I remember reading this story on the internet a while back and being quite touched by it. I don’t know if it’s true, but I like the story just the same. It’s inspiring to think what can be achieved if someone were to look at someone’s abilities instead of just writing them off. We all have our unique capabilities and different ways of learning. No one is ever incapable – we just need the right person to believe in us.

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One day the young Thomas Edison came home and handed a paper to his mother from his school. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to give it only to you.”

His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her son. “ Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.”

After years, Edison’s mother died and he was renowned as one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he was going through his old family things. Suddenly, he noticed a folded paper in the corner of a drawer. He took it and opened it up.

On the paper was written: “Your son is addled*. We won’t let him come to school any more.”

Thomas Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

*Definition of addled – “unable to think clearly; mentally confused“

By Anonymous