A teacher trying to understand

Creativity behind Curtains,

Creativity behind net curtains, to be specific, that is how I feel about dyslexia.

I am writing from an educational point of view. As a teacher in secondary school in the eighties,

I did not know about dyslexia, but I knew that spelling presented huge obstacles for some of my pupils.

I did not have the tools to "fix" their problems, I could only give them support and refrain from using the red pen.

They had brilliant ideas, but found it almost impossible to transfer these ideas into the written word.

At present I work with adults and listening to their stories is a very humbling experience.

I meet people with extraordinary coping skills. People who have had to battle with what now has a name: dyslexia.

In many instances their self-confidence and self-esteem have suffered, because they had to hide what they perceived

to be a weakness. Often they were labelled by a school system as slow learners,

which in turn was a reason for schoolmates to mock them.

And yet … the clarity of thought and the creativity that they display is of an excellent standard.

The more I encounter this, the more I wish I could find a magic formula that could draw away the net curtain.

Not only the net curtain that makes spelling particularly difficult,

but also the net curtain that prevents me and many others to understand what it is like to find words hard to handle.

 

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