Eye to Eye began as a public service project at Brown University that took Brown University undergraduates and matched them with children in the community who had similar neurodiversities. 

It was founded a public service project at Brown by myself and the co-author of my first book, David Cole. And David Flink was one the first four mentors in the program. You know, the origin of it was pretty simple, I had a really hard time in school and really felt I had no future.

So, one day my mom showed me a videotape. The interview was with a young man who went to Yale Law School and he was dyslexic, and he couldn’t read a word, and his mother, his mom read every one of his law books to him. Do you have any idea the hope that image gave me? I saw an image of a possible future. That guy did it, maybe I’ll be okay. And so, you know, that was the humble mission of Eye to Eye. 

The number of, you know, professionals in the world who dismissed it was really pretty demoralizing, but nonetheless we persevered. And Dave Flink expanded and grown Eye to Eye in ways I could never have imagined. Changing kid’s lives all around the country, as well as his colleague Marcus, and all the other unnamed folks on the ground at universities around the country who say, you know what? I’m going to wake up and I’m going to be a role model of what’s possible.

And I may still struggle in school, I may still feel ashamed a little bit, but I’m going to tell a kid you’re not broken, and that’s profound and it’s life changing. And I commend every single person from Dave Flink to the unnamed mentors at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and everybody in-between who wakes up single every day and contributes in giving young people the message that they’re not broken, that they have a hope for their future, hope not despite their differences, but because of them.

For more information about learning disabilities, please visit LDOnLine.org. This video was made possible by a partnership between the National Education Association and WETA.