everyone needs to make some me time

All of us have to make time for ourselves, carers especially. I know its not an easy thing to do. I cared for my gran for a while and it was not easy at all. So I know what I am talking about. But if we don't look after ourselves we can end up not being physically or mentally able to cope with the challenges we face or look after ourselves. Who cares for the carers when they get ill? So we all need to make time for ourselves and get away from the pressures that caring for someone can give us. Its not olny carers though. In my work as a dyslexia specialist I work with people who have experienced great difficulties in their lives. Working with dyslexics is about creating good positive relationships where people can trust in us. I work with the whole person no just with the dyslexia in isolation. Its suprising the things people have told me. One student, she was over 50 years old, told me she had been abused by her father when she was a chid. It was something she had never told anyone before in her life. So I make sure I make time for myself with my computer games and with writing and playing music. All of us need to have some me time if we want to keep healthy.

I know its sounds sad but???? lol

My dyslexia work keeps me pretty busy what with providing dyslexia support to students, awareness training and all the preparation that requires. Then there are all the mundane tasks that any business has to do from updating databases, looking for new business and supporting volunteers. Dyslexia Pathways certainly keeps me on my toes. If I let it dyslexia could take up all my waking hours and then some of my sleeping ones too.

Whenever I get the opportunity I enjoy playing computer games. It’s been something of a passion of mine for many years. I still vividly remember spending many happy hours playing speccy games like The Hobbit and Knight Lore way back in the early 1980s. I used to play The Hobbit with a few of the guys in one of my first bands. We got stuck on one bit of the game for ages and in the end we wrote a song about it called Gandalf Carries the Dead Butler and yes it probably sounded as bad as the title suggests. But to us it was brilliant pmsl.

I have just completed one of my favourite games of all time again Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time for the umpteenth time. It was first released on the Nintendo N64 in 1998 and was cutting edge at that time. I am not sure if its a dyslexia thing but I just love the overall ethereal feel of the game. The characterisations are brilliant as are the graphics and sound. Whenever I play it feels like meeting and old friend you haven’t seen for a while.

I always used to call it the Ocriana of Time a typical dyslexic mistake. Even now that’s what I the game. I will be playing the next game in the series The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask now ...... yet again.  

We dyslexics still have a long way to go

I have been an inclusion and dyslexia specialist since 1995. I don't think we have made any progress in terms of access to support at schools here in the UK over the last 15 years. I am not saying there are not some good schools following good practise out there supporting dyslexic and disabled kids. But they are far and few between. In colleges and universities again there are some that are following good practise but many more are not. As for support for dyslexics in the workplace, trying to get into the workplace and or in training for work the situation is even worse. Dyslexia is so far down the list of priorities here in Scotland you would think it didn't exist. I know I carried out my own research here in Fife and found training companies not providing any support to dyslexics, discovered young dyslexics moving from one training programme to another and never moving into employment, many dyslexics in long term unemployment. There are many reasons for this. We have no government stratagy to ensure dyslexics can access the support they need in education and employment where ever they are in the UK. We need a united dyslexic community to drive the dyslexic agenda instead of assisstive tech companies and those who make mega bucks from the dyslexia industry. We need a universally agreed definition for dyslexia. If we can't agree on a definition then why should schools, employers, training organisations, colleges and universities do anything for dyslexics at all. Having said all that we have to keep on fighting from the bottom up and top down. At Dyslexia Pathways we support dyslexics and enable them to overcome barriers but we also try to raise a positive ability focussed profile of dyslexia as the scottish parliament

Going well

Had a great day today working with two dyslexic students. Both are extremely bright individuals at university but both were struggling with assignements. One was even contemplating quitting. However, after working with them today we managed to sort out the issues and put together a plan of action for the following week.

I like to use self reflective learning with a lot of the students I work with. Its a great tool for self discovery, for exploring dyslexia issues both positive and negative and for finding psotive ways forward. I advise anyone working with dyslexics to consider using self reflective learning.

I also like to work with students to enable them to cope better with anxiety and stress so we looked at various was to deal with these more effectively. Personally I do not think enough work is done to enable students to cope better with stress and anxiety.

Academia can be a very stressful place for a lot of students not only dyslexic students. But a lot of dyslexic students have to work so much harder to cope with the rigours of academic life. Its not that we cannot do academia we just have to develop our own stratagies to become more effective and efficient students. Self reflective learning can be an invaluable tool for this.

We are nearly at the end of October and we are already well ahead of our targets for this academic year which is good news.

I am looking for people who might like to get involved in the work we do. Things like looking for prospective funders, writing funding bids, developing our web site or running a crowd funding campaign.

