"It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid." Dr. Benjamin CarsonWhen Benjamin Carson was in the fifth grade, he was at the bottom of his class. His classmates called him "dummy" and he developed a violent, uncontrollable temper. His mother, who only had a third grade education, put him on a reading program. Within a few weeks, Carson amazed his classmates by identifying rock samples his teacher had brought to class. He recognized them from one of the books he had read. "It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't stupid," he recalled later. He says that when he thought he was stupid, he acted like a stupid person. When he realized he was smart, he conducted himself accordingly. Within a year he was at the top of his class. "It says a whole lot about expectations," he now says.
After graduating from Yale University, Dr. Carson went to the Medical School of the University of Michigan. In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins. To read more about Dr. Carson, and share interviews by him with your students, click here.
