Chloe Oliver of Foxworth writes a community column for the Marion County Informer.

By Chloe Oliver

Those who have known me for only a few years find it difficult to believe that I was once shy. However, if you have known me since my youth, you would know that I  was what people refer to as painfully shy. When I overcame this handicap, I seemed to do it with gusto. I now find myself at the opposite end of the spectrum. In fact, my daughter frequently tells me that I have no filter. Maybe in another twenty years I can obtain a happy medium.

As a child in school, I had two teachers that made life miserable. While some teachers deplore rowdy behavior, these two seemed to abhor shy students. They called attention to my shyness at every opportunity.  “What’s the matter with you, cat got your tongue?” was a typical question often directed toward me in front of my classmates. Of course, this is what every shy person yearns for-someone to call attention to them on a daily basis.

It  also became obvious that these two teachers had labeled me as dumb because of my shyness. Even though  I will probably never work for NASA, neither am I a candidate for a “Rain Man” movie. What if I did have a learning problem?  Would the behavior of these two teachers  have been professional or helpful if I had a learning disability?  Fortunately, I had supportive parents and a couple of good teachers to counteract these two.

Too often, children are labeled by educators as dumb, worthless, not able to amount to much, or not college material because of learning disabilities, shyness, or behavior problems. What happens if these children don’t encounter good teachers or have supportive parents?

I think of flowers as beautiful blossoms. Some weeds have blossoms. Originally, all flowers were wildflowers or weeds. Garden flowers are simply cultivated wildflowers. There are still thousands of uncultivated flowering plants growing in the wild. Since they are not yet cultivated, some would consider them weeds. Yet, with proper cultivation and environment, you might someday purchase these “weeds” from a plant nursery. Each species grows best in a particular type of environment such as sun, shade, wet, dry, cool or warm. A flowering cactus won’t thrive in a water bog and the Artic Poppy would not adapt to the Florida heat.

Many children are labeled as weeds. However, like the flowers, they only need the right environment and proper cultivation for some to realize that they too are flowers. For example, a child with dyslexia is not dumb. He merely learns differently than others. He is just an Artic Poppy in the Southern heat.

I know that there are many capable teachers and parents. I also know that there are those parents and teachers who destroy instead of build. As the school year begins, I hope that parents and teachers will think before they label a child as dumb or tell a student that he is not college material.You see, the only difference between a weed and a flower, is a judgment.