Chapter 58 - Delinquent Diaries (2)

Ahoy Matey!

Remember I said that I would teach those kids tomorrow? Guess what... you can teach dumb dogs new tricks! You just have to be more creative. I swear I've never written more than one entry per week but I guess I'll make this episode an exception. I'll update all sixteen entries each entry for a new delinquent I targeted.

Casper was actually surprised by how many approaches I could come up with within ten minutes while we were discussing it over lunch. The Female Prince had to leave early for last-minute preparations so we were given some time after classes to talk it over. So from his analysis, the most worrying vill- I mean delinquent is actually the leader, Junior. Why am I not surprised?

Basically, Math is not a strong point for a lot of people who are slightly lacking in the logical department. Most people who don't use the logic department to understand Math would use the memory department but what happens when you don't have either? Long answer short, you become a Junior type of case.

How does one overcome the tragedy of having neither a functioning logical department and a terrible memory? The answer is simple. We make a path that doesn't exist to input artificial intelligence. My hypothesis (as a pirate) is to bury in the sand we call his brain something he didn't have before that he can then dig up during the test and create a miracle. How does this work? Now, this is a social experiment story you would need to hear apart from the observation part of this journal.

Firstly, I came into class ditching all the Math books and concepts. Casper was in it with me. We started drawing pictures on the board and telling stories. Basically, Math is all about patterns. If they could learn to identify easy patterns, we can dumb down the harder ones and cut the trick shorter. No need to understand the whole thing, just pick out what will make it work. Casper was actually impressed with the plan I came out with. He calls it legally cheating but what do I care? I'm a pirate. we don't play fair, do we?

Basically, there is a way around the education system. There is a Chinese saying "Know thy enemy, know yourself, never lose a single battle" or something along those lines. If I can get into the mind of those question setters then I'll know what kind of questions they'll ask. If students know what's coming up in the test then all the need is a format to answer those questions and pluck the given numbers then punch the calculator to do the heavy lifting and give the examiners what they want. This way, everyone will be happy. Who cared if you knew why pi existed? It's redundant! They would never ask you questions like that.

Going back to the main point, I decided to use this approach to spoil the class into studying for a pass. Heck, like the scoundrel I was, I even picked out questions for them to perfectly nail so they would get the passing marks they required even if they didn't understand anything. Casper was amazed by the significant improvements in everyone immediately after the twenty-minute crash course.

The single-digit marks were now double digits for everyone except one person. Yes, you guessed it! It was no other than Junior. Of course, as the leader, he couldn't just say how depressed he was feeling but he didn't need to. The looks of pity from his underlings were enough to smash his pride to smithereens. Casper noticed it and offered to take over but the poor kid refused and walked out to the toilet but never returned even after fifteen minutes. I left the teaching to Casper, he has the lesson plans so he'll be fine.

It wasn't easy searching for Junior because it wasn't exactly polite for a lady to be knocking on the doors of male toilets to ask for someone and also, Junior didn't exactly go to the gents. If I didn't have a useful tip-off from Danny, I would probably have never figured it out. It was probably not the first time for Junior to hide out in the counsellor's room when he was having a downtime because Danny even knows his favourite biscuits. (They're ginger biscuits.)

It took a long time for me to get Junior out of the shell but I found out that Junior was actually suffering from a condition called mild Dyscalculia. That means Junior is born with the inability to deal with numbers. It's a medical condition that makes it hard for him to retain Math in his head no matter if it's adding to simple numbers or telling the time from the analogue clock. Junior used to struggle with telling his left from his right too but he's fixed that now because remembers left as the side where he has a small tattoo on.

Now, I'm a pirate and not a psychologist so I don't know what to do to cure him or if there is a cure for Dyscalculia. However, I wasn't going to give up on my mission. Oh no... if he can't do numbers very well, we'll just have to find another way around this.

Junior has no problem identifying numbers so that's a good start. We worked on his English language and I taught him how to spot questions and get hints as to how the answer is derived from a little more into detail. That took about forty minutes and I must say I was happy with the results. Junior benefited the most from it all and was extremely happy when he managed to get eight out of the twelve questions Casper prepared for him correct using the deduction method. It wasn't a fantastic result but it was a great start.

What was more shocking was how relaxed Junior looked by the end of it. Who would have believed that such a big boy like him would break down into tears in front of a tiny girl with a leg in a cast? Nobody, except for Danny. But this is probably the side of Junior that none of the class has seen before. In fact, I'll put my doubloons in to bet that they don't know anything about his disability.

This is where I think I should confess. If I didn't reveal that Junior had a learning disability, you might have brushed it off as him being too dumb to teach. Guess what? You'd have been making that same mistake I did too. Physical disabilities were easy to spot but mental disabilities were slightly harder. I didn't think Junior had any potential at first but when I understood his situation more, it made me wonder if things would have been different for him if the teachers knew better? If the school was equipped with better resources to help children like him who needed that extra help... would he have succeeded?

On the flip side, perhaps Junior knew about all the teasing he would be getting from the other 'normal' kids and the judgement of a.d.u.l.ts if they knew so he chose to keep quiet about it. I don't know what the best course of action is for him. If it were you, what would you have chosen?

As usual, fair winds for now and don't let the sails get tangled.

Pirate S.