Did
you read this article?
In a Fortune magazine
cover story, some the nation's top corporate executives shared their
strategies in coping with DYSLEXIA, along with the pain their families
suffered at their sides.
   If
you are the teacher or relative of a learning disabled child, be sure
you or they have read Betsy Morris' cover
story ("Overcoming
Dyslexia") in the May 20, 2002, issue of Fortune magazine.
Eighty percent of learning disabled students suffer from
some form of dyslexia and often their families suffer along
with the child, fearing the unknown: Where will this child
end up? How will he/she be able to cope? Is there any hope?
As Morris explains, all of those anxieties were
experienced by some of the most influential corporate leaders in America and their
parents.
Since dyslexia is not curable, they still struggle
with it, but now with the knowledge that it is not insurmountable.
In wide-ranging interviews, achievers like the founder of
Kinko's and the lawyer who brought Microsoft to its knees share the learning
strategies they used as students in the classroom and today in the boardroom.
Additionally, a Dec. 6, 2007 article in The
New York Times reported on a new study by Julie Logan of the Cass
Business School in London that indicates dyslexia is far more common
(30 percent) among small-business owners and entrepreneurs than suspected
previously. The article, "Tracing Business Acumen
to Dyslexia" by Brent Bowers can be found online at: www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/business/06dyslexia.html.
The Fortune article is available at the Fortune
Web site:
www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=207665&page=1
If the url address changes, you can search the Fortune files
using "dyslexia" as the keyword. NOTE: the article is five
pages long, but the end of each of the Web pages appears to be
the end of the article; use the Page button at the page bottom to link
to the next page. Here are the opening paragraphs of the article:
Consider the following
four dead-end kids.
One was spanked by his teachers for bad grades
and a poor attitude. He dropped out of school at 16. Another failed
remedial English and came perilously close to flunking out of college.
The third feared he'd never make it through school--and might not
have without a tutor. The last finally learned to read in third grade,
devouring Marvel comics, whose pictures provided clues to help him
untangle the words.
These four losers are, respectively, Richard
Branson, Charles Schwab, John Chambers, and David Boies.
Billionaire Branson developed one of Britain's top brands with Virgin
Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Schwab virtually created the
discount brokerage business. Chambers is CEO of Cisco. Boies is a
celebrated trial attorney, best known as the guy who beat Microsoft.
In one of the stranger bits of business trivia,
they have something in common: They are all dyslexic. So is billionaire Craig
McCaw, who pioneered the cellular industry; John Reed,
who led Citibank to the top of banking; Donald Winkler, who
until recently headed Ford Financial; Gaston Caperton, former
governor of West Virginia and now head of the College Board; Paul
Orfalea, founder of Kinko's; Diane Swonk, chief economist
of Bank One. The list goes on. Many of these adults seemed pretty
hopeless as kids. All have been wildly successful in business. Most
have now begun to talk about their dyslexia as a way to help children
and parents cope with a condition that is still widely misunderstood. "This
is very painful to talk about, even today," says Chambers. "The
only reason I am talking about it is 100% for the kids and their
parents."
excerpted
from "Overcoming
Dyslexia"
by
Betsy Morris, Fortune magazine,
May
20, 2002 |
|