Conference speaker scolds restrictive teachers

The opening speaker was Jonathan Mooney, a New York resident who dropped out of school for a year and contemplated suicide in the sixth grade because he had been labeled as stupid and couldn’t keep up with his classmates.

“People told me I’d be flipping burgers or wind up in jail,” Mooney said. “I grew up in in-school suspension. I knew Shirley, the principal’s secretary, better than anyone.”

Yet, a few years ago, Mooney, who is 27 years old, graduated from Brown University with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. He was a national finalist as a Rhodes Scholar. He also has written a nationally-acclaimed book and told his story in all 50 states and several foreign countries.

Mooney said he is dyslexic and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He said he still spells at the third grade level and reads on the seventh grade level. But through the encouragement of his mother and several teachers and the use of technology, he has become a national figure.

He used books on tape and voice-activated computer software to help him overcome his handicaps. He also said his brain is such that it continued growing until he was in his 20s, several years after most brains have stopped developing.

Mooney said schools must recognize that there is no such thing as normal, and that there are many different ways to learn. He stated telling kindergartners that they are all individual snowflakes and then expecting them to all sit still at their desks and learn the same way is a horrible concept.

Mooney, who continually paced the stage of the CSC Student Center Ballroom as he spoke, said that as a child when he was forced to sit still he stopped learning. “For some of us, movement is necessary for us to learn,” he said.

While growing up, Mooney said he was continually told that he was stupid, crazy or lazy. He said when he was told to focus, to try harder or pay attention, it only made matters worse.

“The drop out rate for people like me is extremely high,” he stated. “We’re told ‘you’re broken, change or get out.’ It gives us the idea that ‘I’m a bad kid.’” He added that the word retarded should be treated as the moral equivalent of a racial slur. “It should be totally unacceptable.”

Mooney told the audience of more than 200 made up primarily of teachers and CSC education majors that students who “are outside the box” should be celebrated and encouraged.

“Validate those who learn in different ways and are different,” he said. “Celebrate the athlete, the mechanic and the artist. Find each student’s passion and encourage them. If you do that, you will change a life. We tell people we love them as individuals, but to stop being different and be like everybody else.”

Mooney said his life was turned around because his mother, Colleen, continued to be his advocate when he ran into snares and because one of his teachers, a Mr. Rosenbaum, encouraged him to do what he liked and could do best.

“I told Mr. Rosenbaum that I liked stories, but that I couldn’t spell. He said, ‘screw spelling’ so I was soon reading, writing and spelling the best I could. I was on my way to being an English literature major at an Ivy League school. Don’t define people by their deficits and disorders, define them by their strengths and gifts.”

Mooney was to speak two more times on Friday while the Early Childhood Conference will continue through Saturday in the Student Center at CSC.