dyslexia, dyspraxia and prejudice

            I have considered for quite some time what to write in this the first of my regular blogs. The decision I have made is to talk about my experience living with dyslexia and dyspraxia maybe segueing into a brief rant about prejudice. However, some points need to be clarified; this blog is not about me and my life I aim to keep biographical information out of the blog as much as possible.  What this blog is about is my observations and musings unencumbered by biographical details. Although I will probably slip into using examples from my own life, with names changed to protect the guilty.    

So whittering statements of intent over are you sitting comfortably then we’ll begin. I have dyslexia₁ and dyspraxia₂ and I was diagnosed at a young age. I have all the usual difficulties and idiosyncrasies associated with both.  So from a young age I was aware of certain deficits I have now at this point there are two possible ways for a body to go one either; gives up and accepts a life away from academia, or (this was my choice) attack these piffling difficulties with great fervour.  I think I can trace many of my passions back to this, my love of reading, my love of language its nuts and bolts (English, foreign and dead languages) and my poetic and authorial ambitions. I have seen people go both ways giving up or fighting through adversity. In fact by the time you hit university you have strategies in place that seem to almost compensate for your difficulties, by pouring in effort mainly.  

What is interesting is the response you get from others, especially teachers.  When you go into a classroom a known dyslexic many teachers equate the condition to teaching a blithering idiot. It is assumed that you will need extra help and will probably not be able to cope with the work. This is not a million miles away from being reasonable most dyslexic children will have trouble with written work.  That is to say that they will have trouble with spelling, maybe style and definitely grammar.  What this does not translate to is  a lack of worthy ideas, a lack of understanding or even, as one harridan of a high school history teacher claimed, a lack of care. When I was young I chose to do a history GCSE and this woman told me that due to the amount of written work involved I would probably fail.  This was before she had seen any of my work. History will record that I did rather well in my history GCSE because; it turns out, what a history GCSE doesn’t test is the ability to spell and construct sub-clauses. I suppose the point is that teaches sometimes value presentation more than ideas and from this I suppose I can see where the dyslexia = stupidity idea comes from, nonsense though it is. This prejudice that I have faced forced me to prove myself to each new teacher, educator or support worker.   This hasn’t impeded me too much I am by nature a stubborn, wilful creature who presented being challenged will attempt to overcome. But has this prejudice harmed others being told again and again that you can’t do something has a dire effect on the confidence.

This got me thinking about other predudices. I knew a black man who was convinced that black men couldn’t swim. It is true that black people often have a higher bone density than my Caucasian brothers making it more difficult for them to learn to swim.  So this particular prejudice has a basis in fact. The question is where does fact and observation become prejudice?    

1 Dyslexia is a difficulty in reading and spelling often manifesting as slow reading, poor (read dreadful) spelling, poor organization and time management skills.

2 Dyspraxia, for me fine motor skills difficulty and extreme clumsiness and lack of balance.