WhyTry started in January, 1996, when a professor asked Christian Moore to write down how he had gotten so far in his education with his severe learning differences. Christian was an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University who had almost made it to graduation with sixth-grade math abilities and seventh grade reading and writing skills.

As Christian thought about how he had made it from special education to a large university, he wrote the words “Why Try?” on the top of a piece of paper. In order to succeed, he needed to be able answer that question. Below the question he wrote 15 principles that he used to overcome his challenges.

Later, while in graduate school, he was working as counselor at an alternative high school, when he began to teach the WhyTry principles using visual analogies. He recognized that the youth he was helping were overwhelmingly visual learners, so talking to them was always going to have a limited effect. He provided his ideas and tools to a local school district, which used them to reduce truancy and failure in their most at-risk students.

The WhyTry Program is now in use in over 4,000 schools, 500 school districts in 48 States, Canada and Australia. It has now been demonstrated in a variety of research settings to reduce truancy, improve academic success, and increase graduation rates.

Christian Moore has become a internationally renowned speaker, addressing over 100 conferences and workshops each year. The WhyTry organization he started is growing dramatically with the single aim of helping people overcome their challenges and achieve success in school and for the rest of their lives.