I was born with a speech impediment. For years, I received speech therapy in special education. I don’t remember why, but for some reason, for instance, I would trip over the word “yellow” as though, ironically, my tongue was strapped by velcro. By the age of seven, I was transferred from special education to general, but still took supplemental speech therapy. By second grade, I was one of only eight students in my grade reading at an expected reading level. One day, my teacher took us to the back of the class, and in a type of triage, explained that he’d give us a fighting chance by directing the majority of his teaching efforts toward us eight. The rest were too far behind. They would need special education.