JOHNNY BRAVO: The E! True Hollywood Back Story.

THE CLASS 'COCONUT HEAD'
Remember growing up and having that one classmate everybody thought was so dumb? Most likely, you met several in the course of your primary, secondary and maybe even university education. It just seemed that these ones couldn't understand the simplest of concepts. They started needing a scientific calculator from when the topic was simply grasping how to sing A, B, C, Ds and Log table for counting 1 to 27. Usually their failure in anything academic was so predictable that whenever the class teacher called them up to read a passage or answer a question, everyone got ready to laugh!

If it was a reading exercise, they'd be painfully slow in covering a short passage and in that, they'd still make several hard to recognize pronunciations of seemingly simple words, like pronouncing 'Pak-ah-Gee' for 'package,'Deh-nai-see' for 'Denise', 'Nahai-cee' for 'Nice', 'Kee-ked' for 'kicked' and worse mispronunciations!' (I'm using stereotypes here, it could be more diverse and complex).

Kids like these were very often the butt of the joke for their classmates and if they were physically big, bullying became a passive aggressive form of defense they took up: enter the proverbial big, dumb, class bully. They were deemed a frustration to their teachers and source of lingering despair to their parents. Some parents because of their ignorance of the matter at hand, will use all forms of beatings and threats to try to attempt to 'help' these kids to be 'serious'. After a while, the corrective measure is no longer done for the kid's sake; it becomes about removing 'the shame' of being the parent or sibling of the veteran school idiot! Before long, a parent unconsciously transfers affection away from that challenged child to a more performing one.

WRONG ASSESSMENT OF THE PROBLEM MATTER.
Maybe the above picture was not that of any classmate you recall; it may have been the case of your sibling or relative. That one that just couldn't get along in school—the several schools they tried to put them through, they always crashed out. Contrary to what everyone thought then, it may shock you to know that it probably was not your village people, a lack of motivation (laziness) or lack of intelligence that was responsible for their lapse.

Sometimes, all the shame and ridicule that they suffer from teachers, classmates and family members is because of lack of understanding of something BIOLOGICAL that these people, themselves, have little awareness of or control over (note that emphasis on the adjective, biological, we'll refer to it a bit more as we go). So while you thought, it was just them being stubborn, they were wrestling with both society's ridicule and unique brain coding in their head. Let me try to explain.

SHANNON: THE GIRL WITHOUT FEAR.

First, let's digress with a story. There's a young lady somewhere in Australia, that I once read about, a wave tide photographer called Shannon Glasson. She has dared very many frightening feats in the course of her career. I imagine it would feel easy for you to want to label Shannon as 'brave', if you see the physical risks she routinely undertakes. But what you don't know is that those risks are a non-issue for her seeing that she CANNOT feel the fear, the overwhelming emotion others will feel and need to overcome to do those same things. They say, she has a rare genetic condition, Cogenital Andrenal Hyperplasia (CAH). BIOLOGICALLY, her body inhibits the production of the hormones that enable her to feel fear; which is a good thing in some ways. So, before being a willful choice, boldness was a biological predisposition for her.

LEARNING DISABILITIES.
Now, back to our topic, there are people who biologically, have impediments to learning. That is, the reason they are having issues with school work is not because of laziness. The root of their challenge is first, biological and physiological. This implies, merely telling such a fellow to 'be serious and learn book', is as useful and appropriate as telling a long-sighted person to be 'serious and see far'! Asides the vehicle of the supernatural, things don't work like that in this planet. Usually their brains are wired differently and require another set of learning approach different from the conventional methods to access their potential.

There are several of these learning challenges, but I'll mention just two, the most popular being, Dyslexia and then, there's Dyscalculia. Summarily, dyslexic people have problems with reading, spelling and related cognitive exercises.

Then, there's Dyscalculia, where the fellow has issues with computing numbers and calculations-- in the 2018 movie, Night School, Kevin Hart's character had Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and one other learning disorder.

PREVALENCE
If these things sound far fetched to you, then you need to hear the statistics. Google shows, 1.5 million cases of dyslexia recorded annually, in Nigeria (the same Nigeria that rarely keeps good record). An American source alleges that 15 to 20% percent of population has language based learning disability and that there's a 70% chance that anyone whose environment or physical health isn't affecting their studies, yet is consistently bad at school work, suffers one severe form of learning disorder. As with several other issues, there's a range of factors affecting expression: some may have mild forms of these that is less noticeable to others as they struggle internally, while others may be severe.

REASON FOR THIS WRITE UP
I have not written this to give people facing this an excuse to relax in whatever confinement their learning challenge wants to imprison them in? No, far from it. First this is to create awareness for empathy and intelligent response from members of the society. Maybe, if our teachers knew better, they would have a more intelligent response than having a whole class to sing: 'Shame, shame, shame, SHAME! Big, coconut HEAD!' to any student no matter their bad performance.

Also parents or families with kids or siblings, who may be faced with any of these, armed with adequate knowledge, will see differently and better empathize with the challenged individuals who have hitherto been mostly considered the useless, black sheep in many families! Then, rather than despair, they would focus on discovering what best way the individual can learn and support alternative learning techniques.

Then for people who may have some mild form of this challenge, I hope this helps you to stop beating yourself up as a foolish, good-for-nothing, waste of human protoplasm. Rather, starting from the awareness that your learning difficulties have been a biological wiring issue all along, you can begin an informed rise above its limitations. Some famous people who had dyslexia and still went on to do well include Jim Carrey, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, to mention a few.

WHAT TO DO.
If you know someone who probably has a learning disability, you could learn more about it online and with your knowledge promote better responses to them in your family, class or place of work. You could also educate another person and help other people who you may suspect are faced with same challenges. Understanding and working with them to overcome their challenges is better than throwing motivational quotes from '7 habits of highly effective people' at them!

I don't think we have very many medical institutions that offer professional services along these lines in Nigeria. We also don't have enough schools that are adapted with relevant programs to handle special cases; we need to start up special schools and non-conventional training facilities. But then again, even in nations with great Medicare and relatively sound educational systems, everyone is not reached or helped.

Thankfully, there is supernatural power that cuts across all spheres: healing for the spirit, mind and body! This is explore-able. God's power will effect a cure on anything and everything—the payment covered all infirmities.

In closing, you recall the famous 1990s cartoon series, Johnny Bravo, portrayed as dumb and always thinking in totally different light. Maybe Johnny wasn't so dimwitted after all, his brain could have been wired differently but we may never know until the last day!

In all, if you're a high performer, go-getter person, it may be difficult for you to wrap your mind around the failings of some people. But that is just because, you may never know all the Back-Story, be gentle with others.

I hope you found reading this, a meaningful use of your time!