Monday, August 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
YES, I AM 'DYSLEXIC' TOO
YES, I AM DYSLEXIC TOO
The story goes that the shy young dyslexic got married to the sweetest, most gorgeous young thing that he had ever set eyes on. On the big day he was a bundle of nerves knowing full well that he had to make some sort of speech. Years of struggling with language - speaking, reading and writing - a crushed self-concept from teasing about repeated classic stuff-ups, together with a total fear of exposing himself and his disability yet again, had him wound up, a ball of nerves.
Knowing the tactical advantage of pleasing his new in-laws, he was determined to remember to graciously thank them for their wedding present – a top-of-the-line coffee percolator – but more specifically, for their daughter, his new bride.
A quick sip of the bubbly settled his nerves, if not his balance, and he stood, composed himself, and eloquently thanked the bride’s parents for gifting him such a wonderful perky copulator.
Yes, I can tell the dyslexic stories too – and I do, to remind myself not to take it all too seriously. I’m dyslexic, I always have been, and always will be, and I live with the implications every day. Few people understand ‘dyslexia’ – most think it is a reading and writing problem. It is too hard to really explain how it has affected my life – so these days I just say “Go see the movie THE READER, everything that woman does in that movie, was as a result of her ‘dyslexia’”.
Naturally enough, as a young man I gravitated to the company of others like myself. It was only many years later that I realized that every one of us showed some of the classic indicators of a style that was later to be identified as ‘dyslexia’. As young students we ‘institutionalised’ some of the characteristics, tamed them and turned them into a code, an in-code that made light of our dyslexic tendencies – that at that stage few of us recognized. The word ‘dyslexia’ had hardly been invented (in the 1970’s) and even if we had heard of it, none of us would have laid claim to such a dubious personal label.
I mixed with a group of like-minded guys, flatting together, struggling with the education system, covering our tracks with motor-bikes and cars – and our coded language. Our cars persistently had ‘fat blatteries’, ‘tat fliers’, and ‘tappety ratlets’, and parts were often reassembled ‘fack to bront’. Getting our macts fuddled was par for the course.
Linguistic mix-ups, fascination with machinery and a struggle with academic education – looking back I now identify some of the classic signs of a young man suffering the daily impact of ‘dyslexia’.
Personally I had struggled through primary and secondary school with all the typical report-card comments; ‘Laughton could do better if he tried.’ ‘Will not pay attention in class’. ‘A dreamer’. – comments that I now recognise as being indicative of ‘dyslexia’. My school-days were confusing and hellish, and although I understood the words, I couldn’t understand the meaning of classroom instruction. I day-dreamed by day and night-mared at night, and now, 50 years later, my sleep is still commonly punctuated by those same hellish night-mares.
My difficulty with academic learning – ‘literacy’ in the jargon of educators - was masked by the fact that I was reasonably bright. The teachers could somehow sense that I was not stupid, so deduced that my lack of success was obviously my own fault – my lack of application, my lack of due attention, my lack of care.
So I covered, I strategized, I assumed an act and became cunning - to cover the fact that I was dumb and stupid. Yes, I accepted that part of me was dumb and stupid – the evidence was abundant – and yet part of me suspected that I was also astute, intelligent and perceptive. Only many years later I came to realize that the cause of all this was that I am a pictorial thinker, and as such I struggle to put my ideas into words. And yes, I struggle with reading and writing too. Thank God for lap-tops.
Like most people, I never stopped to consider that I might think differently from other people. It would be many years before I discovered that while most people think in words, I, like most ‘dyslexics’, think in pictures. The rule of thumb is, the more pictorial my thinking style, the less competent with words, and therefore the more ‘dyslexic’ I am.
As a teenager I was very shy (‘shyness’ = being dominated by the fear of being wrong, of failing yet again), but fortunately I recognized that introversion would only let this thing get on top of me, and it could predictably control my life - so I created an act of deliberate and calculated confidence, and this progressively became my style.
I learned to hide my confusion through bold and arrogant challenges of my secondary teachers, and reactions of indignation and anger to their put-downs of my efforts. At 19 I left school and enrolled at University in sheer protest, with no inkling of what it involved, or might lead to.
Acting lessons, elocution training, writing lessons, and dogged determination to achieve (otherwise known as ‘fear of failure’) finally saw me create a personality, a deliberate act, that eventually allowed the accumulation of some elements of ‘success’.
I still regard myself as a ‘non-reader’, but I have learned to write. My three Psychology degrees were achieved on the back of close observation of human behaviour, of good listening skills, (both developed in my desperate urge to understand) and these allowed me an ability to debate the content of books and research that I could never read.
Now at 60 I have an accumulated view of ‘dyslexia’. I see my picture-thinking style as being like a diesel-engined car, and word-thinkers as being like petrol-engined cars. School is a place of words and could be viewed as a petrol-station – where this little diesel ‘dyslexic’ got tanked up with petrol on a daily basis.
The result is predictable, and the child so often gets the blame. That is why I now travel the country running seminars on ‘dyslexia’ for teachers and parents and anybody who will listen.
Laughton King is a retired Educational Psychologist who is travelling New Zealand on a self-funded four year tour, running seminars for teachers and parents, sharing his insights into ‘dyslexia’.
The story goes that the shy young dyslexic got married to the sweetest, most gorgeous young thing that he had ever set eyes on. On the big day he was a bundle of nerves knowing full well that he had to make some sort of speech. Years of struggling with language - speaking, reading and writing - a crushed self-concept from teasing about repeated classic stuff-ups, together with a total fear of exposing himself and his disability yet again, had him wound up, a ball of nerves.
Knowing the tactical advantage of pleasing his new in-laws, he was determined to remember to graciously thank them for their wedding present – a top-of-the-line coffee percolator – but more specifically, for their daughter, his new bride.
A quick sip of the bubbly settled his nerves, if not his balance, and he stood, composed himself, and eloquently thanked the bride’s parents for gifting him such a wonderful perky copulator.
Yes, I can tell the dyslexic stories too – and I do, to remind myself not to take it all too seriously. I’m dyslexic, I always have been, and always will be, and I live with the implications every day. Few people understand ‘dyslexia’ – most think it is a reading and writing problem. It is too hard to really explain how it has affected my life – so these days I just say “Go see the movie THE READER, everything that woman does in that movie, was as a result of her ‘dyslexia’”.
Naturally enough, as a young man I gravitated to the company of others like myself. It was only many years later that I realized that every one of us showed some of the classic indicators of a style that was later to be identified as ‘dyslexia’. As young students we ‘institutionalised’ some of the characteristics, tamed them and turned them into a code, an in-code that made light of our dyslexic tendencies – that at that stage few of us recognized. The word ‘dyslexia’ had hardly been invented (in the 1970’s) and even if we had heard of it, none of us would have laid claim to such a dubious personal label.
