nilchance | (no subject)

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MP says dyslexia is a "cruel fiction" invented to cover up bad teaching. Yeah? How about you get a ladder and jump up my ass, sir.

Can I get some recommendations for good tai chi or yoga DVDs/videos? I'll trade suggestions for epic cat cuteness.

Samwise, our gray tabby who came to the door and claimed us.

Gracie the new addition, being cute. Mauling imminent in 3, 2, 1...

Weejo, my parents' cat, with her ill gotten straw still in her mouth. "O HAI, why you takes mah picture?"

Gratuitous cat snuggling! They clean each other, too.

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These are my absolute favorite yoga videos.

KITTIES!!!!

Thank you for the cat cuteness it cured me of my dyslexic rage. Dyslexia problems are not due to the inadequacy of teachers, but because we have unique brains and the English language is a mess.
http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t107.html

I just bought this Yoga DVD, but I don't know if it is any good yet.
Yoga for Stress Relief (With The Dalai Lama)

As someone who STILL can't tell you the order of the months, and who wants to CRY when she's asked to multiply things without a calculator, I'd like to say fuck-you-very-much to Mr. Graham Stringer. And he obviously didn't do his fucking homework since dyslexia doesn't effect just reading. I had to go to a special afterschool program to address my dyslexia issues and in the 80s they only really worked on reading. They hadn't made the connections yet to math and sequences and handwriting and spacial awareness. I've worked my ass off to develop spacial awareness and hand eye coordination.

Oh and our mythical ailment isn't always a bad thing either. We're able to see problems in 3D instead of 2D which makes us wonderful people to have on a problem solving team. We'll come up with solutions you don't think about. Learning French is difficult but American Sign Language? While you're struggling to remember the different grammarical sequences we'll be busy making deaf friends because we GET IT.

And dyslexic people? We tend to be smart. Because we felt like morons in school, a lot of us come up with solutions to hide our "stupidity". Personally I memorized the SHAPES of words and I'd guess the word based on the context. I've known other people who would memorize passages in books to prove that they could read too. Despite feeling like an absolute idiot (even today) because someone says "I'll meet you at quarter to 3" and having no idea what that means. Or having to really concentrate to read an analoge watch, or having to ask the embarassing question "what month comes after March?" We're NOT idiots and we weren't taught wrong. Our brains just work differently.

So to Mr. Stringer who complains about the "dyslexia industry" (like there's a lot of money to be made teaching kids how to read using little colored blocks), fuck you, fuck you, fuck you very much.

Dyslexia problems are not due to the inadequacy of teachers, but because we have unique brains and the English language is a mess.

Hell yes. I mean honestly, phonetics suck! The letter C? It makes one noise in "cackle" and a completely different one in "cellophane".

And don't even get me started on math. I had so many teachers mark my tests as wrong because I didn't show the work, but how could I show the work when I did the work in my head and it changed every time? Plus - and + and / all look very similar. Lame.

I am in agreeance with

poisontaster the yoga zone vids rock. My ultimate fav is the strength & flexibility one.

Cool. I have to see whether I can get them via Netflix to try out.

My favorite example to share is when in High School I spelled bird, bid, and knew something was missing but could not figure out what. At the same time I was in the advanced English class because I learned to read for meaning so I could skip words I did not recognize, so when it came time to discus them in class I could visualize the whole book like a movie in my head.

Woot! Two votes means I'll definitely try to track those down.

NEE, KITTY IN YOUR ICON!

Right? I'm big on the social model of disability. Dyslexia wouldn't BECOME disabling if teachers taught to them rather than to the test.

WORD. Wordity-McWord, even, on the math. I still switch 7 and 3 and they bear no similarity.

As someone IN the so-called "dyslexia industry", rock the fuck on. Yes.

True, the only way I made it through elementary school was because my parents paid for a private tutor when they realized that the public schools method of dealing with my problem was not working. Then in high school they moved me to a private school to keep me from being tracked to special ed. I was lucky that my parents had the time and interest to make sure my education worked for me.

Yes. It's so unfair that you had to go through that, though.

I was actually really lucky because they DID figure out I was dyslexic when I was about eight. I had a few years of after school tutoring to work with me on reading and after that I was a fantastic reader. I can read quickly and with great comprehension. Spelling was impossible for me for a long time. I'd go home and cry because I'd spend an hour every night working on ten words and I'd still get a 70% TOPS on my spelling test on Friday. My major issues come with math, sequences, and describing steps to solve problems. I just sort of figured out solutions to problems instead of remembering formulas and things.

