embracing dyslexia

Hello there blog readers hope you are all well

Ahhh here we go again someone telling me I am dyslexic and therefore something is not functioning properly because my brain is broken sigh. Lets wheel out the old medical model of dyslexia AGAIN!. A medical model of dyslexia that has got we dyslexics exactly nowhere. A medical model of dyslexia that shackles us to a negative stereotype that basically comes down to this. Dyslexia is a problem to be fixed.

I have just read that if we dyslexics go through one particular programme 80% of dyslexic problems disappear. Hmmmm dyslexic problems? Ahhh does this mean teacher training is going to include training on ways to support dyslexic learners in an inclusive learning environment in the future I ask myself?

Hmmmm nope not on your nelly does it.

What it means is our dyslexia issues just disappear and we are no longer dyslexic if we go through this programme. Or is it that we are still dyslexic but somehow cured of those pesky dyslexic problems?

Dyslexia does not disappear it is a part of us. It was a part of us when we were born and it will be a part of us until the day we pop our clogs and go to meet our maker. We need to be enabled to understand and work with our dyslexia.

From my perspective dyslexia is a very important part of me because it enables me to do so many very positive things well. In my life I have been a professional musician, an inclusion and dyslexia specialist, a social entrepreneur etc. I don't think I could have done any of these if I had not been dyslexic.

Dyslexia is a difference that represents the diversity inherent within the human race. How much art, how much science, philosophy etc would have been lost if it were not for the way the dyslexic brain works. I don't say the dyslexic brain is broken I do say it is just different.

Vive la difference I say.

I will finally say I do not suffer with dyslexia. I embrace it for what it gives me. But what I do suffer with is education systems that still fail the vast majority of dyslexic kids at schools all over the world.

Who I do feel for are all the dyslexic students I have worked with in colleges and universities after listening to their nightmare experiences of being dyslexic at school.

By the way happy dyslexia month to you all......keep fighting the good fight

ta for taking the time to read my blog

regards

Steve