I mixed with a group of like-minded guys, flatting together, struggling with the education system, covering our tracks with motor-bikes and cars – and our coded language. Our cars persistently had ‘fat blatteries’, ‘tat fliers’, and ‘tappety ratlets’, and parts were often reassembled ‘fack to bront’. Getting our macts fuddled was par for the course.
Linguistic mix-ups, fascination with machinery and a struggle with academic education – looking back I now identify some of the classic signs of a young man suffering the daily impact of ‘dyslexia’.
Personally I had struggled through primary and secondary school with all the typical report-card comments; ‘Laughton could do better if he tried.’ ‘Will not pay attention in class’. ‘A dreamer’. – comments that I now recognise as being indicative of ‘dyslexia’. My school-days were confusing and hellish, and although I understood the words, I couldn’t understand the meaning of classroom instruction. I day-dreamed by day and night-mared at night, and now, 50 years later, my sleep is still commonly punctuated by those same hellish night-mares.
My difficulty with academic learning – ‘literacy’ in the jargon of educators - was masked by the fact that I was reasonably bright. The teachers could somehow sense that I was not stupid, so deduced that my lack of success was obviously my own fault – my lack of application, my lack of due attention, my lack of care.
So I covered, I strategized, I assumed an act and became cunning - to cover the fact that I was dumb and stupid. Yes, I accepted that part of me was dumb and stupid – the evidence was abundant – and yet part of me suspected that I was also astute, intelligent and perceptive. Only many years later I came to realize that the cause of all this was that I am a pictorial thinker, and as such I struggle to put my ideas into words. And yes, I struggle with reading and writing too. Thank God for lap-tops.
Like most people, I never stopped to consider that I might think differently from other people. It would be many years before I discovered that while most people think in words, I, like most ‘dyslexics’, think in pictures. The rule of thumb is, the more pictorial my thinking style, the less competent with words, and therefore the more ‘dyslexic’ I am.
As a teenager I was very shy (‘shyness’ = being dominated by the fear of being wrong, of failing yet again), but fortunately I recognized that introversion would only let this thing get on top of me, and it could predictably control my life - so I created an act of deliberate and calculated confidence, and this progressively became my style.
I learned to hide my confusion through bold and arrogant challenges of my secondary teachers, and reactions of indignation and anger to their put-downs of my efforts. At 19 I left school and enrolled at University in sheer protest, with no inkling of what it involved, or might lead to.
Acting lessons, elocution training, writing lessons, and dogged determination to achieve (otherwise known as ‘fear of failure’) finally saw me create a personality, a deliberate act, that eventually allowed the accumulation of some elements of ‘success’.
I still regard myself as a ‘non-reader’, but I have learned to write. My three Psychology degrees were achieved on the back of close observation of human behaviour, of good listening skills, (both developed in my desperate urge to understand) and these allowed me an ability to debate the content of books and research that I could never read.
Now at 60 I have an accumulated view of ‘dyslexia’. I see my picture-thinking style as being like a diesel-engined car, and word-thinkers as being like petrol-engined cars. School is a place of words and could be viewed as a petrol-station – where this little diesel ‘dyslexic’ got tanked up with petrol on a daily basis.
The result is predictable, and the child so often gets the blame. That is why I now travel the country running seminars on ‘dyslexia’ for teachers and parents and anybody who will listen.
Laughton King is a retired Educational Psychologist who is travelling New Zealand on a self-funded four year tour, running seminars for teachers and parents, sharing his insights into ‘dyslexia’.
Monday, June 1, 2009
BOYS VERSUS GIRLS - THE GREAT READING DEBATE
BOYS VERSUS GIRLS – AND THE GREAT READING DEBATE.
The debate goes on. Ian Baldwin (Southland Boys High School) looks at the significant difference between the achievement of NZ boys and girls. He identifies this as highlighted by NCEA results, and suggests that “immediacy” in the thinking style of boys makes the NCEA assessment system less applicable for boys than for girls – suggesting that this dynamic – whatever ‘immediacy’ means - has a significant impact on the measurable performance of boys in school.
Joseph Driessen – as reported by John Hartevelt in The Southland Times – nominates parental split, the absence of dads, and the predominance of women as custodial parents, as being a causal factor in the academic gap between boys and girls in NZ schools. He suggests that the absence of dads has a more significant emotional impact on boys than on girls.
It is possible that both factors are significant, but do they really account for the apparent lack of achievement that the critics see in our male students?
Laughton King, educational psychologist, author, lecturer, and life-time dyslexic suggests that there is more to this picture than meets the eye. After a life-time associated with ‘dyslexia’, and with children with learning difficulties, he suggests that we are mistakinly looking for complex explanations to a very basic situation. In his view moves to ‘up-grade’ our education system over the last thirty years have created the very problem we have been trying to solve.
He blames the progressive emphasis on ‘literacy’, and the moves to use written assessment as the prime measure of achievement as the cause of boys apparent lack of achievement. To understand his thinking he says we must look to the nature of the beast – specifically the way boys think.
Science and academic research, he says, have finally caught up with reality, and have confirmed what generations of people have known for thousands of years – that the brains of men and women are wired differently, and are wired to allow us different, and complementary functions. That we are physically different is rudimentary, so it is not too big a stretch of the imagination to allow that we might actually be brain-wired in a similar manner. Simple design-logistics would suggest so, and direct observation would back this up – but somehow the educationists have missed the significance.
It is no longer news that women have a different brain from men. Brain-scanning research revealed years ago that women have eight, separate, identifiable language sites in their brain, and that they use them to advantage. Men on the other hand have only one such site – less identifiable, and less specific – but it is still a functional reality.
Women are wired for language, and use this as a predominating tool of life. Men on the other hand have a brain that is far more orientated to visual/spatial/dextral functions, (hands-on, practical, functional), and typically present a style that reflects this.
However the requirements of our ‘politically correct’ society may be causing our educational assessment systems to lag behind science – and reality. The NCEA results are in themselves a reasonably graphic demonstration of the differences in the male and female brain wiring, which really could be regarded as the two ends of a brain-wiring continuum.
The emphasis and style of educational assessment has changed over the last fifty years. It used to be that girls lagged behind boys in the education system, and in the early 1960s there was a range of education style that young people of both genders could choose. Those less academic, and more practical in nature went to Tech Institute and became Tradesmen. Some College students chose basic academic, others the arts, and still others chose languages - and ended up in Law or Medicine. The girls of the time had similar options and studied ‘home-economics’,‘secretarial skills’, teaching, or nursing – a heavily gender-role orientated education.
This gender stereotyped system needed addressing, and it needed changing, but the change that has been achieved may well be of ‘pendulum-swing’ nature, and now be creating the very difficulties we are seeing at the moment.
Having worked within this system for 35 years, and in particular, having worked with the casualties of the system, Laughton King suggests that although implemented with best intention, the push to literacy, the essence and the measure of modern education, has suited and benefitted the majority of our students, and simultaneously created the difficulties associated with so-called ‘dyslexia’.
