If you tell someone something over and over again, if society label’s you, if education measures you, if employers ignore your ability. Guess what happens you become that thing, give up and potentially worst of all drop out of society as a whole.
“You can’t read well you’re stupid”
I feel I have to write something about this. I recently read an article from someone in education, expressing how all children should be able to read and we need to identify the potential non readers early so we can teach them to read “really”. The article was by a school talking about kids struggling to read , the article went on to talk about getting kids to read by a certain age or they are destined to failure. Oh great you can’t read you’ll end up in prison. It’s true the prison population has a high proportion of “nonreader” for want of a better word. Having low literacy is not the reason they are criminals it’s because a vast proportion of them, let’s call them dyslexics, have never been given a chance, been cast aside because they don’t fit into the mold, don’t fit into the sausage machine of education, struggle to gain a decent paying job because the entry test are not suited. Maybe just maybe, it’s the system we have adopted and not the individual that’s the problem. Lets face it written language is a relatively new thing in our evolution, true it’s a great way to learn and pass on information. In this modern world we find ourselves in, so is video and audio. Our ancestors and some remote tribes still communicate through storytelling and visual demonstrations of how to do something.
Education is important, language, reading and writing is important, I am not saying it’s not. However we don’t need everyone to be exactly the same, or be fluent in a certain communication method to be intelligent, successful, or have value in a business. For some reason the highest regard has been placed on grades on levels on a certain way. There is an old saying “There is more than one way to skin a cat”. When it comes to language apparently there is only one way, you cannot master that skill then you are the problem not the systems. The systems we have to work to have been set up by academics for academics, not for the entire populous. This need’s challenging, changing and new ways of educating our future generations. There are other ways and people learn totally differently.
If you’ve ever been to a country where you don’t speak the language on holiday, struggle to read a menu and struggled to get your point across or understand some simple directions. How did that make you feel? I imagine not very confident or comfortable. Were you stupid, were you less intelligent than the French waiter trying to take you order, that’s right no you’re not, the vast majority would expect the person to speak your language understand your point of view. Yet when in school a child struggles to get their point across struggles with the language, the words that they are expected to absorb but struggle to, society regards them as being less intelligence. Naively the view is we must be able to get this in their heads, as look the other 80% find it a breeze. Being in a country where you don’t fully understand the language for non dyslexics is similar to what dyslexic individuals experience on a daily basis. The positive thing is, they cope with it adapt and find a way, dyslexics are very resilient individuals.
Would it not make more sense to accept that not everyone is good at everything, we don’t look at some that cannot play an instrument and find every increasing ways to get them to learn , we don’t try and get every child to be able to run 100 meters in a certain time, we don’t get frustrated that not every child finds physics or chemistry easy …. Yet we do when it comes to reading and writing, I find this absolutely bonkers !.
Now am not saying don’t educate that’s ridiculous, just step back, realise not everyone can be good at everything, or the same things either. That would make a crazy boring world, what I suggest is realise that pupils will get to a certain level, their level, find out what they are good at and fire energy into that.
At the start, I mentioned a high proportion of the prison population are dyslexic, the same can be said for entrepreneurs. A high proportion of entrepreneurs are dyslexic. There are in essence two routes we can send our future generations down, let’s show them the right path. Let’s education for entrepreneurial, not penal (prenuership), the results less people in prison and more great businesses. See it’s not that dyslexics have criminal tendency, if someone is overlooked, told they are stupid and will amount to nothing, self esteem is lowered confidence drops, some will choose become what they believe they are and end up in criminal activity as a means to give them the finances they would get in a decent job.
I personally know a lot of business owners running great companies that are either dyslexic or are on the spectrum of the so call “learning difficulties (hate that term). One thing that makes them successful is they realise what they are good at and get people to work on the stuff they aren’t too great at. So if there is a need to writing contracts or tenders, they will probably have a PA or someone to complete that task. The Misconception is that having difficulty writing or reading reflects intelligence, in fact it’s the opposite with majority of dyslexics being of above average intelligence. A Yale study has demonstrated by comparing non-dyslexics reading and intelligence track, yet in the same study high IQ in dyslexics showed a disconnect with actual reading ability, proving there is no relationship between intelligence and dyslexic moreover reading ability. Here is the link to the article if you are interested in reading it further
So what is the solution if you are or have a dyslexic in your family or workplace, well with the advancement of technology to help people dictate using their own voice as an example. Programmes or apps that do more than spell check work are a must because you might put there in place of their its spelt correctly yet it’s the wrong word, you know the grammar police will really pick you up on that (no one needs that negativity in their life or is it there).
There are loads out there, personally, I’ve been using Grammerly, it works for me and there is a free version, but equally there is Dragon dictate and I’ve discovered also google has a dictation option in google docs. So the solution does not have to be costly.
If you are a iPhone user a lovely little solution is notes app, if you’re on WIFI you can press the mic icon and dictate a document with relative ease, it’s not 100% accurate but still a great free tool (well once you’ve paid the $700 for one )
In summary
- Stop putting yourself down if you struggle with reading and equally parents “Stop” forcing it on your kids they will struggle.
- Try some applications to dictate to
- Such as Grammerly
- Google Docs
- Dragon dictate
- Iphone Note
- I’ve said it before but get someone to proofread your important documents, this stops the Grammar Police losing their minds.
My message to education and parents, :”stop putting square pegs in round holes, we all learn differently and reading ability has no relationship with IQ levels”
So “You Can’t Read, Stupid!”
Till next month thanks for reading and want to contact me or see what am up to then check out
www.duggystone.com there are links to my podcasts as well on there.
Please comment, share with people this stuff is important.
