The smartest kid in the dumb class

[Cameron Skinner]

Who flunks first grade?!

Well they said I didn't really fail, they just held me back, but it still felt like I flunked. I have severe dyslexia and had it before anyone ever knew what dyslexia was. While your brain easily sees "96" it's like my mind picks the characters off the page and rotates them in every direction so my mind flips through "96" "69" "66" "99" until it settles back on 96. While this only takes less than a second in my brain, when I have to do this with every letter in a word and every number it dramatically slows my reading and timed math test. Further it makes memorizing spelling words near impossible. So eventually the school system put me in the "special class" for help. The other students openly called it the Dumb Class, but in reality very few kids were there with academic deficiencies. The Dumb Class turned out to be more of a dumping ground for kids with severe behavioral and emotional disorders. Since I was a relatively easy kid they just left me alone to play on the computer all day.

Lucky for me I have the toughest Mom within the next four States. She saw a program on 60 minutes where school districts were placing students unnecessarily in these programs to get additional funding from Federal Programs and instead of using the funds to help us they padded the general budget and just let us slip even further behind. My Mom believed I wasn't mentally slow, just struggled to read quickly and believed I could overcome this with extra help. We had a conference with the school administration and I remember, with me in the room, the counselor saying my mom needed to accept the fact that I was mentally deficient. He said I would never be able to attend college, and they needed to keep me in the "special" program to give me any hope of eventually graduating high school. You need to remember 30 years ago teachers and school administrators were highly respected authority figures and my Mom with only a high school education of her own was trying to tell these highly educated professionals they were wrong. I sat there as they pressured her, but she was relentless and demanded I be placed back in regular classes.
 

It was hard but my Mom would constantly drill me on spelling and she would read to me my reading assignments. I got lots of Cs and Ds in grade school but some how always squeezed through to the next grade. When I got into high school where comprehension and content became more important than spelling and speed, I began to do better. I would go on to graduated from FSU and get a Masters in Business at Troy State. I built a real-estate investment company with over 100 doors before the age of 40.  I use to even hang a sign under my Masters Degree in my office "the smartest kid in the dumb class" until my Mom pulled it off.

I learned how to work around my dyslexia and in many respects it has become an asset. Being able to easily see something in every direction, mirrored, and upside down allows me more visual creativity and see 2D construction plans in 3D spaces. In a strange irony, I believe my dyslexia has became an essential part of my success. But I sometimes think back and wonder how my life would be different if my mom had relented to the experts. Obviously my options and opportunities would have been severely limited and could I have overcome the blow to my confidence, if I was left believing everyone including my own Mom thought I was mentally deficient.

It got me to thinking, Moms are much more than the ladies who give birth to us and even more than the women who take care of us while we are young. A Mom is someone who believes in you, even when all the experts tell her she is wrong. She has confidence in your ability to overcome obstacles that defy all logic. She is the one who never gives up on you even after everyone else has. While others see flaws and deficiencies in you, she sees a unique individual, beautifully and perfectly designed by God. Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and a all the Moms out there who always kept believing in us.