Referring back to recent revelations of brain research, and recognition of thinking style, King suggests there would be value in orientainge our education system to cater for all thinking styles, and to move away from a system that accentuates one thinking style as being preferred, and more valid than others.
According to King both the research, and observational evidence indicate that where some people do all their thinking on a verbal basis, others do all theirs on a pictorial basis. These are the two extremes, and most of us fall at some position between the two, effectively being able to think in words, AND in pictures – at least to some degree. Probably few of us have ever stopped to examine the way we think, but as an educational psychologist, and as a ‘dyslexic’ person himself, he sees such an analysis as basic to the work that he does – assisting children who are struggling in our education system.
In clarifying his point, he suggests we could look at cars and their fuel system. Some run on petrol, but a few now run on diesel. If we go to the gas station and fuel up on petrol, not realizing our car is a diesel, then we have problems. But we don’t demand that every car be required to run on petrol, nor test their performance only on petrol, and when the diesel fails to perform on petrol, we don’t blame the car.
He says, change the words and look at children, their style and our schooling system. Some brains, be they male or female, are much more adept at using language as a thinking style. Others may not be quite so adept, but have sufficient skill in this regard to get through the system. Coming back to the analogy of cars, the size of the motor under the bonnet could be significant here, and those with a V8 or even a good-sized 6 cylinder will have definite advantage over those with a smaller power-plant.
That children with a more pictorial, hands-on learning style will grow to be adults who will be better suited to pictorial, hands-on professions or trades is hardly worth debating, and that those who are language orientated will do better in language-based professions.
But what might well be worthy of debate – or at least acknowledgement – is the very questionable current practice of demanding that all students be tested on the basis of language performance.
The implications he says, are enormous. He explains; Student A is a language thinker and aspires to be a journalist – a language-based (talking, reading, writing) task. Student B. is a pictorial thinker and aspires to be an electrician – a hands-on, visual and practical task. All the way through school they both have to sit annual examinations, where their understanding and ability is measured by their ability to read questions, understand their meaning, and write (in language) their answers. One, is in their natural element and can perform freely and easily. The other, like a fish out of water, or like a diesel fuelled with petrol, struggles to decipher the print, to understand the language, to understand the meaning of the question, and then to convert their visual, hands-on skills to a pencil-and-paper rendition.
For all their academic, language-based skills, student A may never be a safe, reliable, nor skilled electrician – the sheer practicalities may be well beyond their capacity. But, with all their hands-on, practical skills, student B. may never be an electrician either – the system will fail him because he is not sufficiently skilled as a reader or writer, and may fail the written aspects of the qualifying exams.
Yes, he may well be offered ‘reader/writer’ assistance – but this person can only read the question, and write his answer - they cant explain, translate or otherwise clarify, nor help him find the right words to explain what he knows so well at finger-tip level. It is still a language-based assessment system, and as such will still disadvantage him. Just more petrol in his diesel tank – and yet another way of telling him that his natural thinking system is not good enough. This he says, is the essence of ‘dyslexia’.
In his view the educational administraters and politicians have moved to ‘fix’ our education system, but have done so by progressively orientating it more and more to a language-based assessment system – inadvertently creating the very problem they are striving to avert.
The debate goes on. Ian Baldwin (Southland Boys High School) looks at the significant difference between the achievement of NZ boys and girls. He identifies this as highlighted by NCEA results, and suggests that “immediacy” in the thinking style of boys makes the NCEA assessment system less applicable for boys than for girls – suggesting that this dynamic – whatever ‘immediacy’ means - has a significant impact on the measurable performance of boys in school.
Joseph Driessen – as reported by John Hartevelt in The Southland Times – nominates parental split, the absence of dads, and the predominance of women as custodial parents, as being a causal factor in the academic gap between boys and girls in NZ schools. He suggests that the absence of dads has a more significant emotional impact on boys than on girls.
It is possible that both factors are significant, but do they really account for the apparent lack of achievement that the critics see in our male students?
Laughton King, educational psychologist, author, lecturer, and life-time dyslexic suggests that there is more to this picture than meets the eye. After a life-time associated with ‘dyslexia’, and with children with learning difficulties, he suggests that we are mistakinly looking for complex explanations to a very basic situation. In his view moves to ‘up-grade’ our education system over the last thirty years have created the very problem we have been trying to solve.
He blames the progressive emphasis on ‘literacy’, and the moves to use written assessment as the prime measure of achievement as the cause of boys apparent lack of achievement. To understand his thinking he says we must look to the nature of the beast – specifically the way boys think.
Science and academic research, he says, have finally caught up with reality, and have confirmed what generations of people have known for thousands of years – that the brains of men and women are wired differently, and are wired to allow us different, and complementary functions. That we are physically different is rudimentary, so it is not too big a stretch of the imagination to allow that we might actually be brain-wired in a similar manner. Simple design-logistics would suggest so, and direct observation would back this up – but somehow the educationists have missed the significance.
It is no longer news that women have a different brain from men. Brain-scanning research revealed years ago that women have eight, separate, identifiable language sites in their brain, and that they use them to advantage. Men on the other hand have only one such site – less identifiable, and less specific – but it is still a functional reality.
Women are wired for language, and use this as a predominating tool of life. Men on the other hand have a brain that is far more orientated to visual/spatial/dextral functions, (hands-on, practical, functional), and typically present a style that reflects this.
However the requirements of our ‘politically correct’ society may be causing our educational assessment systems to lag behind science – and reality. The NCEA results are in themselves a reasonably graphic demonstration of the differences in the male and female brain wiring, which really could be regarded as the two ends of a brain-wiring continuum.
The emphasis and style of educational assessment has changed over the last fifty years. It used to be that girls lagged behind boys in the education system, and in the early 1960s there was a range of education style that young people of both genders could choose. Those less academic, and more practical in nature went to Tech Institute and became Tradesmen. Some College students chose basic academic, others the arts, and still others chose languages - and ended up in Law or Medicine. The girls of the time had similar options and studied ‘home-economics’,‘secretarial skills’, teaching, or nursing – a heavily gender-role orientated education.
This gender stereotyped system needed addressing, and it needed changing, but the change that has been achieved may well be of ‘pendulum-swing’ nature, and now be creating the very difficulties we are seeing at the moment.
Having worked within this system for 35 years, and in particular, having worked with the casualties of the system, Laughton King suggests that although implemented with best intention, the push to literacy, the essence and the measure of modern education, has suited and benefitted the majority of our students, and simultaneously created the difficulties associated with so-called ‘dyslexia’.
Referring back to recent revelations of brain research, and recognition of thinking style, King suggests there would be value in orientainge our education system to cater for all thinking styles, and to move away from a system that accentuates one thinking style as being preferred, and more valid than others.
According to King both the research, and observational evidence indicate that where some people do all their thinking on a verbal basis, others do all theirs on a pictorial basis. These are the two extremes, and most of us fall at some position between the two, effectively being able to think in words, AND in pictures – at least to some degree. Probably few of us have ever stopped to examine the way we think, but as an educational psychologist, and as a ‘dyslexic’ person himself, he sees such an analysis as basic to the work that he does – assisting children who are struggling in our education system.