Yet another cure for dyslexia in the news

I am dyslexic not ill, I am dyslexic and very happy to be so, I am dyslexic and a unique individual with strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else dyslexic and non dyslexic. Yes dyslexia can place many barriers in front of us. But barriers are there to be broken through and each barrier broken through makes us stronger and those struggles made me who I am today. If I had been taught at school in multi sensory dyslexia friendly ways that enabled me to access the learning in class I might not have struggled so much in later life. I am dyslexic so ok I might struggle with spelling or with my organisation etc. On the other hand I am dyslexic and a great problem solver,  an excellent teacher, artistic, a musician and an entrepreneur etc. I doubt I would have been any of these if it were not for my dyslexia. I am dyslexic not ill and I do not want t be medicalised, remediated or corrected. It is non dyslexic society that disables dyslexics not dyslexia. I am dyslexic why shoulld I be ashamed of that?

sigh well thats it lol

Had as great morning working with dyslexic students, its been a great week in fact. Been working with student from diverse backgrounds on diverse courses from forensic science to biology to game programming.

It looks like I will not be attending the Ignite programme this week end. Had it been next month later my finances would have been in better order. Only 3 weeks back providing dyslexia support and we are already 35% up on our numbers of students seen from last year. I should have called them yesterday but didn't just to embarressed sigh.

I rang the bank and asked for an increase to my business bank account overdraft from £200 to £300 and was refused point blank. Gawd I know times are hard but refusing a £100 increase on my business bank overdraft does not make sense to me. Especially since we are in our fourth year of trading and we are not exactly going to go out of business next week.. Well these things are sent to try us lol.

I know from many other social entrepreneurs finding cash for training is next to immpossible so I am not alone. However, I find it very frustrating because I enjoy learning and need to update my current skills base.

Its also finding cash to pay for new software as well. My current versions of assistive software are over 4 years old now. Which in computing terms is just plane out of date lol.

Still on the plus side the designs for the new project are nearly completed next its looking for funding time again lol.

news some good some bad lol

Worked with 15 new dyslexia students this week. Each one had their own unique story to tell and barriers to break. Also met with a few students I worked with last year and all had very positive things to say about the dyslexia support. The one to one work is very exhausting though and takes a lot out of me but I enjoy what I do. Very few people can say that about the work they do.

The graphic artist volunteer has sent me some initial sketches and ideas for the new logo I want to use on a new project I am working on. I also spent some time putting together some new ideas too. I have also been putting together some images for the ability foussed positive profile of dyslexia project. I am very excited about this. I will be sending out some initial samples to my dyslexic friends from accross the world to get some feedback from them.

I was selected to go on the Ignite Programme run buy the Socail Enterprise Academy next week. it was quite competetive and I was chuffed to be selected. The only problem is funding to pay for it. Some of you who follow my blog will remember we fostered two children over the summer. They were 2 and 14 years old at the time and are our great neices. Their mum, our neice, was ill, the kids needed a home and we were glad to be of help. It meant I had to stop working and put Dyslexia Pathways on the back burner for a couple months. The social services were about as useful as a chocolate watch and no help at all. However, it meant I lost two months income and we had extra costs for looking after the kids. Hence the difficulty with money at the moment. I will not get paid for the work I am doing now until the end of November and we are struggling financially right now. Of course it didn't help we had to pay out just under £300 for the car MOT and the work needed to get the car through the MOT.

Its very frustrating because the course is just what we need at this time to help us push forward our new ideas for Dyslexia Pathways. Sigh the academy are being very helpful with costs but even then we need about £300 to pay for travel and substance costs and for some of the course. I am still looking around at other options here but time is running out. But if I have not resolved this funding problem by wednesday i will probably have to cancel.

Below is an outline of the course:

You are running a social enterprise full of potential...

How can this potential be unlocked? And where do you find the time in your demanding schedule?
For one weekend only the Academy is bringing together 18 entrepreneurs from across Scotland to scale up their social enterprises.
There will be surgeries with finance, business and marketing experts and talks from inspirational individuals. This dynamic programme will develop your understandings about your venture and yourself. And most importantly you will leave with a plan to ignite your business.

