Are you ready to learn how to fight? Fight against the odds and all negative labels that have snuffed out your ability to dream. If so, you’d better get ready to dream big again.
Tanell Vashawn Allen knows how to get you to do that. In her book From Special Ed to Spelman, Allen shows how she fought against the odds to achieve her dream of attending Spelman College, despite being labeled as having a learning disability and an emotional disorder. She explores the impact of labels that the educational system assigns to students with disabilities. She challenges her readers to re-examine how we choose to label students as “other” who may have a “different” or alternative learning style, or a style that does not fit into the “banking system” of learning.
Allen also shares some tips and resources she used to help her excel and accomplish her dreams. These useful tips may also help others with disabilities level out the playing field in their everyday life, school, or work. In sharing her personal story, she illustrates how her faith in God motivated her to fight against the odds. She provides her readers with more “pearls of wisdom” to help them strive to be more confident in their intellectual and creative abilities. Allen challenges her readers to take the labels off that have been placed on them or to flip the label to “make the label work” for them, without restricting the greatness inside of them.
Tanell Vashawn Allen is an author, preacher, television host, poet, plus-size model, international and national motivational speaker, life coach, and advocate for students with disabilities, foster kids, and against drunk driving.
Tanell grew up in Dade City, Florida. She started public speaking at the age of fifteen. She has spoken at youth events, inspirational women's luncheons, spoken word (poetry) nights, community events, and international women's conferences.
She graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, GA with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies. Tanell also has an MDiv from Mercer University. She taught at Peking University in
Beijing, China, and Mocha's founder and CEO, in My Coffee. Allen also founded the Latté Project, which mentors teen girls, helps foster positive self-esteem and self-awareness, and develops leadership skills to hone the greatness inside of them for the next chapter of their lives. She has hosted a preaching and motivation broadcast on the Daily Gospel Network and worked at Restoration Economic Solutions, a non-profit organization in Brooklyn, NY, that teaches financial literacy to close the wealth gap for minorities.
Allen also co-owns Mocha’s Treats, specializing in Southern comfort desserts and pasties. She is passionate about hosting national & international empowerment conferences, inspiring others to cultivate the greatness inside of them, and hosting “Mornings with Mocha.” She currently resides in Dade City, Florida, and works bi-vocationally at Everyday Blessings Inc. as the Program Coordinator.
