Ever feel like books are larger than life?
During the school week, I sit through many parent meetings (e.g. Student Intervention Team, I.E.P. teams) and am often heart broken to see the pain on a mother and father’s face when all of their efforts seem to be in vain. Sometimes their frustration boils over and the school becomes the focus of their anger despite our best efforts. But, there is hope.
Sometimes, I find myself being short sighted and thinking that middle school is of the utmost importance. However, our students have so much more to grow physically and emotionally. The lead singer, Mark, gave another story to share with my distraught parents.
Mark grew up as struggling reader. He was diagnosed with Dyslexia and instead of coming to class with his books, chose to leave them elsewhere so he would not be called on to read (know any kids like that?). He was also diagnosed with ADD. He shared some great stories about his coping by making light of his disorders that I wouldn’t do justice sharing in this format.
Despite his disorders, Mark has not allowed his shortcomings to be the focus of his adulthood. He has focused on his, better than average, musical talent. The Freak Factor Blog provides many more samples of people not focusing on their weakness and being successful.
I look forward to sharing Mark’s strengths with parents as we provide hope and interventions for our struggling students. We must celebrate their uniqueness!
Thanks Adam, I am glad that we all have different strengths and we are reminded once again NOT to focus on our short-comings. I think we are better off when we concentrate on what we DO have, and are grateful for it. I’ve found that in 3rd world countries, the same concept applies: people are SO thankful for what they DO HAVE and are therefore thankful and more fulfilled…they don’t seem to sit around and dwell on what they DON’T have. Hence, they have joy despite their circumstances.
Great stuff, Adam! These stories are everywhere and we need to start creating new ones by helping these kids discover their unique talents at a younger age instead of branding them with the badges of disability.
This web site is really quite good, but for some reason it does not display properly when trying to view on my Nintendo Wii. If it helps, the console uses the Opera web browser and am impelled to using the console for accessing the Net whilst my PC is away being restored.