In this article, the author shares her experience in teaching a new first-grade student with a severe learning disability. Reading the reports from numerous experts, including medical doctors, school psychologists, veteran teachers, and one neurologist, she discovered that Sally Jo had repeated kindergarten and that it was her second year in first grade. The message was clear: Sally Jo could not learn. However, during the first week in her new classroom, Sally Jo proved all the experts wrong. The author realizes that not only was Sally learning, she was learning too--but not anything from the state-mandated curriculum guides. She was learning to persevere. It is the power of perseverance that the experts cannot consider when they evaluate people's personal lives. (Contains 1 endnote.)