In clarifying his point, he suggests we could look at cars and their fuel system. Some run on petrol, but a few now run on diesel. If we go to the gas station and fuel up on petrol, not realizing our car is a diesel, then we have problems. But we don’t demand that every car be required to run on petrol, nor test their performance only on petrol, and when the diesel fails to perform on petrol, we don’t blame the car.
He says, change the words and look at children, their style and our schooling system. Some brains, be they male or female, are much more adept at using language as a thinking style. Others may not be quite so adept, but have sufficient skill in this regard to get through the system. Coming back to the analogy of cars, the size of the motor under the bonnet could be significant here, and those with a V8 or even a good-sized 6 cylinder will have definite advantage over those with a smaller power-plant.
That children with a more pictorial, hands-on learning style will grow to be adults who will be better suited to pictorial, hands-on professions or trades is hardly worth debating, and that those who are language orientated will do better in language-based professions.
But what might well be worthy of debate – or at least acknowledgement – is the very questionable current practice of demanding that all students be tested on the basis of language performance.
The implications he says, are enormous. He explains; Student A is a language thinker and aspires to be a journalist – a language-based (talking, reading, writing) task. Student B. is a pictorial thinker and aspires to be an electrician – a hands-on, visual and practical task. All the way through school they both have to sit annual examinations, where their understanding and ability is measured by their ability to read questions, understand their meaning, and write (in language) their answers. One, is in their natural element and can perform freely and easily. The other, like a fish out of water, or like a diesel fuelled with petrol, struggles to decipher the print, to understand the language, to understand the meaning of the question, and then to convert their visual, hands-on skills to a pencil-and-paper rendition.
For all their academic, language-based skills, student A may never be a safe, reliable, nor skilled electrician – the sheer practicalities may be well beyond their capacity. But, with all their hands-on, practical skills, student B. may never be an electrician either – the system will fail him because he is not sufficiently skilled as a reader or writer, and may fail the written aspects of the qualifying exams.
Yes, he may well be offered ‘reader/writer’ assistance – but this person can only read the question, and write his answer - they cant explain, translate or otherwise clarify, nor help him find the right words to explain what he knows so well at finger-tip level. It is still a language-based assessment system, and as such will still disadvantage him. Just more petrol in his diesel tank – and yet another way of telling him that his natural thinking system is not good enough. This he says, is the essence of ‘dyslexia’.
In his view the educational administraters and politicians have moved to ‘fix’ our education system, but have done so by progressively orientating it more and more to a language-based assessment system – inadvertently creating the very problem they are striving to avert.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
FORUM; QUESTIONS FROM PARENTS/TEACHERS
As from today (20.5.09) selected questions and answers will be posted for general information. Names will be changed for obvious reasons.
1. Beth writes that she visited her son's classroom and found it to be total chaos.
Chaos creates nightmares for 'dyslexic' children. In the first place there is too much going on for them to cope with. Then there is no continuity in all the chaos, so he cannot get any track, any sense, of what is happening. This also means that he cannot predict what is going to happen next, so he is not able to calculate how to fit in. On top of this he will be aware that some adult (teacher) is going to want something from him in all of this shambles - work output, participation of some sort - and so his anxiety levels will be huge. All he wants to do is fit in, do the right thing and succeed - and chaos will prevent all of this, and create frustration and tension - a nightmare situation for him. this child is likely to refuse school, and to have nightmares.
This teacher needs to use structures to give predictability and sequence in her classroom - a predictable routine, a visual daily time-line across the top of the whiteboard, clear, consistent verbal instruction.
2. Amy writes that she is going to have to go away for a weekend - leaving her 'dyslexic' 7 yr old behind - and he is already starting to pine!
'Dyslexic' children typically have no concept of time - and mum going away is forever! They also tend to cling to a parent who is consistent and predictable, and loss of this parent for a period is really frightening.
Suggestion; Cut a strip of corrugated cardboard and mark it into 7 sections - one for each day of the week. Make the school days one colour, and the week-end days a different colour. Now put a highliter outline around the days mum will be away, and indicate the departure and the return days. Post this on the wall, with a drawing pin in the day you are up to now. Shift this pin into the next day each morning so as to help the child see the passing of the time.
As mum leaves home on that weekend, take off your used T-shirt and give it to the child to wear to bed or to use as a cuddly, until mum arrives home again. Not only will the T-shirt smell l;ike you, but it will be embued with your energy, which will be very comforting to the child.
This works equally with pets who miss you when you are away. I talk about these ideas in my parenting book, WITH, NOT AGAINST.
1. Beth writes that she visited her son's classroom and found it to be total chaos.
Chaos creates nightmares for 'dyslexic' children. In the first place there is too much going on for them to cope with. Then there is no continuity in all the chaos, so he cannot get any track, any sense, of what is happening. This also means that he cannot predict what is going to happen next, so he is not able to calculate how to fit in. On top of this he will be aware that some adult (teacher) is going to want something from him in all of this shambles - work output, participation of some sort - and so his anxiety levels will be huge. All he wants to do is fit in, do the right thing and succeed - and chaos will prevent all of this, and create frustration and tension - a nightmare situation for him. this child is likely to refuse school, and to have nightmares.
This teacher needs to use structures to give predictability and sequence in her classroom - a predictable routine, a visual daily time-line across the top of the whiteboard, clear, consistent verbal instruction.
2. Amy writes that she is going to have to go away for a weekend - leaving her 'dyslexic' 7 yr old behind - and he is already starting to pine!
'Dyslexic' children typically have no concept of time - and mum going away is forever! They also tend to cling to a parent who is consistent and predictable, and loss of this parent for a period is really frightening.
Suggestion; Cut a strip of corrugated cardboard and mark it into 7 sections - one for each day of the week. Make the school days one colour, and the week-end days a different colour. Now put a highliter outline around the days mum will be away, and indicate the departure and the return days. Post this on the wall, with a drawing pin in the day you are up to now. Shift this pin into the next day each morning so as to help the child see the passing of the time.
As mum leaves home on that weekend, take off your used T-shirt and give it to the child to wear to bed or to use as a cuddly, until mum arrives home again. Not only will the T-shirt smell l;ike you, but it will be embued with your energy, which will be very comforting to the child.
This works equally with pets who miss you when you are away. I talk about these ideas in my parenting book, WITH, NOT AGAINST.
FORUM; QUESTIONS
3. Amy writes that she understands that boys get the wrong picture when told not to do something ('Don't run around corners') - but that surely they must get to understand that 'don't' means don't and learn to accomodate and cooperate as they get older.
