.
At about 15 I figured out that "success" in academics was not about learning, but about getting good marks. Getting good marks in class was like scoring goals in sport. I developed the attitude that school was a game, and slowly but surely I learned how to play it. While I always played by the rules during physical competitions, I'm afraid I cannot say the same about academics.