"Are you really dyslexic Rog?" I was asked that question today, I'm not going to say who by or the exact circumstances in which it was asked, but I'll tell you the answer. Yes, I am. Moderately. I'm not dyslexic enough for it to prevent me from passing 9 O Levels or 3 A Levels in the days when you didn't get any help, but yes I am. I had a reading age of 5 when I was 12, so I think that getting a grade C in English Language 4 years later at O Level was probably quite an achievement. If I look at my blog traffic stats and see how many people have read the blog, I think that is also an achievement.
So why raise this now, today. Well it seems that some people think that being dyslexic is reason enough to disqualify me from representing the people of Mill Hill as a Councillor. Now I do know where this started and I do know who started it. Let me say this and believe me, I know this message will get back to the person who seems to think it's a problem. If you really believe yourself to be my intellectual superior, lets have a hustings meeting locally in Mill Hill. Just you and me and lets take free form questions from the audience.
Can't really say fairer than that can I.
6 comments:
I think you'll find it should be, "Vote Lebaril Debarcrot for your local Dithlexsic"
Dan,
You are of course quite right, but I never could smell.
hmmm, well both my children are dyslexic and both are very bright and highly talented kids: it's well known that dyslexic people are usually very creative individuals and able to think laterally, unlike, sadly, so many of the political eejits who plague our lives ... oh and thanks to Barnet Council for sharing my son's personal educational details with the wider public, via the gobsmackingly stupid data loss of 9,000 pupils' information: where's that independent enquiry we have been promised? No hurry, wait til after the election,why don't you?
PS: Rog the only reason my spelling is or used to be so damned hot is because the dreaded Miss O'Donovan used to beat us with her wooden ruler if we made a spelling mistake. Always been brilliant at my times tables for the same reason.Perhaps an easyBarnet council might like to use the same cost effective strategy for SEN. Note to some of our literally minded readers, yes, I am being ironic, and no, I am not in favour of beating children,(see my blog for further details).
Dear Mrs Angry,
I too was beaten for misspellings at St Vincents. The one time I can still remember vividly was when I spelled TRAIN as TRIAN. Mrs Munich called me to the front, wrote TRAIN on the blackboard and asked me to write it underneath. I wrote TRIAN again, so got the ruler across the knuckles for being cheeky ( I wasn't I was being dyslexic - it made me think I was pathalogically evil though as I'd not done it intentionally and I was told I was full of the devil). That was in Infant 1 class as we used to call it.
Strangely enough, I didn't really mind Mrs O'Donovan. She'd so terrorised the other 5 of them that she wasn't as bad as I thought she was going to be. Besides which I used to wind them up by saying I thought she was quite nice, which was a worked a wonder!
Funny isn't it, that a knuckle rapping regime by teachers at St Vincents has produced two stroppy minded bloggers? Are we metaphorically speaking rapping the ruler across Barnet's knuckles a a result of our traumatic childhood? We could start a support group, maybe.
(Note to prospective parents of said school: it's not like that anymore ... )
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