Nora Notes Guest Series: Meet Nidhi!
My name is Nidhi Soni and I was born with cerebral palsy. I was blessed to be born in a family that has always given me a lot of love! They never gave me whatever I wanted...it taught me to work and work hard to get what I want!
Because of them, I got through my hard days in school. It began in India where I wasn’t even allowed to go to school because of my disability. When I was almost eight, my family and I moved to the United States. I was so excited! I would go to school like my sisters and get an education. It was fine till about the third grade when the bullying began. I soon stopped caring about school, failed homework, tests, and I was okay with it.
I am not quite sure how I made it to the seventh grade but I did. It was then when my first motivation came in as my assistant. You see, I had an assistant to help me in classes with notes and work. I loved her; she was so sweet to me. But one day, she stopped talking to me so I asked her if I did something wrong. She said “Yes! Nidhi, you don’t know how smart you are! You sit there not trying? I am here to support you, I am not going to do your work for you!” Wow! After that day...I worked like I hadn’t ever before and by the end of the year, I was on the honor roll.
Everything went so well till the ninth grade. You know? High school...all the kids wanted to fit in. The bullying started yet again and I stopped caring yet again. I came home crying every other day but my parents knew I had to get an education so they made me go anyways. At the end of ninth grade, I was able to say goodbye to everything, that horrible school, horrible teachers, horrible students, because we were moving!
I loved my new school...I joined an after-school club that was kind of like The Nora Project. We got together every week just to hang out after school and did something in the community one Saturday of every month. That’s how I made a really good friend; we started talking through the club but then we started hanging out away from school. I have one really good memory of that friend. For her 16th birthday, she was having some of her friends over and she invited me! I never was invited to a big birthday party! She introduced me to all her friends, we all ate, talked, and had fun! At night, nine girls were spending the night so we all sat in the basement laughing and eating. And the best part was...they wanted to hear what I had to say.
The rest of high school was pretty peaceful. No, I didn’t go to prom but I was never really upset about it. But I do know when I walked across the stage to get my diploma, my mom and sisters were crying because they were happy but also were relieved that school was done and I would not have to worry about bullies again.
After graduation, I was home for about a year and a half before joining a center for the disabled. My friend at the center always said I belonged in college because I had the brains for it. One night, I sat down with my parents and made the decision of going to a local community college.
College hasn’t always been easy. Fall of 2018...probably the worst semester. It was so bad that I almost quit! I was in two very hard classes and when I went in one of them, I felt very disrespected and dumb! When I was in the class, I didn’t want to admit it, but my teacher was a bully! I remember clearly, I was so excited about having a B in the class. The teacher said, “You have another exam next week so your grade will probably drop a lot.” I left class with teary eyes that day. I have come to realize how important it is to have a good teacher who believes in you and adapts to your learning style to help you succeed.
During the Fall semester I was also trying to become a public speaker and my very good friend helped me get started. On the date of my first speech, to my surprise, the whole room filled up. After the speech, I felt respected by many; including the teacher of my new class. After the speech I started making more and more friends around school. After classes wrapped up for the semester, I decided to do a virtual speech and wow! The response I got was amazing because all my friends supported me and wanted to help me organize it!
At the end of one of my recent speeches, I was asked what changed from grade school to college to make me feel more confident as a learner and a person. The answer is a lot. I grew up, I am more outgoing, and I also try not to care too much if people like me or not. When people give me a chance, they like me! But most of all, one of most important things in school and college is a good teacher. With a supportive teacher, you can achieve your goals.