him so he could painstakingly copy it out.
While there is no recognized cure for dyslexia, teaching programs help sufferers to make sense of everyday life—from distinguishing the numbers on currency to reading a menu. The fact that he was diagnosed early worked heavily in his favor. At that age—he was at Robert Hopkins between eight and eleven—the brain is at its most adaptable, able to interpret and consolidate the basic building blocks of reading, writing, and arithmetic even in the face of a condition like dyslexia.
While the school was professionally equipped to help children with learning difficulties, the actor later complained about his treatment in the educational system: “I had always felt I had barriers to overcome. . . . I was forced to write with my right hand when I wanted to use my left. I began to reverseletters, and reading became difficult,” he said later. Unsurprisingly, his former teachers meet the actor’s grievances with disbelief. Both Pennyann Styles, who taught him at Robert Hopkins, and special-needs teacher Asta Arnot emphatically reject these claims. Styles, who is left-handed herself, was a self-confessed “zealot” about helping lefties to write as they wished—even bringing left-handed scissors to school.
In spite of his learning difficulties, the teaching staff at Robert Hopkins remembered Tom as a creative pupil who simply needed more time and attention. Another former teacher, Shirley Gaudreau, observes: “He was a right-brain kid—very creative but not in academics. It takes a lot more work with them.” Like other pupils with similar problems, he was encouraged to excel at a nonacademic subject like sports, drama, or art in order to bolster his confidence. He joined the school’s drama club and soon became a regular fixture in plays and other theatrical events. This was not entirely surprising, as there was acting blood on both sides of his family. Among the Mapother clan, his cousins William, Katherine, and Amy were enthusiastic childhood performers, William and Amy later becoming professional actors, while Katherine now works with the Blue Apple Players in Louisville. During their time in Ottawa, Tom’s mother and father were so keen on drama that the American newcomers helped found the Gloucester Players amateur theater group, appearing together in the group’s first-ever performance.
A fellow founder was school drama teacher George Steinburg, who, together with Tom’s mother, was instrumental in kindling the boy’s enjoyment of theater. “He had good raw energy that had to be channeled,” Steinburg recalled. “You could tell there was some talent.” In June 1972, at the end of his first school year in Ottawa, Tom and six other boys represented Robert Hopkins in the Carlton Elementary School drama festival. The group, dressed in tunics and tights, performed an improvised play to dance and music called
IT
. Their aim was to interpret the full title of the piece, which was “Man seeks out and discovers some unknown power or thing. He is affected by it.”
In the audience was drama organizer Val Wright. Even though she has since watched and judged hundreds of youngsters, she has never forgotten that “superb” production. “The movement and improvisation were excellent. It was a classic ensemble piece.”
Other performances were equally memorable. In her mind’s eye, teacher Wendy Santo can still remember the youngster in a fifth-grade performance where he played the sun, frozen in a sideways pose. “Even thirty years later it still gives me goose bumps. He was just another kid, but you would have been impressed,” she says.
When he took on roles that demanded reading and learning lines, teachers were on hand to help him out. Teacher Marilyn Richardson remembers how she was asked to read his lines out loud to help him memorize them. “He could read, but it took him a long time,” she recalls. “He had a very good memory and it didn’t take him
While there is no recognized cure for dyslexia, teaching programs help sufferers to make sense of everyday life—from distinguishing the numbers on currency to reading a menu. The fact that he was diagnosed early worked heavily in his favor. At that age—he was at Robert Hopkins between eight and eleven—the brain is at its most adaptable, able to interpret and consolidate the basic building blocks of reading, writing, and arithmetic even in the face of a condition like dyslexia.
While the school was professionally equipped to help children with learning difficulties, the actor later complained about his treatment in the educational system: “I had always felt I had barriers to overcome. . . . I was forced to write with my right hand when I wanted to use my left. I began to reverseletters, and reading became difficult,” he said later. Unsurprisingly, his former teachers meet the actor’s grievances with disbelief. Both Pennyann Styles, who taught him at Robert Hopkins, and special-needs teacher Asta Arnot emphatically reject these claims. Styles, who is left-handed herself, was a self-confessed “zealot” about helping lefties to write as they wished—even bringing left-handed scissors to school.
In spite of his learning difficulties, the teaching staff at Robert Hopkins remembered Tom as a creative pupil who simply needed more time and attention. Another former teacher, Shirley Gaudreau, observes: “He was a right-brain kid—very creative but not in academics. It takes a lot more work with them.” Like other pupils with similar problems, he was encouraged to excel at a nonacademic subject like sports, drama, or art in order to bolster his confidence. He joined the school’s drama club and soon became a regular fixture in plays and other theatrical events. This was not entirely surprising, as there was acting blood on both sides of his family. Among the Mapother clan, his cousins William, Katherine, and Amy were enthusiastic childhood performers, William and Amy later becoming professional actors, while Katherine now works with the Blue Apple Players in Louisville. During their time in Ottawa, Tom’s mother and father were so keen on drama that the American newcomers helped found the Gloucester Players amateur theater group, appearing together in the group’s first-ever performance.
A fellow founder was school drama teacher George Steinburg, who, together with Tom’s mother, was instrumental in kindling the boy’s enjoyment of theater. “He had good raw energy that had to be channeled,” Steinburg recalled. “You could tell there was some talent.” In June 1972, at the end of his first school year in Ottawa, Tom and six other boys represented Robert Hopkins in the Carlton Elementary School drama festival. The group, dressed in tunics and tights, performed an improvised play to dance and music called
IT
. Their aim was to interpret the full title of the piece, which was “Man seeks out and discovers some unknown power or thing. He is affected by it.”
In the audience was drama organizer Val Wright. Even though she has since watched and judged hundreds of youngsters, she has never forgotten that “superb” production. “The movement and improvisation were excellent. It was a classic ensemble piece.”
Other performances were equally memorable. In her mind’s eye, teacher Wendy Santo can still remember the youngster in a fifth-grade performance where he played the sun, frozen in a sideways pose. “Even thirty years later it still gives me goose bumps. He was just another kid, but you would have been impressed,” she says.
When he took on roles that demanded reading and learning lines, teachers were on hand to help him out. Teacher Marilyn Richardson remembers how she was asked to read his lines out loud to help him memorize them. “He could read, but it took him a long time,” she recalls. “He had a very good memory and it didn’t take him