Words hurt...

“A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy: “He is too stupid to learn.” That boy was Thomas A. Edison”.
- Thomas Edison


Teachers need to think about the power of their words.  Lochie was constantly told he wasn't trying.  It caused incredible frustrations for him. 
Imagine trying your hardest to run a race, absolutely making your body ache with pain and efforts.  Then having your coach turn around and tell you that you didn't try?
That is the same as telling a dsylexic that they aren't trying.  Lochie sees words move, flip, fade and change as he concentrates hard.  So hard that he makes his head hurt.  Then a teacher standing over you, telling you that you  haven't tried.

Imagine little Thomas Edison, six years old, trotting home from school with a note in his pocket to let his parents know that he is too stupid to learn.  What was he feeling?  How did he have the energy to get up each day and continue to learn and grow and develop into the icon that he is? 

Resilience.  It would be a wonderful world if we didn't need it but we do. 

Each word that passes your lips has the ability to spread joy or hurt.  Think carefully as your words could be poisen. 
 

Reading

“Lochie, your turn”.

Upon hearing those words, a heavy stone formed in my stomach, weighing me down further as each moment passed.  Everything is going in slow motion.  I imagined the stone becoming so heavy that it would force me down through the floor and into the earth with only my head poking up.   I braced my legs and hoped that it would happen. 

The clock on the wall was shouting down at me, “THREE MINUTES TO GO”, teasing me with each slight movement of the second hand.  I blinked and stared at it.  It seemed to have moved backwards.  How was that possible?  As I watched that hand, it seemed to be that the movements were in tune with the pounding in my head as the blood rushed through my brain, searching for the area which held the knowledge I needed.  Would it find it this time?  It doesn’t usually.  Stupid brain lets me down all the time.

My stomach now had butterflies fluttering around the stone.  I could picture them clearly flying around, pausing to land on the stone.  Surprisingly those little butterflies made the stone even heavier.  Who would have thought that?  They look so light?   I imagined again being swallowed up by the ground below me.  

Original Artwork Opal Vagelatos 2012

“Lochie!”

I glared at the clock are realised that all the imagining in the world wasn’t going to make this go away.  I swallowed hard, wiped my sweaty hands on my pants, scratched my head and looked down at the page. 

It was worse than normal.  All I could see was black lines, moving like waves lapping onto the shore, and the white rivers running through them.  The harder I looked, the more everything moved.  Waves and rivers, moving, getting bigger, smaller, moving moving.  I felt sick. 

“Can I go to the toilet”?  I asked.

“Lochie there are two minutes before the bell.   Just do your reading and then you can go”, replied the teacher getting annoyed.

I look back down at the page.  The black wavy lines were faint and still moving.  I could feel the acid raising in my stomach and sitting in my throat.  Burning.   A very unpleasant sensation.  I wiped my hands on my pants again and picked up the book.  I took a last glance at the ground.  It didn’t look like I was going to be swallowed up in time.  My mind went briefly to thoughts I have had before.  Bad thoughts, about V-line trains and never having to go to school again.

Squinting, I put the book close to my face.  “Sir, I haven’t got my glasses, I can’t see it”.

“Lochie, you don’t wear glasses”, he said exasperated.

“No wonder I can’t see it then!”, I said.  There were a few giggles from my classmates.  I put on my charming smile and looked around the class. The smart girls were rolling their eyes but most of the kids looked amused.

Ding……..ding……..ding…….ding 

Saved by the bell.  I grabbed my bag and ran.  I was out the door before the teacher could say “please stack your chairs”.  I knew he would catch up with me the next day but for now, I was out of there!  I could breathe.  My head no longer pounded.  The stone in my stomach had reduced, but was still there as a reminder that it was only a temporary reprieve and that I will still have to face up to the teacher tomorrow.  Maybe not.  Perhaps I’ll never go back to school again. 

These few paragraphs were put together with my son Lochie who is dyslexic.  It shows the absolute fear and pressure that schools put onto kids with a learning disability.  I certainly hope that teachers read this and get a bit of an insight into what goes on in the head of some of these kids. 

It is also the introduction to a book that Lochie and I are putting together to raise awareness of dyslexia. The book will tell stories of what Lochie, and other kids like him have been through.  Lochie is a survivor.

Fish Can't Climb Trees...

How true is that?  This quote came around on one of those facebook things that people post all the time. I read that and thought OH MY GOODNESS!  That perfectly describes dyslexic people.  Expecially Lochie. 

Dyslexic people can be highly intelligent, incredibly creative, ingenious, popular and very successful.  But, they all must endure years at schools, and sometimes throughout their entire lives, where they are made to feel stupid.

Lochie is very intelligent.  His memory for details, information from documentaries and recall of converstations etc is incredible.  He is an amazing social person with a fantastic personality.  Non of this comes out when he is faced with one of the most scary things on this planet to him.  A sheet of white paper with black writing.  Or as he says, black wavey moving lines with white rivers. 

I can't wait to get my book finished and make more people aware that ability to read is not a sign of how intelligent a person is.

Best Teacher EVER!

Throughout all of Lochies time at school, he had only one very special teacher who put in huge efforts to understand, help and support him.

In Grade 3, Lochie was pretty excited to have a male teacher.  Mr Daniels was a fairly young teacher.  Full of enthusiasm, energy and ready for a full on year.  He arranged meetings with all the parents at the begining of the year to have a little bit of insight into all his students.  The meeting with me was a little longer because he had read Lochies file and knew about his problems.

Mr Daniels spent a lot of time engaging with Lochie and building up his confidence by highlighting things he was good at. If the class was doing sports, he would often use Lochie to demonstrate a skill, or explain a rule.  In the classroom, he would never ask Lochie to read out loud or do the times tables competitions because he knew Lochie just couldn't do it and would feel bad.  Mr Daniels understood that Lochie was always willing to try, but didn't push him if Lochie wasn't comfortable to do so.

It is rare to find a teacher with this much insight into their students.  In my experience anyway.  Mr Daniels encouraged Lochie to try things and would stay back with him after class, to hear him try to read out aloud rather than making him do it in front of his class, only to be laughed at.

One of the main things Lochie says that frustrated him in school was that teachers always said that he wasn't trying.  How frustrating would that be?  Trying so hard that your brain hurts and then getting told that you weren't?  What does that do to a young persons self esteem?

It was grade three when Lochie was going through a lot of testing and he also got the coloured glasses.  Mr Daniels printed all Lochie's worksheets on coloured paper because Lochie often "forgot" to wear the glasses because classmates always asked him why they were blue.

There was little point with Lochie attempting to read off the board and Mr Daniels understood that.  Rather than sitting him in front of the board as a constant reminder of the things he couldn't understand, Lochie sat with his back to the board, facing Mr Daniels.  This helped Mr Daniels keep a close eye on when Lochie was getting frustrated and offer help straight away.

As I just re-read what I have already written, it comes across as if Lochie was a favourite.  I dont believe this was the case.  Every kid in that class blossomed that year and it was due to the efforts of a teacher with energy and a passion to bring out the best of everyone.

I have teachers as friends, and they say, "we have 25 students in class, there is no time to focus on one who is having problems?"
I disagree with that.  If teachers put in effort at the begining of the year to really engage and get to know students, it isn't a huge effort to keep track of each one individually.

Lochie and I would like to find Toby Daniels.  He was teaching at Beaconsfield Primary School but only for a few years.  He then went overseas to China to teach English.
If anyone can track him down please pass this blog on.  I really hope he gets to know how much difference the year with him made to Lochie.

Thank you!!