Basically the answer to this is NO. Boys, especially 'dyslexic' (picture thinkers) boys see their thinking as a series of pictures. Rather than words in their heads, they have pictures. If we say 'tennis racket' they get a picture of this in their head. If we say 'no step-ladder' they get a picture of a step-ladder in their head. There is no picture of 'no', nor of 'don't'. If we say "Don't leave your skateboard on the drive" - they get a picture of a skate-board on the drive. They do hear the words, but the words themselves have little significance for them - and certainly not the significant impact that the picture does, even at an unconscious level.
Recently I went to a friend's for dinner After patting the dog I headed for the bathroom to wash my hands. As I left the room my host advised me "Don't touch the towel rail, it is very hot."
I washed my hands, dried them on the towel provided, and as I turned to leave the room, my left hand reached out - and grabbed the towel-rail. It was a completely unconscious action on my part, and I left the room with a burned hand, much to the mirth of my friends.
I am 60 years old, of reasonable intelligence, and had just that afternoon presented a seminar looking at 'dyslexia', and the impact of the word 'don't'. To me it was just one more example of the difficulty of living with 'dyslexia' - although on this occasion with no significant outcome.
No, it doesn't go away, and many of us never get to to really be in charge of its impact.
4. Beth writes that she understand 'hyperactivity' and the role of various 'foods' in this, but she is sick of having her beauty-sleep disturbed 50 times a night by the sudden scratching and jerking of her hubby in bed at night. She sees a similar thing in her ten year old son.
This one really pushes buttons for me, because this has been my story for all my life, and it doesn't seem to be diminishing in any way.
For me food additives are the culprit - with ice-cream being one of the worst, although beer and wine are in there too. One small helping of standard ice-cream, or one small can of beer or wine and my whole night is ruined. The effect is two-fold.
In the first case there is the needling effect. About every five or six seconds it feels as if a single needle is being gently inserted into my skin. This happens at any point of the body, and demands instant direct attention - a vigorous scratch - much to the chagrin of my sleeping wife.
I've tried to ignore it, but it drives me mad. And it drives her insane.
The other effect is what I call 'hyper-energised' muscles. In this it is as if various muscles are grossly over-charged with energy, and they then suddenly flex - extend or contract - as a means of expelling or using up the energy - again invariably waking 'she-who-matters-most' who has just got back to sleep after my last scratch.
Diet control is my only weapon on this one, and it basically means personal deprivation of anything yummy after 3.30pm. But sometimes I think "Oh heck.... In reality there is nothing much I can do about it, but understanding my body reactions makes it a lttle easier to tolerate.
Basically the answer to this is NO. Boys, especially 'dyslexic' (picture thinkers) boys see their thinking as a series of pictures. Rather than words in their heads, they have pictures. If we say 'tennis racket' they get a picture of this in their head. If we say 'no step-ladder' they get a picture of a step-ladder in their head. There is no picture of 'no', nor of 'don't'. If we say "Don't leave your skateboard on the drive" - they get a picture of a skate-board on the drive. They do hear the words, but the words themselves have little significance for them - and certainly not the significant impact that the picture does, even at an unconscious level.
Recently I went to a friend's for dinner After patting the dog I headed for the bathroom to wash my hands. As I left the room my host advised me "Don't touch the towel rail, it is very hot."
I washed my hands, dried them on the towel provided, and as I turned to leave the room, my left hand reached out - and grabbed the towel-rail. It was a completely unconscious action on my part, and I left the room with a burned hand, much to the mirth of my friends.
I am 60 years old, of reasonable intelligence, and had just that afternoon presented a seminar looking at 'dyslexia', and the impact of the word 'don't'. To me it was just one more example of the difficulty of living with 'dyslexia' - although on this occasion with no significant outcome.
No, it doesn't go away, and many of us never get to to really be in charge of its impact.
4. Beth writes that she understand 'hyperactivity' and the role of various 'foods' in this, but she is sick of having her beauty-sleep disturbed 50 times a night by the sudden scratching and jerking of her hubby in bed at night. She sees a similar thing in her ten year old son.
This one really pushes buttons for me, because this has been my story for all my life, and it doesn't seem to be diminishing in any way.
For me food additives are the culprit - with ice-cream being one of the worst, although beer and wine are in there too. One small helping of standard ice-cream, or one small can of beer or wine and my whole night is ruined. The effect is two-fold.
In the first case there is the needling effect. About every five or six seconds it feels as if a single needle is being gently inserted into my skin. This happens at any point of the body, and demands instant direct attention - a vigorous scratch - much to the chagrin of my sleeping wife.
I've tried to ignore it, but it drives me mad. And it drives her insane.
The other effect is what I call 'hyper-energised' muscles. In this it is as if various muscles are grossly over-charged with energy, and they then suddenly flex - extend or contract - as a means of expelling or using up the energy - again invariably waking 'she-who-matters-most' who has just got back to sleep after my last scratch.
Diet control is my only weapon on this one, and it basically means personal deprivation of anything yummy after 3.30pm. But sometimes I think "Oh heck.... In reality there is nothing much I can do about it, but understanding my body reactions makes it a lttle easier to tolerate.
Friday, May 15, 2009
OUR BOYS THINK IN PICTURES!
HELP!; OUR BOYS ARE THINKING IN PICTURES!
The headlines are emotional, sensational and repetitive, ‘our boys are failing’. Irrespective of how often we hear it, the message is none-the-less upsetting for anybody with a direct or indirect interest in children, the education system, or our future; our boys are not succeeding satisfactorily in their elemental academic learning.
Acknowledging that issues of academic failure on the part of our younger generation, particularly of our boys, is a journalist’s paradise-playground, the harsh downstream realities, so currently evident in our youth subculture, and so predictable from the evidence to date, raises concerns fueled by emotions ranging from love to fear.
Although recorded history shows clearly that there is nothing new about this situation, our current ‘progress to perfection’ mind-set leaves us little room to sit in complacency while the evidence dances so vividly before us. The education system is failing our little boys, somewhere, somehow. Our little boys stand to become big boys, and at this rate our big boys stand to become big problems – or at least enough of them stand in such a way as we see them as being a problem.
Although the reports persistently tell us there is a problem, they just as persistently fail to indicate where and how the problem lies, and fall glaringly short in terms of any suggestion or indication as to what might be done about it.
As a little boy who experienced such difficulties at school, and who ran perilously close to becoming one of the problematic youth, psychologist Laughton King believes he can shed light on the situation. He claims the explanation is as dynamic, yet as simple as the difference between petrol and diesel.
In his seminars and his books he reminds parents and teachers what happens when we inadvertently put petrol in our diesel car – the engine goes sluggish, overheats, then finally fails to perform. This, he says is what happens when we fail to recognize that many boys under the age of 12 years think in pictures.
He smiles when I look quizzically in response to this statement, as if expecting or indeed predicting my confusion. Thinking just happens – doesn’t it? Few of us probably ever bother to stop and think about thinking, let alone ponder such deep-and-meaningfuls such as how we might think. By way of explanation he gives a thumb-nail description which in essence hi-lights major differences between the way in which most males and females think. He describes girls and women as having a much greater natural skill – and a much greater tendency – to think in words. Boys and men on the other hand, he says have less skill in this arena, but correspondingly more skill in thinking in pictures. This he says explains a lot of the differences in the way men and women operate, and consequently a lot of the difficulties the two experience in communication. This part is familiar ground for most of us.
