Going on or Defeated Speaker Visits Zanesville City Schools

Inspirational speaker Ron Derry visited the Zanesville City School District Thursday to speak with the entire fifth grade class.

It only takes one glance in his direction to know there is something different about Derry. He lost his eye sight in 1995, but instead of rolling over in defeat he created the GOOD program which stands for Going On Or Defeated. He believes in keeping a positive attitude in his life to help encourage kids to have a positive outlook on their own lives.

"Well, I hope that when children see me out working with them that they see my upbeat positive attitude and they think to themselves, wow his problems are a lot worse than mine and look at how upbeat and happy he is. I need to get a better attitude in life, so it’s really about helping those children that don’t have that great attitude or maybe children that need a boost in their life," Derry said. 

Derry has been speaking at Zanesville Schools for many years now and speaks at over 100 others as well. He said that spending 18 years as a teacher encouraged him to continue educating children to the best of his ability, and Zanesville City Schools keeps welcoming him back with open arms.

Director of Title I and Special Programs for the district, Steven Forman said the kids really respond positively whenever Derry comes to speak.

"The whole idea there is that feeling that children can look at him and say if he can do it I can do it too," Forman said. "He lost his vision, he has overcome great obsticles in his life, no matter what my obsticles are I can do the same thing. He empowers students."

Right in line with the message Derry gives each time he speaks, Zanesville Schools started a program this year called Positive Behavior Intervention Supports. The program aims at helping kids understand what they can do right as opposed to what they did wrong.