Shirley
Pennebaker, M.Ed.:
Turning Struggle
Into Strength
Shirley Pennebaker
CEO and Founder, Camp Academia, INC. Home of Brain Jogging
When Shirley Pennebaker declared Education as her major at LaGrange College, she dreamed of teaching the gifted. What she didn’t realize then was that her true calling would be unlocking the gifts within those who struggled to learn.
During her studies, Shirley took one of the first college courses on learning disabilities following Public Law 94-142. While others wrestled to identify auditory or visual memory deficits, Shirley instinctively understood how to teach through them. Her professor quickly recognized her extraordinary intuition for reaching students who learned differently.
That gift found its first great test when local surgeon Dr. Glenn Bailey and his wife Evelyn sought help for their son, Chris, a bright and energetic child who struggled in every classroom. After testing at the Atlanta Speech School, the Baileys turned to LaGrange College. The professor there had only one recommendation—Shirley Pennebaker.
At Shirley Pennebaker’s birthday celebration, Chris Bailey reflected warmly:
“I was Shirley’s very first student. When my wife was at her wits’ end trying to teach our son, she asked, ‘What are we going to do?’ His speech therapist, Marcia Brock, recommended a remarkable teacher named Shirley Pennebaker. There was no need to persuade us—I had already experienced her giftedness. Today, our son is making extraordinary progress with Shirley and Brain Jogging.”
During her student-teaching at Dunson Elementary, she found more children sitting silently in the backs of classrooms—forgotten not for lack of intelligence but for lack of methods that reached them. Shirley began experimenting with games, movement, and laughter as tools for memory and attention. The principal, astonished by her results, wrote a glowing letter recommending her for future positions. That letter resurfaced when Shirley interviewed for her first job at Hollis Hand Elementary. It described her as having “a natural gift for teaching children with learning disabilities.”
Smiling at the irony—since she had once dreamed of teaching “the gifted”—Shirley accepted the position. An anonymous donor soon provided a scholarship for her master’s degree, ensuring she could continue teaching by day and studying by night. Within three years she was selected to pilot the first self-contained learning-disability classroom in the district.
But Shirley’s deepest lessons came outside the classroom. Traditional universities didn’t yet teach how the brain learns, so she began teaching herself—poring over medical texts in libraries, attending national conferences, and following every whisper of research that aligned with what she witnessed in her students. Years later, neuroscience would confirm what Shirley already believed: the brain can grow new cells and strengthen
connections at any age.
Inspired by these new discoveries, Shirley spent decades learning everything she could—first through her local library, and later through the endless resources of the internet. She traveled the country to study with the best minds in neuroscience and education, explored research from the Salk Institute, attended Learning & the Brain and International Dyslexia Association conferences, and built relationships with scientists and therapists who were redefining human potential.
Out of that lifelong pursuit came Brain Jogging—a web-based cognitive program that helps individuals from age 4 to 92 improve attention, memory, and learning efficiency. For over twenty years, it has empowered children with dyslexia and autism, adults recovering from stroke, and seniors seeking sharper thinking.
Today, Shirley’s students—once struggling children—are accomplished adults. When she hears, “You won’t believe how well Ashley, Virginia, Adam, Kendrick, or Harrison are doing,” her husband Jim just smiles and whispers, “Oh, yes she will.”
Shirley has followed many of their journeys. Chris Bailey went on to earn degrees in Nursing and Therapeutic Behavior Disorders and holds several patents for gun-safety devices. Others have delivered commencement addresses at their college graduations and become educators, engineers, business leaders, and innovators in their fields. They now inspire others with the same confidence and compassion Shirley once inspired in them.
Shirley’s dream of teaching “the gifted” came true—not by finding them, but by creating them. Through divine intervention, relentless curiosity, and love for her students, she transformed the way our community—and far beyond—understands learning itself.