Intuition is Powerful

 Gavin de Becker is a renowned safety expert. He wrote the book “The Gift of Fear.” He describes intuition as the feeling that something is wrong before it happens. He believes intuition is a weapon against victimization.

Mrs. Smith was Samantha’s, Briana’s, and Kara’s first grade teacher. She was excellent. She was seasoned. Until the day she retired she sat cross-legged on the floor with her students. Her enthusiasm for teaching never faltered.   

At the end of the school year, Mrs. Smith approached me and said that while Kara was one of the top readers in the class, she thought something was amiss. It was nothing she could quantitate. It was a feeling—her years of experience made her think that there was a piece of the reading puzzle that was missing. She suggested that I speak with the principal of Stewart school and request that Kara be formally tested.

And when I conferenced with the principal, the principal questioned my concern. The principal thought I was looking for trouble where trouble did not exist. The principal believed that since Kara was one of the top readers in her class there could not possibly be something amiss or else she would not have been reading at all. She dismissed Mrs. Smith’s intuition as fantasy and convinced me to leave it alone—I should wait and see what happened in second grade.

But by the time I walked from the principal’s office to the parking lot I was unconvinced that there was nothing going on with Kara. I decided that  the principal was no authority—she wasn’t the one sitting cross-legged on the floor in a reading group with my daughter everyday—Mrs. Smith was. Mrs. Smith’s intuition became mine—I was not going to allow my daughter to possibly fall through the cracks. So  I made a decision to have Kara tested privately-- and I was not going to allow it to wait.

Kara was in the top reading group in her class because she had an uncanny ability to memorize words. And Kara understood enough words by sight combined with her intellectual ability to guess the filler text to appear as if she was reading. She was not. She had absolutely no phonetic skills whatsoever. Kara had an auditory issue that could be resolved with tutoring and some learned tricks. And that is how Kara learned to truly read—it was from a private reading tutor. It only took three months to overcome her deficit and then she was fine. Mrs. Smith was absolutely correct---something was amiss. No one was looking for trouble where it did not exist.

Gavin de Becker asserts that we are the only creatures that sense danger and walk right into it. All other animals sense danger and back right out.

I chose not to walk into danger. Mothers know things—they sense them even when there is no evidence. And seasoned teachers know things too—even when there is no quantitation to prove it. Which is why the gut it so important. By trusting Mrs. Smith and going with my mother’s intuition I headed off a host of problems—Kara never lost ground—she became a success story instead.

When I later told the principal about Kara’s auditory issue she intimated that I intervened too early—the situation would have resolved itself--even though it was clear that not intervening would have been a lengthy and frustrating mistake.  And when I told Mrs. Smith that she was indeed correct that Kara had a reading issue, she simply said I was just doing my job. Lots of teachers do their job every day. Teachers guide students to success. Teachers make up for the fact that there are lots of administrators who do not.