Transcript

The Unexpected Light of Thomas Alva Edison · Clay & Buck Recommendations

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It's a story I didn't know anything about. I stumbled across a quote from
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Edison in one of these big doorstop biographies we never read, and in the
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back it says, my mother was the making of me. If not for
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her devotion and faith in me at a certain time, I would never become
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an inventor. Edison said that to multiple interviewers at the end of his life,
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and I thought, wait a minute, who is this mother and why
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haven't I ever heard of her? Well, when I started digging, I
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realized Edison, at eight years old, was thrown out of school. The
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schoolmaster said he's an idiot and can't be taught. His father said he was
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a dunce because he was a very withdrawn child, probably had ADHD. We
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know he was death by twelve, but his mother had belief in him,
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saw the curiosity, took him home and home schooled him. I frankly don't
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know why Edison today isn't the patron saint of home schooling.