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I'd like to start my story

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with my second year of college


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when I signed up for chemistry.

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Now, I love starting here


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because it was in this class


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that the most incredible things

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started to happen to me.

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I remember my attempts 
at studying chemistry,

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mostly because they were 
extremely painful.

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I remember reading these words 
over and over again,

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but for some reason,
when I was putting them together,

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no new meaning was happening.

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It was as if I had an inability to learn

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from reading this textbook.

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And as fate would have it,
this triggered in me

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something that happens 
to a lot of my students.

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I started to wonder,
"What's wrong with me?"

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And this triggered my interest


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in educational psychology.

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Now, as any good psychologist does 


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when wondering "what's wrong with me?",

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I began to analyze my parents.

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(Laughter)

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Now, this is my father.

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My father can be described
in a lot of ways.

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Dyslexic.

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Trouble-maker.

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High school dropout.

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He also can be described
as an outside of the box thinker.

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Mathematical engineer.

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Inventor.

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Self-made millionaire.

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I remember as a child 


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really important people coming to our home

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to ask my father if their ideas would work.

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So, one day when I was struggling along
with chemistry,

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I decided to ask my dad,

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"How do you know
if something is going to work?

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How do you know when you know something?"

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And he said to me the most profound thing.

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He said to me, 
"I can picture it in my mind."

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And it was as if something 
cracked open inside of me.

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And I got it.

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These chemistry words 
were not making pictures in my mind,

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but I also understood 
I've got to figure out

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a way to make pictures,

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or I'm never going to be able to read

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and learn from this textbook.

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Now today, neuroscience 
has a very good understanding

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of what was happening to me.

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If you comprehend a word,

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your brain triggers a simulation.

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When you comprehend the word "jump",

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your brain fires off 
a neurological pattern

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that is very similar 
to the same pattern you use

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to physically propel your body.

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Your brain experiences words.

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If you're very good 
at thinking with words,

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you have a lot of words that move over

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into that simulation process.

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But I am a picture thinker.

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And for me, words 
can actually block my comprehension.

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I might be able to read a word,

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write a word,

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memorize a long hairy definition 
for that word,

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but all of these things

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are actually quite separate from learning.

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Years later, I started my career
by working in school districts,

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testing and diagnosing children
with learning disabilities.

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And I started to see 
a lot of common themes.

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This is Sarah.

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Now, Sarah can be described
in a lot of ways.

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She's highly distractible.

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She makes a lot of careless errors.

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She's not a good test taker.

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Jackson hates to read.

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He has low reading comprehension,

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and to be honest, most of his teachers


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just think he has average ability.

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Joy appears unable to learn.

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She has a diagnosed learning disability,

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and experiences school failure
in many academic ways.

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But the more I started
to get to know my students,

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the more I really started 
to see my father.

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And the more I really started to see me.

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And I began to wonder,

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"What if your child

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is not being measured 
by their ability to learn?

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What if school performance
is actually measuring

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your child's inability 
to think with words?"

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So, I left working with schools


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and I went into private practice

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where I was researching and designing 


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some approaches to learning.

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And I ran across
three powerful statistics.

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50 to 60% of all students 
will be perceived by school

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as having average
to bellow average learning potential.

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50 to 60% of all students,

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will test as being very strong 
at picture thinking,

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with weaknesses in word thinking.

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50 to 60% of all words

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that a kindergarten child

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needs to learn how to read

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is taught to them 
using rote memorization only.

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So, I decided, "You know what?


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I am going to take my students back 
to kindergarten, so to speak,

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and look at where 
their learning inability really began."

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And we've honed in on the first 40 words

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that their brain had been forced
to memorize,

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but, this time, we engaged 
their creative thinking

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and we activated
their problem solving skills,

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And we moved those words from memorization

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over to experience and meaning.

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And we started to see some amazing things.

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This is Sarah today.

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She's an 11th grade.

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She's an A student,

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and she's actually
actively looking for ways

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to capitalize 
on her social networking skills.

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Jackson is above average in all areas,

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and he's an avid water polo player.

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Joy has defeated all the odds.

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She now loves to read,

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and she's an elegant writer.

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Over the last ten years,

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my students have been showing me


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the crippling effect rote memorization

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can have on a developing brain.

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But they've also been showing me


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that there is nothing average 
about the human mind.

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Because, as it turns out,

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all our children really need from us,

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is to be given the opportunity

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to see learning.

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(Applause)