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Personal Reflection/Anecdote

teacher. One day, I overheard him discuss me with another
teacher, remarking, “Yes, I agree. Naomi is not college
material.” I did not understand what that meant other
than he thought I was not smart enough to go to college.
For years, I pondered these mind-invading questions.
“How did he know I was not college material? Was it
something I did? Was it how I looked? Was it because I
was not an American? Was it how I dressed? What would
make him say such a cruel remark? Although the teacher
did not realize I had overheard his comment, a tiny seed
was planted in the back of my mind that questioned …
why not me?
In junior high school, I had a young, non-conformist, fiery, ex-nun, hippie-type English teacher. She
caused several brouhahas at our school. However, I did not fully grasp the ramifications of her actions until
decades later when I became a teacher. This anti-establishment teacher obtained permission to take a few
students to the University of Houston main campus to see an unsanctioned theatrical group’s production
of Oedipus Rex. (Yep: You shall kill your father and marry your mother.) This Greek mythology play was
beyond controversial in my small, South Texas world. I will never forget this defining moment in my
life. I stepped off the bus onto the campus of the University of Houston and immediately observed
I was not struck by lightning. I did not die of some inexplicable phenomenon. My mind reasoned …
why can’t I go to college? I’m at college right now, aren’t I? Why can’t I be a student here? In my naïve,
shallow, unenlightened mind, I truly did not get it. The truth is I did not have the cognitive awareness that
I could not read. It simply never occurred to me because, intuitively, I knew I was intelligent. Well, thank
goodness for naïve, shallow, unenlightened minds … because, for some reason, I believed I could do it.
The experience, one of the foundations for my desire to attend college, had been spurred by a teacher
willing to invest time and energy into her students, to take them beyond the walls of traditional learning.
For a non-reader like me, it stirred my desire to experience higher learning.

The Journey to Reading

My desire to read began with “amor”—or, more accurately, the infatuation I had for the first guy in
college who gave me any attention. His name was Jaime, and I will forever be grateful for that hormone-
driven young man because he showed kindness to the dumbest and most naïve Hispanic girl on the
planet. I first met him when I was attempting to register at the University of Houston. In my infinite
wisdom, I had decided that registering
late would be far better than trying to “
register in a timely manner. Back in ...One of the foundations
the stone annals of university history,
all registration was done in person for my desire to attend
and by hand, so I found myself in a college had been spurred
mass-registration crowd of hundreds
of students inching our way to the few by a teacher willing to
registrars who were desperately and
impatiently trying to assist students. invest time and energy
Meanwhile, in preparation for the into her students...
upcoming ordeal, Jaime took advantage
of this time to hit on me and to ask me a ”
blur of questions that I genuinely tried

Collegial Exchange · 19