Shoot for the Moon

Thomas Edison, Frank W. Woolworth, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, Charles Darwin, Alexander G. Bell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Albert Einstein.

These famous people all have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is? Give up? They all had learning disabilities. It's true.

Let's play a game. Read the description below and see if you can guess who the famous person is before reading the answer.

• His head was large at birth. His mother didn't agree with those who felt that the child was abnormal. He was sent to school, but the teacher thought him to be mentally ill. The mother withdrew the child from school and taught him herself. As it turned out, he might have done well in vocational education.
• This was another child who was slow in school work. About the only thing this apparently right-brained individual had going for him was his vivid imagination, which used to bother his teachers, especially when he doodled.
• This statesman could be called academically disadvantaged. He failed grade eight, did terrible in math, and generally hated school. He continually worked to overcome a “speech impediment.” Still he was upset by people who were “inebriated by the exuberance of their own their own verbosity.”

And my all-time favorite (drum roll please) .... This person could not talk until the age of four. He did not learn to read until he was nine. His teachers considered him mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams. Thought to have Aspergers, a form of Autism, he failed the entrance examinations to college. He lost three teaching positions and then became a patent clerk.

The answers: Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein
 

As an advocate for children with special needs, I wish I had a dime for every time an educator told the parents of a child that their son or daughter would never be able to XYZ (you name it) because of their disability. I dislike that statement because I think it's an excuse for not teaching the kid.

I wonder how Albert Einstein's IEP (Individualized Education Plan) would read today. I'd love to sneak a peak at all his evaluations.

If educators could be wrong about these famous people with disabilities, why do they feel they are right about your child?

I tell my clients to have high expectations for their children. Shoot for the moon and don't settle for less. If you don't expect your child to succeed, who will? Good luck and here's to the next Albert Einstein among us.