Despite our gender prejudices, this difference in style of thinking is not just a matter of personal obstinacy, but more a product of the different wiring systems that we have. He talks of ‘masculine’ wiring systems and ‘feminine’ systems, and neurological research that indicates that the feminine system involves up to eight separate centres for language processing (but few for spatial relationships), and that the masculine system has a solitary (and sometimes very lonely) centre for language processing, but has more processing space dedicated to the kinesthetic, tactile and spatial functions.
He points to the obvious – little boys are all touch, crash and go, where little girls are more physically reserved, but talkative in their style. He points to the more obvious – the café where we met for this interview has two or three groups of women talking with varying degrees of animation, and one solitary man hunched over his laptop. Through the window and across the way we see eight large motor-cycles parked outside a café-bar, and their red-and-black leathered owners – the current version of ‘middle-aged-gentlemen’ – sitting quietly with their bikes and their beers in the sun. Their bikes do the talking – or should it be, ‘their bikes make the statement’. Admittedly two women accompany the men, but Laughton draws my attention to their upper-arm tattoos, and with a wordless gesture suggests that I take this into account. What I notice is his distinctly male communication style – gesture, not words.
‘And the relevance to education, and educational success?’ I ask.
“Excuse me for generalizing”, he starts, “but after working with children – mainly boys – with learning difficulties for over thirty years, I feel it is reasonably safe to suggest that up to the age of about 12 years, most boys think predominately in pictures.” “Girls tend to think in words, almost in sentences, creating ‘straight-line’ or a linear thinking style which really suits our schooling system. Our schools are full of words – reading, writing, listening, talking etc – and girls lap this up, with words being a fuel to their thinking. It makes teaching the ‘feminine’ brain a piece of pie.”
He pauses, and a flash of pain passes his eye, “- but for many boys it is different. To varying degrees boys think in pictures. I call them ‘Diesels’. This is a function of their brain wiring. Words are just not a significant part of their system. Their fuel is different, their brain is different, their style is different, and as parents and teachers we need to know this.”
I listen to him speaking, and note the change in his own language, his shorter sentences, as he obviously reflects on personal experiences.
“Consider the teaching staff at your local primary school – primarily female?” Yes, in my case exclusively female, and I pre-empt his next question by acknowledging, ‘All very adept in their language skills.’
“What if they were inadvertently – with the best intention – putting petrol into these little boys’ diesel tanks?” “What I mean is, what if the words they are using were making little sense to the boys – what if their ‘masculine’ wiring system meant that they simply cannot make sense of the words – the language – that their teachers (and parents) are using?”
He invites me to draw a picture, a picture of the instruction “Hurry-up” – one of the most common instructions given to children. “If boys think in pictures, what is the picture that comes up in their head that will tell them what ‘hurry up’ means?”
I’m not much of an artist (more of a word-smith really) and he grins when he sees my rendition of someone running. “Nice picture of ‘run’, but I really wanted a picture of ‘hurry-up’”. Eventually I’m obliged to acknowledge that there is no specific picture of ‘hurry-up’, and he pushes his point by suggesting I draw ‘quickly’, (can’t do), or the instructions ‘tidy up’, (equally can’t do), ‘Put your gear away’ (still can’t do).
‘Enough of this, what should we be saying to boys’, I protest.
On his invitation I find I can draw “Put your bag on the hook behind the door” – it’s a bit like a comic strip, but any pictorial (diesel?) kid could comprehend my efforts there. Similarly the instruction “go brush your teeth – run” fits nicely into picture form, and I am beginning to think of my own family early-morning rush and some changes that might happen very soon.
“That’s ice-berg number one – and there are lots more like it that sink many of our little boys, and severely deflate the self-concept of many others. We tend to call these children ‘dyslexic’ because we see that they are having trouble with language – reading, writing etc – and we tend to think that there is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with them, they are perfectly well formed diesels (picture thinkers), and they don’t need fixing. They also don’t need more petrol squirted into their engines – and unfortunately most of our remedial assistance approaches involve just that – more petrol.”
“What they do need is a basic understanding of their natural style, acceptance of their pictorial processes, and for teachers and parents to take this into account. Let’s stop blaming the victim. We need to change us, and what we do, rather than trying to fix the children”.
This is his mission as he moves around the country with Natalie, his portrait-artist wife, in their five ton mobile home. Currently in the South Island, they have dedicated several years to personally visiting most towns in New Zealand, visiting schools, running seminars, and introducing parents and teachers, social workers and policy-makers to what he considers to be one of the most commonly misunderstood social dynamics of our time.
The implications are horrendous, he says. Firstly it cuts so many of us out of successful education. This has a huge impact on the self-concept of a large proportion of our male population. This in turn is reflected in our use of drugs and alcohol, our physical and mental health, our employment dynamics, our incidence of domestic violence, our incidence of split families, our attitude to authority and the law, and directly to our prison population. His passion is obvious.
Our discussion goes on and on, and I learn the impact of negative language (Ice-berg No. 2) and can now clearly see the hypnotic effect when I tell my four-year-old son ‘Don’t use the front door’. My blaming the child now seems so unfair, and I begin to wonder about the label ‘Oppositional Defiance Disorder’.
Ice-berg No. 3 emerges as a series of school rules (e.g. ‘Respect other people’s rights’) which simply cannot be transcribed in pictorial form, and which therefore completely elude the pictorial child’s understanding. A sense of sadness floods me as I suddenly realize who it is who repetitively stands in front of the Principal for breaking the school rules – yet again – and I see a completely new causal connection between learning difficulties and behaviour problems.
Ice-berg No. 4 appears as a complete difficulty when it comes to ‘creative-writing’ in the classroom. So many of these children have a wonderful creative fantasy - which presents itself in pictorial form. They have a head full of pictures, but no words – there is nothing for them to write, because you can’t write pictures. For the person who thinks in words this is so hard to comprehend, and they just see the child as lazy, or unmotivated.
And here comes Ice-berg No. 5. The parent or teacher really wants this child to succeed, and so ‘remedial help’ is arranged. Done with the very best intention, so often this is more petrol for the poor little diesel, and he struggles to comply but ends up failing yet again. Whereas in the past he has been motivated to achieve, now his repetitive failure takes its toll and he becomes motivated to self-preserve – so he withdraws his co-operation and his effort. ‘If I don’t try, I can’t fail’. For his efforts he is tagged as ‘unmotivated’, and with ‘an attitude problem’.
