National Adult Literacy Database

July 9, 2007

The following story was written by Cathy Cumby, from Edmonton, Alberta. Cathy was part of BLAST: Student Speakers Bureau from Literacy Alberta. This team is a group of literacy students who were trained to become professional speakers. Cathy is enrolled in the Alternative Learning Program of the Edmonton John Howard Society. She is a single mother and hopes other children are as happy as hers are.

Story (Part I of II)

by Cathy Cumby

Hello, my name is Cathy Cumby and I would like to start off by saying how grateful I am for the opportunity to tell you about my experience and how literacy has changed my life. When I was a kid, I was an outcast. I was picked on all the time because of the way that I looked, but most of all because of the way that I spoke. People assumed that because of my stutter, I was different, and I wasn’t given the same opportunities that the other students were.

I remember on Career Day, I asked my career counselor what the best job for me was, and she asked me “Do you know how to use a mop”. And it just carried on through junior high and high school. In grade 9 my mother thought that it was all in my head, and they decided to send me to another school way out in Sherwood Park, where the abuse just got worse. They assumed that because of my speech there was something wrong with me mentally and I was put into IOP classes.

The school never gave me the opportunity to show my potential because of the way they labeled me. One summer day when I was 15, a girl came and started picking on my friend. I told her not to pick on her, and she said “ok, I’ll pick on you”. So she picked me up and literally threw me across the street. She said “this’ll knock the stutter out of you”. I realized what she said and for the first time in my life I felt like I had power, and I took out everything on her. Something just snapped in me. All of the abuse that I took from every person in my life I took out on her. It took 4 teachers to get me off of her. After that, the school wanted me to write a letter of apology; I couldn’t believe it. For my whole life, the school system failed me, and the day that I fought back, I was penalized and kicked out of school. I refused to write the letter, and at 15 I never went back, and that was 22 years ago. I decided to follow the road of destruction rather than success.

After getting into an unhealthy relationship, I became addicted to crack, and I didn’t show any respect for others, including myself, and never mind the education. My motto was if it couldn’t be smoked it just wasn’t for me. After years of abusing myself and my brain included, I decided to go to AADAC and clean up. The day of release I phoned the Edmonton John Howard Society Alternative Learning Program. When I came here, I was shy, I didn’t really trust the school, and I thought “what if this was like every other school”, I had really low self esteem, I hated myself, I had a hard time following rules, listening, being on time, and I was scared to try new things. For the longest time, I thought I was stupid, but the teachers always told me that I wasn’t stupid. You can learn at your own pace and they start you off slow, but there is always room to improve.

Part 2