How Jerome Learned to Read: Fostering Children's Unique Intelligence

By Dawna Markova
Issue 122, January-February 2004

Sidebar: Asset-Focused Parenting

"Learning emerges from our individual and collective abilities to tap existing human capabilities and transform the forces that interfere with their expressions."
-Maya Angelou

When we hold an infant in our arms, we all feel it-that gaping awe and amazement as we look at the prints at the ends of those diminutive fingers. At that moment, it is as if a door inside our hearts opens-we feel a wave of wonder at the miracle of this child's uniqueness and potential. Perhaps, in that moment and a thousand times since, you've asked yourself how you could best cultivate this being so that he or she could blossom as fully as possible.

But the door closes. We forget. We seem to develop some kind of perceptual dyslexia. As a nation, we have developed a handicap of trust that limits our perception of the unique island of brilliance on which each child stands. The focus of our attention has shifted-from what might be natural assets that need to be developed, to what could be deficits that need to be fixed. We limit not only what could be possible for children, but also how we might champion their innate gifts. We see Martin as "hyperactive" instead of energetic. We call Sally "inattentive" instead of imaginative. We label George "oppositional" rather than independent. Jennifer is described as being "oversensitive," not empathetic, and Jerome, a young man I was privileged to meet in a Florida school several decades ago, was labeled as "retarded" and "resistant" instead of . . . well, let me tell you a story about Jerome.

He was a six-foot-tall, bittersweet chocolate, 14-year-old sixth grader living in a migrant labor camp with his mother and two sisters. I was the "learning specialist." My office was the former broom closet. The principal referred Jerome to me on the day school opened. "Just keep him out of trouble. He'll never be able to learn to read; he's trainable, not educable. Train him to behave in my school."

Jerome's cumulative folder was full of labels listing all of his deficits and disorders. His deep eyes held both mischief and misery. He told me the first day not to bother trying to teach him, because he wasn't ever going to read. That made it almost unanimous-and a challenge.

I learned from Jerome's mother that he was the chess champion of the migrant camp. I went to watch him play one night, which was evidently rather unusual. No white teacher had ever done such a thing. I found Jerome surrounded by a small crowd, sitting on boxes or squatting. As Jerome paced, no one made a sound. His eyes scanned the board, and then, suddenly, he pounced. "Checkmate!"

I had an idea. I brought a large book to my office; its title, A Black History of America, was spelled out in gold letters. Jerome, who had never seen a book with photographs of African Americans, did everything he could to try to get me to read it to him. Finally, I offered to play a game of chess with him, but only on these conditions: If he won, I'd read the book to him. If I won, he'd have to learn to read it.