Dana White, King of MMA

be taken. Dana’s I.Q. test indicated that he was in the bright normal category at 112,
but there was a twenty point I.Q. difference between his verbal score (120) and his
performance (100). Other tests indicated that he was having trouble remembering
what he heard or saw and then writing it down on paper. If he were shown a flash
card that said “the little white house,” he might write “house white the little.” He
was not dyslexic, but he was definitely having serious problems that needed to be
addressed quickly and aggressively. A special program was set up for him. He would
leave his class three times a week for thirty minutes every day to work with a special
education teacher for the remainder of second grade and all of third grade. All the
work of the special education teacher and his regular teachers paid off, and he was
able to overcome his learning problem. His second grade teacher wrote, “Dana is a
hard working boy. He tries very hard to do good work. I’m pleased with his progress.”
I think it was his second grade teacher he had a crush on. She was young, pretty,
and drove a sports car. Dana would try very hard to do well in her class because then
he got to stay after school and help her erase the chalkboards and do other chores.
She called me one day and asked if it would be all right if she took Dana to Friendly’s
for a soda and then she would bring him home. I thought he was going to burst when
she pulled up at our house in front of all the other kids in her sports car. She had
discovered Dana liked attention and would act out and try to be funny in class or get
in trouble to get it. She turned the tables. She only gave him attention if he was good
or worked hard. When he realized he was not getting any attention for misbehaving in
her class, he did a complete turnaround. She had his number early on.
There was a story he had written in her class about a monkey who gets on a
rocket ship and goes to the moon. He had drawn pictures to go with the words and
put it all together in a book form with a picture of a monkey sitting on a rocket ship
and the moon in the background as the cover. I kept it, and about six years ago, I
gave it to Dana’s wife. She is not apparently very sentimental, and I am sure it is in a
landfill now.
In fourth grade, Dana was struggling again and had fallen a year behind in math.
He would struggle with math from that point on, although again, I am sure he is very