Ice-berg No. 6 is apparently more like an ice sheet, and consists of a whole raft of further dynamics that predictably accompany the ‘dyslexic’ condition. These include a tendency to food intolerances, or even food allergies, a social lonliness born of other children’s intolerance and teasing, an inability to filter-out distracting stimuli (often called ADD – Attention Deficit Disorder, but really an Attention Overdose Disorder), a tendency to reverse direction in both reading and writing, speech and language difficulties (the butt of further teasing), and an inability to think before he speaks.
No. 7, predictably like the polar ice-cap, covers all and takes the form of a major lack of self-confidence and anger that often pervades the rest of his being. This then can either preclude any subsequent personal success, or in some instances creates such a powerful sense of purpose and determination that nothing is ever allowed to get in the way of achievement and success – what ever that means.
‘Is it all bad?’ I ask, recalling some reference to dyslexia as a ‘gift’. The look he returns is tolerant, but barely so. “No, it’s not all bad, but it can seem that way. At 58 years I still regularly have nightmares about my primary schooling. Before we start singing the benefits of being a diesel motor let’s start by getting clear about what a diesel motor is, how it works, and getting really clear about the fuel we put in it.” He pauses, breathes out then adds, “I guess that’s my job”.
I leave the café and our interview with a mixed sense of despondency and guilt, gratitude that I was never one of these, and a determination to join up and present as clear a picture as I can through the words of my profession. Yes, I have a lad of my own, fortunately not dyslexic, but certainly one who leans toward the pictorial.
Laughton’s books contain insights for teachers and parents. He is adamant that they do not contain programmes for the ‘dyslexic’ child. He avoids this approach on the basis that each child has a different presentation – and different needs, and that the teachers already know how to teach. He is convinced that the parents and teachers are already concerned and motivated. They just need insights as to how these children think, how they feel, how they react, so that we can reach them and then teach them. Then we may better work with them – not against them. Hence the titles of his two books; REACHING THE RELUCTANT LEARNER, and WITH, NOT AGAINST.
Laughton is pleased to be available for contact via his email; laughton.king@win.co.nz
Web; www.natalieart.com/ontour.htm Ph; 0274.171.804
Laughton King July 2008
The headlines are emotional, sensational and repetitive, ‘our boys are failing’. Irrespective of how often we hear it, the message is none-the-less upsetting for anybody with a direct or indirect interest in children, the education system, or our future; our boys are not succeeding satisfactorily in their elemental academic learning.
Acknowledging that issues of academic failure on the part of our younger generation, particularly of our boys, is a journalist’s paradise-playground, the harsh downstream realities, so currently evident in our youth subculture, and so predictable from the evidence to date, raises concerns fueled by emotions ranging from love to fear.
Although recorded history shows clearly that there is nothing new about this situation, our current ‘progress to perfection’ mind-set leaves us little room to sit in complacency while the evidence dances so vividly before us. The education system is failing our little boys, somewhere, somehow. Our little boys stand to become big boys, and at this rate our big boys stand to become big problems – or at least enough of them stand in such a way as we see them as being a problem.
Although the reports persistently tell us there is a problem, they just as persistently fail to indicate where and how the problem lies, and fall glaringly short in terms of any suggestion or indication as to what might be done about it.
As a little boy who experienced such difficulties at school, and who ran perilously close to becoming one of the problematic youth, psychologist Laughton King believes he can shed light on the situation. He claims the explanation is as dynamic, yet as simple as the difference between petrol and diesel.
In his seminars and his books he reminds parents and teachers what happens when we inadvertently put petrol in our diesel car – the engine goes sluggish, overheats, then finally fails to perform. This, he says is what happens when we fail to recognize that many boys under the age of 12 years think in pictures.
He smiles when I look quizzically in response to this statement, as if expecting or indeed predicting my confusion. Thinking just happens – doesn’t it? Few of us probably ever bother to stop and think about thinking, let alone ponder such deep-and-meaningfuls such as how we might think. By way of explanation he gives a thumb-nail description which in essence hi-lights major differences between the way in which most males and females think. He describes girls and women as having a much greater natural skill – and a much greater tendency – to think in words. Boys and men on the other hand, he says have less skill in this arena, but correspondingly more skill in thinking in pictures. This he says explains a lot of the differences in the way men and women operate, and consequently a lot of the difficulties the two experience in communication. This part is familiar ground for most of us.
Despite our gender prejudices, this difference in style of thinking is not just a matter of personal obstinacy, but more a product of the different wiring systems that we have. He talks of ‘masculine’ wiring systems and ‘feminine’ systems, and neurological research that indicates that the feminine system involves up to eight separate centres for language processing (but few for spatial relationships), and that the masculine system has a solitary (and sometimes very lonely) centre for language processing, but has more processing space dedicated to the kinesthetic, tactile and spatial functions.
He points to the obvious – little boys are all touch, crash and go, where little girls are more physically reserved, but talkative in their style. He points to the more obvious – the café where we met for this interview has two or three groups of women talking with varying degrees of animation, and one solitary man hunched over his laptop. Through the window and across the way we see eight large motor-cycles parked outside a café-bar, and their red-and-black leathered owners – the current version of ‘middle-aged-gentlemen’ – sitting quietly with their bikes and their beers in the sun. Their bikes do the talking – or should it be, ‘their bikes make the statement’. Admittedly two women accompany the men, but Laughton draws my attention to their upper-arm tattoos, and with a wordless gesture suggests that I take this into account. What I notice is his distinctly male communication style – gesture, not words.
‘And the relevance to education, and educational success?’ I ask.
“Excuse me for generalizing”, he starts, “but after working with children – mainly boys – with learning difficulties for over thirty years, I feel it is reasonably safe to suggest that up to the age of about 12 years, most boys think predominately in pictures.” “Girls tend to think in words, almost in sentences, creating ‘straight-line’ or a linear thinking style which really suits our schooling system. Our schools are full of words – reading, writing, listening, talking etc – and girls lap this up, with words being a fuel to their thinking. It makes teaching the ‘feminine’ brain a piece of pie.”
He pauses, and a flash of pain passes his eye, “- but for many boys it is different. To varying degrees boys think in pictures. I call them ‘Diesels’. This is a function of their brain wiring. Words are just not a significant part of their system. Their fuel is different, their brain is different, their style is different, and as parents and teachers we need to know this.”
I listen to him speaking, and note the change in his own language, his shorter sentences, as he obviously reflects on personal experiences.
“Consider the teaching staff at your local primary school – primarily female?” Yes, in my case exclusively female, and I pre-empt his next question by acknowledging, ‘All very adept in their language skills.’
“What if they were inadvertently – with the best intention – putting petrol into these little boys’ diesel tanks?” “What I mean is, what if the words they are using were making little sense to the boys – what if their ‘masculine’ wiring system meant that they simply cannot make sense of the words – the language – that their teachers (and parents) are using?”
He invites me to draw a picture, a picture of the instruction “Hurry-up” – one of the most common instructions given to children. “If boys think in pictures, what is the picture that comes up in their head that will tell them what ‘hurry up’ means?”
