A few weeks ago, Heidi Anthony from the Radcliffe Creek School emailed the Chestertown Spy to give us a heads up that the documentary filmmaker Harvey Hubbell would be showing his new film, Dislecksia, a humorous but still serious look at the learning disability, in early March. Would we care to help promote the event, she inquired.
With the Spy’s commitment to screening educational documentaries for the community throughout the year, such as Food Inc. with Colchester Farms CSA and Play Again with Echo Hill Outdoor School, I immediately said yes in response, but only later did it dawn on me that I had more than a passing interest in this particular subject.
In fact, I was perhaps one of the first of a new generation of dyslexics who were actually given that definitive diagnosis in the early 1960s. In my case, Northwestern University, just a few miles south of where we lived, bestowed that grand title on me in 1963 in a little ceremony that included only myself, my mother, and the doctor. My mother recalls that, concluding my final test of the day, the specialist listed recent advances in the field of learning disabilities while an assistant wiped down my head with rubbing alcohol after removing brainwave cables. Nonetheless, the good doctor also recommended that my Harvard-educated mother prepare herself for a son perhaps better suited for the vocation of plumbing than the law.
The truth was that no one, particularly not that very nice lady, had a clue how this kind of condition would affect my long term future. But to me, aged nine, the short term future was very predictable – I was going to get beat up.
In kid terms, the thing I heard was that I was going to be pulled from my classmates in the afternoons and sent to an “opportunity room,” located near the building’s heating furnace in the basement. It might as well have been a hall pass to Dante’s hell.
Day after day, finding my inner James Bond, I would dodge into bathrooms or chat aimlessly with a school secretary during the break between classes, strategically waiting for friends to return to their homerooms before I descended the back stairs to join Mrs. Rudolph and the five other unlucky souls given this life-altering prison term. It was only a matter of time before we would be required to wear an armband with the word “loser” sewed in like a Boy Scout merit badge.
But, as they say, things do get better. I was never picked on or called names. After two years in Mrs. Rudolph’s class, I rejoined my peers in middle school and then in high school. To my mother’s amusement and disbelief, I was able to keep up academically at demanding schools like Washington College and Connecticut College. And, finally, I had a steady career in the nonprofit sector at equally tough organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and UC Berkeley before starting a second career in the newspaper business in 2009.
This is not a rare kind of journey for those with dyslexia. In fact, success is more the norm for children who are diagnosed and given options on how they learn. The more we know about kids with learning disabilities, the more the conversation shifts from talking about a lack of ability to one about how children learn differently.
Since those dark days at Crow Island School almost fifty years ago, the painful stigma has been lifted precisely because of greater awareness created by filmmakers like Harvey Hubbell as well as institutions like Radcliffe Creek School. How the world has changed in fifty years.
The community is invited to special program on March 7, when Dislecksia will be shown at 7:00 p.m. in the Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus. The movie will be followed by a panel discussion with the film’s award-winning director, Harvey Hubbell V, and other special guests with expertise in dyslexia, including teachers, parents and students.
joe diamond says
Best explanation I took from college on the subject recounts the beginning teacher who really did not study much about standard educational testing while in school. She couldn’t understand the test scores the board of education furnished her as her first year of teaching began. So she separated the kids into two groups according to the one set of scores she could understand.
The first group was allowed to sleep in class if they were quiet. Homework was not assigned. She discovered they liked films so she arranged for several a week. Their rule was no fighting and no leaving the room.
The other half of the class was showered with attention. If some needed test questions read to them…no problem. Some needed quiet surroundings to read…no problem. Field trips occured often and this group was placed with the tour experts and allowed to touch any exhibit they wanted. There were few written tests but these kids openly discussed class topics and found additional information from all over.
At the end of the school ear the principal thanked the new teacher for her exxprts and told her he was pleased with her successes………….even wondering how she did it. It was only then that she said she used the test results to group the class. The principal was amazed. She showed how half the group had very low LN scores while the other group had LNs well over three hundred so that is how she planned her teaching.
