He had been told he was 'brain-damaged'

français 1, 2
If you want to help others to improve, remember...

"My son David, he had led a rough life. His mother and I were divorced after a car accident. Until he was fifteen he had spent most of his school years in special classes for slow learners in the Dallas school system. He was two years behind his age group, so he was only in the seventh grade. Yet he did not know his multiplication tables, added on his fingers and could barely read.

There was one positive point. He loved to work on radio and TV sets. He wanted to become a TV technician. I encouraged this and pointed out that he needed math to qualify for the training. I decided to help him become proficient in this subject. We obtained four sets of flash cards: multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. I made a big deal out of each card he got right, particularly if he had missed it previously. Each night we would go through the repeat stack until there were no cards left. Each night we timed the exercise with a stop watch.

I promised him that when he could get all the cards correct in eight minutes with no incorrect answers, we would quit doing it every night. This seemed an impossible goal to David. The first night it took 52 minutes, the second night, 48, then 45, 44, 41, then under 40 minutes. We celebrated each reduction. I'd call in my wife, and we would both hug him and we'd all dance a jig.

At the end of the month he was doing all the cards perfectly in less than eight minutes. When he made a small improvement he would ask to do it again.
He had made the fantastic discovery that learning was easy and fun.
Other changes came with almost unbelievable rapidity.

He had been told he was 'brain-damaged,' who had been called 'Frankenstein' by his classmates and told his brains must have leaked out of the cut on his head.
Once he found learning was easy, his whole life changed."
-- Excerpt from "How to Win Friends & Influence People"
Written by Dale Carnegie edited by Denik