On Monday, I stopped my car in front of my daughter Juliet’s middle school. She jumped in the front seat, feeling down. She asked me to help her study for her science test.

“Dad, I need to memorize a unit about the Reproductive Cycle of Plants. And I can hardly make it.”

“You know memorizing seems like the best way to study, but in fact you can do better in tests if you work on trying to understand the material.”

Juliet was open to my advice. It was Monday afternoon and we had two nights to study before the test on Wednesday. I suggested a plan. “Tomorrow night, you are going to teach the material to me. Tonight, read the unit. Prepare to teach.”

Asking her to teach me was an unusual idea but I was determined to do it. Studies show teaching somebody else is a very useful way to learn. Even if you don’t do the teaching, the act of preparing to teach leads to more learning than just trying your best to memorize the material.

On Tuesday afternoon, Juliet sat down with her science book facing me and said, “Okay Dad, let’s study.” I wanted her to teach me. But false starts happened. I couldn’t be too hard on her. So instead we started with me asking her some simple questions. She knew some but not others. When she didn’t know the answers, I encouraged her to check the book.

She started checking things that didn’t make sense. And she was actively seeking to test her understanding. I was happy to see it. She wasn’t memorizing; she was trying to make sense of things, which was exactly what I had hoped she would do.

When I think of the word “perfect”, I think of something only a few can achieve, like high beauty standards (标准), the super smart girl in my class, or anything that I can compare myself to.

For a few weeks now, I have been noticing this one girl. She has wonderful long dark brown hair, big blue eyes, and the most beautiful face. She always wears the prettiest clothes and seems to be the most popular girl in school, at least from my point of view. It seems like she has a perfect life, lost of friends, all A’s, and everything anyone could ever want.

One day, I was in language arts talking to my teacher about one of the upcoming tests, when I saw the girl staring at me in a strange way. I immediately started to be anxious and think, “Why is she looking at me? Did I do something wrong? Is my hair messed up?”

When the class was over and everyone was rushing to their next class, she caught up with and said, “I think you are really pretty.” I replied, “Oh my god, thank you!” I then watched her as she walked away and thought, “She thinks I am pretty?”

The whole day, I ended up thinking about one thing. That was, “Why does she think that?” After thinking about that topic in my head through each second of the day, I came to learn one big lesson: Everyone has their own insecurities (不安全感) even though it may not seem like in on the outside. In this case, I was thinking that she was everything I wanted to be and she thought the same of me.

We are just us and that’s OK. When I really look at myself, not from my point of view but a fresh one’s, I do see everything I want to be. I see a beautiful, smart, kind girl who is unique.

Margaret is like any other teenage girl today: she talks on the phone and deals with the stress of schoolwork. Unlike many of her peers, however, Margaret takes medication as part of her morning routine. She has spina bifida(脊柱裂伤), a condition in which one or more of her vertebrae did not form properly. Throughout all of these suffer, she has kept her outgoing personality and positive view of life.

The 14-year-old attends high school and is not in any special classes. She is allowed extra time to get to class when she needs it. She says, “I get laughed at a lot, but I do have a small group of friends who are great about everything.” Margaret has had the support of her parents as well, “I think that, growing up with a disability, the best thing that I have had is supportive parents; without them I don’t know where I would be.”

After school on most days, Margaret works at Able-Disabled Advocacy (A-DA), an organization that helps the disabled, alongside her mother, Cindy. On other days she plays wheelchair basketball and tennis, even though she is not wheelchair-bound herself. Her evenings are spent at A-DA and doing schoolwork. Margaret also volunteers in an inclusion program at a Jewish community center, helping other kids with disabilities.

Margaret feels that, far from having limited her, her disability has allowed her to do things she might not have been able to do otherwise. She says that she would not have been involved in sports at all if it was not for wheelchair sports, and she would not have some of her current friendships. Rock climbing, cycling, and downhill racing are some of the other activities she is able to participate in. Thinking about the future, Margaret says, “I want to be a doctor of some kind, though I’m not sure what kind yet.”