“At 16, and in a Grade 7 class, I still couldn’t read much, and I was embarrassed, because I was older than the other kids. I wasn’t doing well in school because of my learning disability, though we didn’t know then there was such a thing. The principal said to me, ‘You’ll never be anything. You’ll be a ditchdigger or a fisherman.’ And I said, ‘What’s wrong with that?’”
Roy Scott held a variety of jobs, and owned his own business. But his low literacy was an emotional burden. “I was embarrassed to talk to people. There was a lot more I could have done, but I didn’t have confidence.” So, in his sixties, Roy Scott signed up for our adult literacy classes. He says it boosted his confidence, and erased the embarrassment that began in childhood.
“If someone thinks they’re too old to learn to read and write, I’d like to talk to them,” he says.