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Our Future -- Adults of tomorrow
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Child of genius
By Lisa Levitt Ryckman
LITTLETON -- Spencer Jones will never learn to read.
That's what the teacher told his mother when Spencer was 6. He couldn't recognize the letters of the alphabet. He couldn't even recognize the letters of his own name. He won't learn them, the teacher said. Ever. Give up now. Don't waste your time. Spencer overheard her. No one knew until much later, because he didn't tell a soul. He kept the terrible secret to himself: Spencer Jones, fresh out of kindergarten, already a failure. It was another strike against a kid who already had racked up a few in his short life. As a preschooler, Spencer had been diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which meant he had a hard time paying attention, completing tasks, staying in his seat. His mind raced and his body fidgeted. When Spencer's mother, Cindy, brought him to Willows Child Learning Center, director Marilyn Bivens wasn't sure she could help him. It was so rare to have a child reach Spencer's age without being able to name the letters of the alphabet. Spencer was special, but it wasn't just his learning disability that made him that way, Bivens soon realized. Spencer was what educators refer to as "twice exceptional" -- learning disabled and extremely gifted. "He has a completely different level of thinking than most children have. And he had that already at 6," Bivens says. "And he was just tremendously interested in everything around him. And he knew something about everything." It took Bivens an entire summer to teach Spencer how to recognize the alphabet. They worked morning and afternoon, every day, Bivens sitting next to Spencer, patiently trying to focus his attention on the symbols and sounds, knowing how overwhelming the disability was for such an intelligent child. "All my teachers I've ever had have never stopped believing that I could make it if I tried," Spencer says. "None of them have ever given up on trying to teach me things." They all celebrated on the day he had mastered 19 letters. When Spencer's mom came in, he proudly read them off. "I felt really good," he says. "I felt confident with myself. I knew that teacher was wrong." Then one day, he knew all the letters. A week later, he could read. Not just rudimentary primers, but books with chapters. "Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop," says Spencer, who takes Ritalin now to help control his ADHD and make it easier for him to focus. A year later, Spencer saw the teacher who had predicted he would never read. "I told her I could read," he says. "She didn't believe me." So Spencer picked up a book and proved it. Today he is happy that the teacher predicted his failure, because it helped him find people who believed he could succeed and helped him believe it, too. "It doesn't make me feel good to judge people," says Spencer, 11. "It's not OK. I think that's kind of when I decided that. I knew how it felt to be unfairly judged. So I decided that it's not OK to judge people." Spencer had conquered his first big learning obstacle. Finding a way to nurture his brilliance was going to be an even bigger challenge. His mother heard about an outreach program offered by Mackintosh Academy, a private school in Littleton for the gifted. They were looking for intellectual diamonds in the rough, the kids who had the brains but lacked the $8,000-a-year tuition. Kids like Spencer. Until the moment he applied at Mackintosh Academy, Spencer had never taken an intelligence test. He scored in the upper 1 percentile -- which means he's smarter than 99 percent of the population. He won one of two full scholarships at Mackintosh for this school year. "I got lucky," he says. Trip Mackintosh, the school's director, figures he was lucky to find Spencer. He knows more Spencers are out there, but for every one they find, many more are lost forever. "The public's general view is that the gifted kid is the one balancing chemical equations at age 7, the one who goes to a school like ours," he says. "But Spencer is more representative of gifted kids than gifted kids who are in special programs. Because most gifted kids are not in those programs. Most gifted kids get nothing." Spencer's in the sixth grade. It's tough to jump into a high-powered environment like this one during middle school and stay afloat, but he's hanging in. "They don't judge by age for what grade you're in," he says. "They judge by what level you're at, what you're doing, what you've already learned." Spencer loves math and biology, hates tests, likes his teacher a lot. Likes being in a place where nobody puts him down. "Nobody's going to tell me I'm stupid if I don't do good," he says. "And nobody's going to be jealous of me if I do good." Those things have happened before. He's a computer whiz who designs his own Web sites and talks excitedly about Zip drives. He's into basketball, fantasy, Pokemon and God, so he thinks about being an engineer, a minister or a professional basketball player. Or maybe the owner of the whole team. "My dad says it's better to be the guy signing the check than the guy getting the check," Spencer says. His dad drives a cab. His mother grooms dogs. He knows what it's like to want something they can't afford. Like an education at a place like Mackintosh. Spencer sees himself as a pioneer, blazing a trail for future waves of gifted children of color into a white kids' stronghold. "I'm the second black boy to go to Mackintosh Academy, ever. I kind of feel like if I do make it there -- and I think I will -- that would help, because that would open the way for other kids like me to go there. "When I first went there, kids didn't really know what to think of me. 'Cause they don't have many children of color there. Now they like me. They think I'm a nice guy. It feels good to know that I'm going to help people." The future holds nothing Spencer can't handle, not only because of his intellect, but also because of his faith. "I strongly believe in Christianity. I've always just had a faith in God, and that always gets me through everything. I have something to believe in. Subconsciously, everybody knows you have to have something to believe in to keep you going, so you don't just give up." Two years ago, Spencer's teacher told the class to write poems about anything. So Spencer wrote about the future of Spencer. Spencer Intelligent, Sophisticated, Friendly Wishes to have a fighting chance at life, Wishes to survive Dreams of flying like Michael J., Dreams of survival Wants to live Wants to find one's destiny Who wonders when the future becomes the present And the present the past Who fears of not surviving the mystery we call life Who is afraid of change for change can be a bad thing Who likes to wonder what it's like to die, Who loves the thought of waking up with wings Who plans to survive Who plans to be remembered for something Whose final state of consciousness is heaven
December 26, 1999 Colorado Millennium 2000 is a yearlong project by the Denver Rocky Mountain News, NEWS4 and the Colorado Historical Society |