Learning Outcomes

• Explore approaches for scaling up your enterprise
• Recognise the reasons for your success so far
• Receive 1:1 coaching and surgeries with experts in methods of growth through sales, acquisition and franchising
• Clarify your vision and strategy
• Share and reflect with peers on the challenges of leading growth
• Investigate potential development tools
• Depart with a real plan of action

Ignite has allowed us the time and support to develop and flesh out a future development plan. This has evolved significantly from what existed prior to Ignite.”
Andy Ross, New Caledonian Woodlands

funny the things that happen to a dyslexic

https://www.gofundme.com/DyslexiaPathwaysCIC



I  qualified as an inclusive education teacher oh wayyy wayyyyy back in 1995. I went to the Bolton Institue of Higher Education and took a years PGCE and I really loved the course and working with the student's on the course. I originally applied to do the PGCE course in Greenwich London I lived in London it made sense to do the course there. However I didn't get on the course can't remember why not. I later found out that someone from Bolton didnt get on the PGCE in Bolton but got into Greenwich.

Obviously I passed the course and thus began my teaching career working with students with learning and / of physcal disabilities. This meant I could be working with tetrapleigic students one day and students with mental health issues the next.

Part of my job including providing pre course tests for students to ensure they had the right level of english and maths to get on a course of an appropriate level. I won't get into the rights and wrongs of this right now. However, I came accross quite a few young people discribed as disaffected learners. This is a euphamism for students who hadn't achievde at school for whatever reason, who were disruptive and or who had gotten into trouble with the police etc. All of them had left school without any qualification what so ever.

The testing showed that many of the student's were not able to attend courses they wanted to attend because of this. Oh yes they could take more basic level english or maths classes but could take any practical based courses because none existed. Almost all these students didn't want to take the basic english and maths courses. They had already tried to do this in school and had failed but they did want to do other courses. Engineering kept on being mentioned when i was talking with them.

At the time I was teaching what were then called vocational access courses so I designed a vocational access course in engineering for these students. It enabled students to do things like mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and sound engineering etc. Oh yes english and maths was in there too but it was all based around what they were doing on the course. It was relevent to the students. In the first year we took on a cohort of 12 students.

The hardest part of all this for me was training the engineering teachers in inclusion because none had ever really worked with disaffected students or with many disabled students for that matter. So it was all new for them, some felt a course for students who struggled with the basics of english and maths had no validity but others really got into the whole inclusion agenda.

I taught the english and maths side of the course which was fine but I had to learn a lot about engineering to make the learning in class relevent to the students. It soon became obvious to me because of my own dyslexia that over half the students were dyslexic. I needed to do some specialist dyslexia training. It was the start or my journey to specialising in dyslexia.

The college where I was working at the time provided this specialist training and it was fantastic. But I must have become the most tested person for dyslexia. As I was the only dyslexic on the course my classmates all gave me dyslexic tests lol. Then there was the teacher taking the course. I would be writing away or answering a question and the teacher would suddenly put one finger on her nose poing to me with another finger and exclaim to the whole class, "See look this is how a dyslexic would do this or that". Looking back on it now I can laugh but at the time it was quite disconcerting.

Anyway thats how I started my career as a dyslexia specialist.

Getting back to the students I was working with on the engineering course all passed and went on to other courses in engineering.

new students new challanges

Hey hey today I am meeting with five new dyslexic students accross five one hour sessions. Its quite intense for the students and for myself. Everyone will be different, will have different life experiences of being dyslexic. All will have broken through many barriers and worked very hard to get into university. Thats what barriers are there for....to be broken through

I got the first few drafts for the new logo for a new project I am working on from our new volunteer today. Looks very promising to me. Its great to finally see an idea that I have had in my head for ages being brought into the real world. Not quite like giving birth maybe but frustrating never the less.

The next stage will be looking for a little funding to take this particular idea further. I have some ideas for possible funders here.

more good news and a little personal stuff

Well we got a request for some dyslexia awareness training today which is always good news. I put together a new information page to be added to a few internet sites as well. I have a meeting on Friday to discuss a bespoke training package.

I had a very positive meeting with a new volunteer yesterday. He is also dyslexia and a graphic artist. He is going to be working on some new designs I have for a new idea. This is all about enabling dyslexics to take ownership of their dyslexia and raising awarness of the positives of dyslexia.

On a personal note some of you will know I have a hypothyroid condition complicated by type 2 diabeties. Both are a genesis condition. Well I visited the foot clinic today and got great results no problems with my feet....wooohooooo.

Its funny I am always ready to chat about my dyslexia but never happy talk  about the thyroid lol Its call hashimotos disease which basically means I have an over active auto immune system thats attacking my thyroid, Its the same for the diabeties my auto immune system is attacking my pancreas.

I have to take medication everyday to control it sigh. I hate tablets lol and I hate doctors. When I talk to them I can feel my lips moving, I can hear sound coming from my mouth but the doctors do not seem to register the sound.

keys

Ok another question for dyslexics :

Which of you are good a losing your keys and terrible at finding them?