He Did it!

He did it!
I have spoken in passing about my son Joe. He has what has become known as Non Verbal Learning Disability. What it amounts to is an extreme difficulty for Joe to output information. He has a phenomenal memory, and a vocabulary that is easily four grade levels beyond where he currently is in school. His difficulty becomes apparent when you ask him to write something using a pencil. His fluency becomes halting, his attention wanders, and he fatigues extremely quickly. There were numerous very subtle clues that would have pointed this out to someone who had the training to see it, but up until the middle of the fifth grade, we simply explained the problems away as a lack of motivation, or ability, instead of what it truly was, an impairment.

After many visits to pediatricians, neurologist, neuro-psychologists, and occupational therapists, we have come some understanding of what we are dealing with. But everyone involved acknowledges that our understanding is incomplete.

The practical and long-term conclusions though were the hardest, at least for me, to deal with. I have always been amazed at Joe’s intellect. His perception of detail, and his focus on a subject are incredible to me. I had such high hopes that he would be involved in fields that emphasized his mind instead of his muscles. I worked as a construction laborer and carpenter for 10 years. There are definitely easier ways to make a much better living. Ever since Joe was small, I would always tell him that he could do anything he wanted, from fly an airplane, to design automobiles, to composing symphonies, to authoring software. I believed, and still do, that God had gifted him with a remarkable brain, and he should put his to better use than I put mine.

It is very hard to balance those kinds of hopes for your son, against the reality, that he is in 6th grade, and still has not mastered his multiplication tables. It is not for lack of trying. We drilled for hours, made up worksheets, and did who knows what else, and it simply has evaded him. As an aside, we learned this fall, that if Joe says the multiplication problem out loud, he can solve it much more easily than if he just tries to do it in his head. The neuro psychologist told us that the verbalizing engages another part of his brain. All I know is that it works.

This fall, I enrolled Joe in a club called Lego League. Everyone knows what Lego’s are. I thought this might be an opportunity for Joe to get together with classmates and design and build something. What I did not know is that Lego League involved dozens of schools in the area that received a project from the organizers. The project was divided into two parts. One was a research project that would culminate in an oral presentation by each team to the judges. The other was that each team was to design and build a robot that could perform a series of tasks in a certain amount to time. Each team would start out with the same robot chassis and programming software, and then they had to design the implements to attach to the robot to complete the tasks. Then they had to create the orders for the robot to complete the tasks as efficiently as possible. Lego league started early this fall and their first contest was this past weekend.

Joe was elected to be captain of his team. The coach told me that the kids chose Joe, and the coach whole-heartedly agreed. He was the coolest under pressure, and also came up with a lot of the design details. As captain, he was also in charge of changing and aligning the implements during the time trials.

The meet was held at a local technical college, and the place was swarming with kids. Each team was called to a central lecture room; six teams would compete at a time. The teams would set their robots on identical boards, a horn would sound, and the contest would be on. There were announcers calling the action over the PA and the central board was actually projected onto a big screen.

When Joe’s team was called, there was my son talking with the referees, being in charge of his team, and making adjustments on the robot. After each robot mission, he would pick up the bot, make the adjustments and start it on its way to the next mission. I sat there in awe. With all the commotion going on, and all the pressure, he was as cool as a cucumber.

When it was all said and done, his team was one of 10 teams that were invited to go on to the State Level.

I still have goose bumps. After all we have been through, I honestly thought that something like this just could not happen for Joe. The cards seemed to be stacked against him so badly. I am just so proud and happy for him I could bust.