How did you get revenge on the person who broke your dreams?

The Broken Dream

When I was in high school, I struggled with dyslexia, but I never let it stop me from dreaming big. I knew I needed to work twice as hard just to keep up.

So, I set my mind on working four times as hard so I could reach the top, and it paid off. By senior year, I had a 3.9 GPA, was in multiple AP classes, and was laser focused on getting into MIT.

Physics was my favorite subject. But Mr. Davis, my AP physics teacher, seemed to have it out for kids like me. From the start, he made these little comments about my disability.

Like, when I asked him to leave equations on the board for an extra minute, he refused and told me if I’m so special and can’t keep up to use a phone, so I did. But when I’d take photos of the board instead of copying, he’d tell me phones weren’t allowed in class.

One day, I stayed after. My voice shook a little, but I laid it all out.

I told him how he was violating school policy by denying me education. I told him my dyslexia didn’t mean I was dumb.

I thought maybe he’d understand or at least back off, but he didn’t say much. Just crossed his arms and stared like I was wasting his time.

I left thinking maybe I’d made it worse. Turns out I had.

The next week, we were reviewing for midterms and I asked him to clarify something on the board. He looked around the room and said, “Okay, everyone, I’m going to use smaller words and talk slower for Alex’s benefit”.

Then he started explaining it in a dumb, slow tone, like he was talking to a toddler. He exaggerated every syllable.

Everyone chuckled at me. My face burned so hot I felt dizzy.

I tried to ask a follow-up and he said, “This is why some people should consider community college instead of aiming for MIT”. Just like that, in front of everyone.

I froze, couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. I wanted to disappear.

Then I did something I didn’t plan. I stood up, walked to the front of the room, shaking so hard I thought my knees would give out.

And I said that dyslexia had nothing to do with intelligence, that Einstein had it, that Hawking had a disability, that I wasn’t the one who should be ashamed.

But he just told me to sit down and get back to the review. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what he did next, I never saw coming.

He pulled me aside and said he didn’t mean to hurt me, that the world wouldn’t always offer accommodations. He said he was almost done writing my MIT recommendation letter.

Said we should move on. I didn’t believe the apology, but I needed that letter.

So, I said, “Okay”. For a week, I was on top of the world, the happiest student alive.

I had a pep in my step until I got called to the counselor’s office. She looked like she didn’t even know how to start.

She handed me a copy of Mr. Davis’s letter, the one sent to MIT. I read it and was horrified.

It said I was admirably persistent despite cognitive challenges, but that I might struggle with independent work. He told MIT its resources were better used on other students.

I didn’t even feel the floor under me. She said MIT had already responded.

They were passing on my application because of that letter. I don’t remember walking home.

I collapsed in my room and cried for hours. Didn’t eat, barely slept.

I kept replaying it all. And something just broke in me, but not in a way that made me give up.

It made me mad, furious. I realized if he’d done this to me, he probably did it to others, too.

So, I got to work.