YES! I'm so glad my parents were able to afford a tutor in elementary school. I just wish they had realized that dyslexia affected more then reading because in elementary school my tutor was trained to teach dyslexic kids. Then my parents were baffled in middle school because I had no math comprehension and the tutor who was a math teacher just reiterated lessons already taught in class and it made no difference to me.

Nothing is worse then having every kid in class look at you and know that YOU DON'T GET IT. You're slowing them down. You're the weak link. And it isn't because you're dumb, it's because there's this language error and the message isn't being recieved. There's so much pressure on teachers nowadays to have their kids pass these standardized tests and god help you if you're the one who's gonna screw up the quota.

Are you dyslexic or do you teach dyslexic kids?

I absolutely hate it when people say things like "she's not dyslexic, she's lazy." And trust me, I heard a lot of that as a kid. I had a mean southern grandma who was a big believer of "if you don't do well in school its because you're not trying hard enough." Grr, it's the same logic that caused some teachers to force left handed kids to write right handed. It's not WRONG, it's just DIFFERENT.

RE: dyslexia.

Wow. That's--just, well Made of Fail.

I mean, it's not like I can totally spot the work of students with dyslexia some of the time because there's like a consistent pattern of specific kinds of mistakes that are, oh, I don't know, clearly different from the patterns of mistakes I see among, say, second language learners, or students who just half-assed the assignment.

I'd also like to know why so many politicians and laypeople are so damned ready to assume that they know more about my job than I do. I mean, clearly, I don't have, oh, I don't know, any specialized training in a particular field or professional experience or anything. Clearly, just anyone could do my job.

Just, you know, dropping by to validate your rage.

And comment on how cute the cats are. I have no yoga video recs, sadly.

Unfair, true, but I'm both smarter and more confident because I overcame it. So in the long run I win.

7 and 3 totally look alike! 7 and 2 also look alike. 2 and 3 look alike... they all freakin' look alike! My biggest math issue when I was a kid was my inability to see - + and / (pretend that's an old fashioned division symbol) as DIFFERENT symbols. And I had the weirdest way of solving things:

What's 4/5th's as a decimal?

4 goes into 5... um, once. But then there's a number left over. 1.1? 'Cause there's one left over?

or

100% is 1, right? So if I make the bottom number 100, it'll tell me the right answer... right? 5 and 5 is ten, and 5 and 5 is ten, and 5 and 5 is ten, and 5 and 5 is ten, and 5 and 5 is ten (etc. I'd also circle the tens so I'd know how many there were.) Okay so it takes 10 10s to make 100 which is 20 5s. So what's 20 4s? 80. So 80/100... so what's the decimal of that? 1.8?

Yeah, math was impossible. And even if I DID get the right solution I did so many little steps that it was insanely easy to miscount and then screw up my answer.

It is really frustrating when the teacher can't think of another way to describe things. I was really lucky to never have a problem with the math. It is surprising how much it affects your social life in school. I always had to be pulled out of class to go to the special ed. teacher, it was really embarrassing and most my friends where other kids in special ed.

Oh by the way I'm convinced in my own personal canon that John and Dean are dyslexic which is why we're given the impression that Dean didn't excell in school even though he's obviously very intelligent (he made an EMF out of a walkman!) The way John tapes his information all around his room and draws physical lines connecting info also reeks of 3D thinking and the need to physically see what's mentally there. They're both also VERY good at figuring out patterns. Dyslexia would also contribute to their outsider persona since a lot of kids with dyslexia end up feeling alienated at a young age and get very defensive. (Sure having your wife/mom burn on the ceiling and secretly hunting would also contribute to this outsider persona but *handwave* whatever.)

The one that annoys me the most is "didn't you proof read this?" Yes I did, but if I didn't know how to spell it the first time, I still don't know how to spell it now.
I got through school by developing a very good short term memory for spelling tests and learning to write essays on very complex topic using only small words and a limited vocabulary.

Yeah, I saw this on Reuters. It's come at the right time to insert into my Monday-due assignment on dyslexia and wonderfully proves the fuckwit mentality of the close-minded ignorant in a position of power. Not that I am allowed to say fuckwit in an academic essay.

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