Dr. Benjamin Carson, BYU Forum

I'm going to work backwards chronologically because I don't want to forget what I learned today.
I just got back from the BYU forum with Dr. Benjamin Carson from John Hopkins Medical Center.  To give you an idea of how cool this guy is, his intro took a solid 6 minutes and included: came from a single divorcee mom home in Detroit, started out at the bottom of his class, 38 honorary doctorates, performed the first successful Siamese twin separation at the back of the heads, runs a scholarship program, just published a book.  Cool guy, to say the least.  He was really funny, too!  I was absorbed the whole time.  He talked about what his book contains: America the Beautiful, specifically how America can be improved just by emphasizing the importance of education.  Here are some highlights that I thought were so interesting:
-He talked about how an older guy had a hole drilled into the side of his brain and electric shocks at the right places helps the guy to recite a book verbatim that he read 70 years ago.  Did you know how incredible the brain was?  I thought I did.
-The Holocaust was successful because, even though people didn't agree with Hitler, they didn't have the courage to speak out. [Do I have the courage to speak out about what I feel isn't right?]
-THINK BIG: Talents, Honesty, Insight from people and good books, Nice, Knowledge, Books, In-depth thinking, God
-He went from the very bottom of his class to the top because his mom made him read and write about the books in a report every week.  Even though she couldn't read them.  [=READING IS SO CRUCIAL TO A CHILD'S SUCCESS!  That's what I've been saying!]
-A survey was taken in 2009 where children of a certain age in 22 different countries were given the same test of fundamental math and science questions.  They were ranked on the scores of the students.  Our country barely came in 21st place. Hmm.
-He and his wife started a scholarship foundation that awards students with excellent academic standing as well as involvement in humanitarian work. To learn more about his foundation click here
There are so many other things that I wanted to remember, and I regret not writing them down, but it was a great forum.