I’m not much of an artist (more of a word-smith really) and he grins when he sees my rendition of someone running. “Nice picture of ‘run’, but I really wanted a picture of ‘hurry-up’”. Eventually I’m obliged to acknowledge that there is no specific picture of ‘hurry-up’, and he pushes his point by suggesting I draw ‘quickly’, (can’t do), or the instructions ‘tidy up’, (equally can’t do), ‘Put your gear away’ (still can’t do).
‘Enough of this, what should we be saying to boys’, I protest.
On his invitation I find I can draw “Put your bag on the hook behind the door” – it’s a bit like a comic strip, but any pictorial (diesel?) kid could comprehend my efforts there. Similarly the instruction “go brush your teeth – run” fits nicely into picture form, and I am beginning to think of my own family early-morning rush and some changes that might happen very soon.
“That’s ice-berg number one – and there are lots more like it that sink many of our little boys, and severely deflate the self-concept of many others. We tend to call these children ‘dyslexic’ because we see that they are having trouble with language – reading, writing etc – and we tend to think that there is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with them, they are perfectly well formed diesels (picture thinkers), and they don’t need fixing. They also don’t need more petrol squirted into their engines – and unfortunately most of our remedial assistance approaches involve just that – more petrol.”
“What they do need is a basic understanding of their natural style, acceptance of their pictorial processes, and for teachers and parents to take this into account. Let’s stop blaming the victim. We need to change us, and what we do, rather than trying to fix the children”.
This is his mission as he moves around the country with Natalie, his portrait-artist wife, in their five ton mobile home. Currently in the South Island, they have dedicated several years to personally visiting most towns in New Zealand, visiting schools, running seminars, and introducing parents and teachers, social workers and policy-makers to what he considers to be one of the most commonly misunderstood social dynamics of our time.
The implications are horrendous, he says. Firstly it cuts so many of us out of successful education. This has a huge impact on the self-concept of a large proportion of our male population. This in turn is reflected in our use of drugs and alcohol, our physical and mental health, our employment dynamics, our incidence of domestic violence, our incidence of split families, our attitude to authority and the law, and directly to our prison population. His passion is obvious.
Our discussion goes on and on, and I learn the impact of negative language (Ice-berg No. 2) and can now clearly see the hypnotic effect when I tell my four-year-old son ‘Don’t use the front door’. My blaming the child now seems so unfair, and I begin to wonder about the label ‘Oppositional Defiance Disorder’.
Ice-berg No. 3 emerges as a series of school rules (e.g. ‘Respect other people’s rights’) which simply cannot be transcribed in pictorial form, and which therefore completely elude the pictorial child’s understanding. A sense of sadness floods me as I suddenly realize who it is who repetitively stands in front of the Principal for breaking the school rules – yet again – and I see a completely new causal connection between learning difficulties and behaviour problems.
Ice-berg No. 4 appears as a complete difficulty when it comes to ‘creative-writing’ in the classroom. So many of these children have a wonderful creative fantasy - which presents itself in pictorial form. They have a head full of pictures, but no words – there is nothing for them to write, because you can’t write pictures. For the person who thinks in words this is so hard to comprehend, and they just see the child as lazy, or unmotivated.
And here comes Ice-berg No. 5. The parent or teacher really wants this child to succeed, and so ‘remedial help’ is arranged. Done with the very best intention, so often this is more petrol for the poor little diesel, and he struggles to comply but ends up failing yet again. Whereas in the past he has been motivated to achieve, now his repetitive failure takes its toll and he becomes motivated to self-preserve – so he withdraws his co-operation and his effort. ‘If I don’t try, I can’t fail’. For his efforts he is tagged as ‘unmotivated’, and with ‘an attitude problem’.
Ice-berg No. 6 is apparently more like an ice sheet, and consists of a whole raft of further dynamics that predictably accompany the ‘dyslexic’ condition. These include a tendency to food intolerances, or even food allergies, a social lonliness born of other children’s intolerance and teasing, an inability to filter-out distracting stimuli (often called ADD – Attention Deficit Disorder, but really an Attention Overdose Disorder), a tendency to reverse direction in both reading and writing, speech and language difficulties (the butt of further teasing), and an inability to think before he speaks.
No. 7, predictably like the polar ice-cap, covers all and takes the form of a major lack of self-confidence and anger that often pervades the rest of his being. This then can either preclude any subsequent personal success, or in some instances creates such a powerful sense of purpose and determination that nothing is ever allowed to get in the way of achievement and success – what ever that means.
‘Is it all bad?’ I ask, recalling some reference to dyslexia as a ‘gift’. The look he returns is tolerant, but barely so. “No, it’s not all bad, but it can seem that way. At 58 years I still regularly have nightmares about my primary schooling. Before we start singing the benefits of being a diesel motor let’s start by getting clear about what a diesel motor is, how it works, and getting really clear about the fuel we put in it.” He pauses, breathes out then adds, “I guess that’s my job”.
I leave the café and our interview with a mixed sense of despondency and guilt, gratitude that I was never one of these, and a determination to join up and present as clear a picture as I can through the words of my profession. Yes, I have a lad of my own, fortunately not dyslexic, but certainly one who leans toward the pictorial.
Laughton’s books contain insights for teachers and parents. He is adamant that they do not contain programmes for the ‘dyslexic’ child. He avoids this approach on the basis that each child has a different presentation – and different needs, and that the teachers already know how to teach. He is convinced that the parents and teachers are already concerned and motivated. They just need insights as to how these children think, how they feel, how they react, so that we can reach them and then teach them. Then we may better work with them – not against them. Hence the titles of his two books; REACHING THE RELUCTANT LEARNER, and WITH, NOT AGAINST.
Laughton is pleased to be available for contact via his email; laughton.king@win.co.nz
Web; www.natalieart.com/ontour.htm Ph; 0274.171.804
Laughton King July 2008
NEW ZEALAND LIVE OILS ARTIST
Natalie Tate Painting her People, her Country.
(click on picture to see full enlargement)
(click on picture to see full enlargement)
As a portrait, and landscape and contemporary artist of some 40+ years, Natalie brings precision and creativity to the canvas using a full range of styles, materials and techniques.
Painting from 'live' sittings, from photographic record, photo montage, historial document, or 'in situ', she can capture your family, your moment or your place - for prosperity.
Family portrait in oils on canvas painted from separate photos supplied by client or taken by Natalie. $400.00 to $600.00 per head.
At basic level, black charcoal on toned background, each head $150.
At basic level, black charcoal on toned background, each head $150.
In full oils, full colour, each head $600, with water-colours, pastels being priced between, - with top-quality canvass stretched on wooden frame adding approx $100 to the total price.
Natalie travels in partnership with Laughton King (dyslexic psychologist) and the proceeds of her work go to supporting his work, bringing information about 'dyslexia' to educators, school teachers and parents around New Zealand.
For more samples see her web-site http://www.natalieart.com/ or contact her at natalieart@xtra.co.nz
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