Students disabled by the system
Taken from my seminar on helping dyslexic students.
The super successful
We live in a world where many of the smartest, most successful, richest people do the worst in the mainstream education system. But the students referred to as smart are those that do well at school. They grow up and become doctors, lawyers, dentists or vets. Sir Richard Branson has said publicly that he is glad to be dyslexic otherwise he would probably ended up being a doctor or lawyer. For some strange reason he seems happier doing whatever he wants, when he wants and having enough money to buy pretty much anything!!
So we basically live in a world where many of the smartest people are made to feel dumb for the first 17 or 18 years of their lives….. I remember it well..... or even for ever. But why?
Round pegs
Most education institutions in the mainstream system want us to be all the same. They do not want to adapt to cater for students who learn differently so carry on regardless of results down the same paths, putting the students under more and more pressure to change to fit the existing system. …again I remember it well.
We all have to be round pegs and made to fit into round holes. And how boring would life be if this actually always happened?
We all learn the same things in the same way.. or not learn it at all if we are different. More and more teachers are actually telling us how to learn, how to set this out, how to think.
More and more education is trying to hammer everyone into the same shape. But wouldn’t life be boring if we were all the same, and who would do the building and entertaining and planting?
If we find it impossible to think that way then we are given labels. We are often given lots of labels, but instead of using these labels to help them teach us in a more enlightening way they frequently use them to blame us and make us feel useless, lazy or stupid. We leave school knowing these things. We are not good enough, not trying hard enough, not proper people. So why do so many of us then go on to be special?
What is not surprising is that so many students with learning differences end up in the pinnal system or jobless and completely lacking in self esteem. These students are most likely excellent at many things but not the things they were expected to do well at when at school. If you cannot “get” algebra at high school then what will become of you? But how often have you ever used Allegra after leaving school? Or written critical essays on films or adverts? How often have you been given exams in order to keep your job? How often have you been told you cannot spend extra time at home on finishing a project?
Even though I have extreme health problems I still work harder than most people in employment because I love what I do and want my work to be the best I can get it. I also expect everything to be innovative and exciting and move the world forward in some way. I do not want to merely regurgitate what I have been told, like I was expected to do at school. I do not see the point in repeating what every else has done. Once it is done is can be put on line and then referred to for ever, so invent something new.
Plethora of labels.
And to make matters worse “they” are coming up with new labels all the time. Students are forced to unwillingly collect them. They hang round our necks like millstones, shouting to the world that we are weird and stupid. And new labels are being invented all the time, new labels to describe people who are just themselves wishing to be appreciated in the world as good at something.
Active
If you want to keep moving then be a dancer, an athlete, a joiner, a gardener or a myriad of other things that school does not equip you for. If you enjoy sitting at a desk every day filling out forms then good luck for you. You have a whole 11 or 12 years of education to help with this so should be excellent at it. But why do you spend most of your time looking forward to weekends and holidays …to have a break from it. These of us who have the audacity to do what we enjoy and go against the system just get on with our work. Many of us hate holidays and most hate just sitting by a pool or on a beach. We want to get back what we love doing most – our work.
Entrepreneurs
Believe me the richest and happiest people very often invent their own work, but we have to wait till we leave school to be allowed to do it. Why? Often the first third of our lives are spent in trying to be ordinary...... and dare I say it..... boring. If we survive this order by torture with even a modicum of self-esteem left in tact then we are often allowed to be useful and enjoy the rest of our lives. But we still look back in anguish at all these wasted years of school and hate the system.
Please allow people to be themselves. After all just how many people are employed every year in the world doing Allegra every day, and how many are hairdressers or designers or work in the building industry being active every day. And the really pertinent question is ….which are the happiest?
Imagine if a child was encouraged to specialize in joinery, or dance, or design, or brick building, or gardening etc. when young. How much money would be saved and how much more happiness would exist?
