When I was growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I made a promise to myself to become an adult who always remembered what it’s like to be a kid. That promise and desire was part of the fuel that led me to go into teaching.

After earning a degree in education and learning disabilities I taught for several years in Australia, New England and New York City. Later, I learned about a new school in Monterey, California for bright kids with reading and writing difficulties, and was hired as its first teacher.

I decided to apprentice myself for a year to the director, one of the nation’s top educators of dyslexic students. There I began honing an approach to teaching that would later become validated by the National Reading Panel. This school is now one of the best.

Wanting to share these skills and experiences with wider audiences I began training other teachers and tutors to recognize and teach dyslexic learners. Along the way, I was lucky enough to meet and marry my wife and we have raised two boys, one who has learning differences and for whom the early school years were difficult.

As a result of being a parent of a child with learning disabilities I now found myself on the other side of the coin or desk so to speak, and learned first-hand the experiences and emotions that come when it is your child who seems misunderstood. I had the “pit in my stomach” feeling when it seemed his learning needs weren’t met. I can’t overstate how this experience changed me.