Children need to harness brain power

Noted neurosurgeon Ben Carson and other speakers sounded a rallying cry for retooled education and reverence to God at the Hickory Metro Convention Center on Thursday night.

More than 500 people gathered to hear Carson and others tell their tales of triumph through faith, discipline and action.

The Rev. Mark Harris, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, and the Rev. Barry Black, current U.S. Senate chaplain, also spoke.

Carson talked about growing up in dire poverty, surrounded by bad influences and complacency. He said he remembered his cousins being killed and seeing people dying from bullet wounds.

It was his mother who altered the course of his life. He said he had not seen any importance in his studies and was frequently taunted by the more successful students in class.

"I was always the butt of every joke about being stupid," Carson said.

Carson said that his mother, who had a third-grade education, had a powerful work ethic and supported her children as a single parent.

"She saw that no one that went on welfare came out of it," Carson said. "She didn't want to be on it in the first place."

His mother curtailed his television time and required him to read and review books.

"I started to enjoy reading books, and I started knowing the answers to the questions in class," Carson said.

Today, Carson oversees a scholarship program for children. He said that young people need to be taught to believe in themselves and to not back down in the face of adversity.

"We gotta get this 'What can you do for me?' spirit out of them and get this 'can do' spirit into them," he said.

Carson said that America needs to focus on educating students in the math and sciences. He referenced a study that listed America 21st out of 22 countries in solving complex problems with an eighth-grade equivalency.

"This is the technological age." Carson said. "It is the information age. Is that something we can afford?"

"We are producing a fraction of the engineers they're producing in China," he said. "We need to lead the way. We have the resources. What we don't have is the will power and the right kind of direction."

Carson said that the brain is more powerful than people realize.

"You can't overload it," Carson said. "If you learned one new fact every second, it would take three million years to fill that capacity."