“Sally, all these kids were misfits. They have dislecksia, attention deficit disorder, drug abuse histories, fetal alcohol syndrome. They come from disfunctional homes and some were brought in here from foster homes by probation officers. You reached about half of them based on their Locker Numbers. Have a nice summer.”
Joe
Nicholas Stoer says
Thanks to The Spy for personalizing this topic. There have been massive advances over the last 30+ years in the field of learning disabilities. These issues carry over into adulthood and into the workspace. The capabilities of teachers, school counselors and especially trained psych specialists have improved steadily so that they are better able to detect, diagnose and to teach how to compensate or overcome a wide range of learning disabilities. Not all schools and psychologists are fully up to speed in this area, but they ought to be clever enough to work out referrals to experts.
joe diamond says
Hmmmmmm, I thought this topic would really catch the interest of the community,
Students from my generation were considered bad for not doing well with their “lessons.” They were beaten and punished for poor grades. They were removed from sports and other extracurricular activities until they got their grades up. In reality they had undiagnosed learning disorders.
As I moved through undergraduate courses in the late sixties and early seventies “Special Education” was truly special. Only recently trained experts had any clue what it was all about. For sure, in service teachers who received their teacher training during WWII were not going to change what they had been doing. As Nichoilas pointed out, there have been great advances in the last thirty years. There is a good chance a classroom teacher can figure out how to get a struggling student to a proper referral for academic help. As schools attempt to do more with less the chances of falling through a gap increases.
Perhaps the other gap to fill is parental understanding of what is going on in their child’s school. Parents are not clever enough to use the resources available to them….in many cases. I like the work done in multiple intelligences. Parents can understand and identify the strengths of their child.
With an understanding of how different areas of brain function the different learning styles are not such a puzzle.
Good topic………seems to have been missed by all but the usual suspects.
Joe
Fletcher R. Hall says
Well done, Dave.
Holly Geddes says
Dave, I am glad you got to understand what was happening and then received proper instruction. I am enough older that my diagnosis as a dyslexic did not come directly. I was well along in my education when my youngest sister was diagnosed. My mother told the doctor that I did the same things my sister did only more so. That’s when the diagnosis came, “Then Holly is more dyslexic.”
I truly came to understand as I read the works of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligence. It turns out that just because you have trouble spelling doesn’t mean you are stupid. As a matter of fact, you can become well informed and well educated. Learning about dyslexia was part of my education for my first masters degree in the field of education. My undergraduate degree was geology. My minor was anthropology. I have studied management both for the use it has in a classroom and in other work I have done.
I still struggle with writing; so, I always use spell check and multiple proof readers. If someone finds residual mistakes, I hope they can look past them and concentrate on the ideas I express. Some folks are not able to do that. I feel sorry for them and blunder on. I try to do the most I can, the best I can. It limits the number of things I regret. Hopefully those with linguistic intelligence have other intellegences as well.
joe diamond says
Holly,
Good for you. Keep ringing the bell.
I am aware of whole family histories that exclude education.; its values and possibilities, because the whole family has it. They have that “readin’ and writin’ disease the teacher talked about”. The children were excused and excluded from education because the parents were ignorant. Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever!
Also, I remember the feeling of looking over the cliff when some of my son’s teachers explained he was just not getting it. Actually, in his case, he was getting it and was bored shitless. Another specialist shared that some people are not wired for handwriting (disgraphia). But the results of expert examination………many pages……..leads me to conclude parents and teachers need to have this knowledge as a team.
I won’t even get into my favorite official explanation from my last educational employer, the Maryland State Department of Juvenile Justice: “DJJ doesn’t do eyeglasses. If the kid says he can’t see because the cops broke his glasses tell him to look like he is reading or we will lock him down for the day.” I see attentative parents having trouble with this issue and think of the kids that used to flow through the Carter Center here in Ctown.
Good for you!
joe