Celebrate Perseverance: Coach Mayo Shares Dyslexia Journey
October is Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, and Coach Bambi Mayo stepped up to talk about her very personal experiences with dyslexia in the year’s first UpWords assembly in the Middle School. UpWords gives Graland faculty the chance to share their journeys and connect with students on topics related to our guiding principles.
The youngest of five children, Bambi was the third to have the dyslexia diagnosis. Dyslexia is a learning disorder that causes otherwise intelligent people to have extreme difficulty reading, spelling and processing words.
October is Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, and Coach Bambi Mayo stepped up to talk about her very personal experiences with dyslexia in the year’s first UpWords assembly in the Middle School. UpWords gives Graland faculty the chance to share their journeys and connect with students on topics related to our guiding principles.
The youngest of five children, Bambi was the third to have the dyslexia diagnosis. Dyslexia is a learning disorder that causes otherwise intelligent people to have extreme difficulty reading, spelling and processing words.
“People with dyslexia struggle and it’s hard to explain,” Bambi shares. “For me, information comes in and gets scrambled. I have to work really hard and concentrate really hard to put the letters in order.”
Still, Bambi told students that her dyslexia is a gift. “It taught me to work hard and it taught me lessons that I couldn’t learn any other way. Lessons like never, ever, ever give up.”
She also applauded other students who come to school each day and manage the Graland workload with a learning disorder. “Courage is going into a situation where you know you will fail, and going in anyway,” Bambi says. “But the truth is, we all fail. We’re supposed to fail and fail often. The key is to learn and move on.”
Bambi studied kinesiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder with a dream to become a PE teacher and share her love of athletics with other students. But her dyslexia presented an obstacle.
“To be a teacher you have to pass a test,” she explains. “I failed the spelling section three times.”
Fate stepped in. Bambi was invited to speak before the State Board of Education at the Colorado State Capitol. At the young age of 22, she publicly shared her story and made such an impact that she was given the chance to retake the test orally. She passed and has successfully taught in Denver’s best private schools for more than 30 years.
Bambi went on to earn a master’s degree in educational psychology and child development and now mentors her own son who also has dyslexia.
Graland Country Day School
Graland Country Day School is a private school in Denver, Colorado, serving students in preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school. Founded in Denver in 1927, Graland incorporates a rich, experiential learning approach in a traditional classroom setting, emphasizing the development of globally and socially conscious leaders who excel academically.
