That's a good question, and the answer is pretty benign: I didn't know I had bad eyesight. See, to me, it was perfectly normal to need to sit at the front of t

That's a good question, and the answer is pretty benign: I didn't know I had bad eyesight. See, to me, it was perfectly normal to need to sit at the front of the class or to have to hunch over the paper I was learning cursive on; I remember being a bit frustrated that I couldn't understand the lessons if I wasn't close, but I was still young enough that it didn't occur to me my eyes were defective. Squinting was just how you made things clearer after all. At that age I sorta just accepted the world for the way it was. So in second grade, my teacher told my parents I may need glasses, and a while after I got some and learned just how near-sighted I was. (I'm currently about a -7 diopter.) I've come across a few other people who had a similar experience. From what I've gathered, it seems that first and second grade teachers become attuned to kids that need glasses. As for why I didn't know earlier, I think it's just that I was a fairly introverted kid, so I didn't do a lot of sports or group play. And the only real detail oriented stuff I did was reading, and I could almost literally bury my face in that. It looked like intent reading (and it likely was), but I suspect that was just a matter of holding the book close enough. It's easy to overlook the clues, but straightforward if you're specifically trying to notice 'em.