All coming together. Inclusiveness opportunity

All coming together. Inclusiveness opportunity

In many posts I have given anecdotal descriptions of events, interactions that reflect the sorts of experiences which lecturers, teachers, ‘practitioners’  ‘educators’ get.

Students who are rational, collaboratve, ambitious becoming marginalised, even abused because they do not appear to fit into the ‘orthodox’. The ‘could do better syndrome’.

They could not access the curriculum at a level which gave them satisfaction, fulfilment, or were not allowed to because in their different ways they did not fit in.

The move to the use of whiteboards and then ‘smartboards’, have actually increased the marginalisation of many people with difficulties in reading and writing. 

Our experience suggests that there are many students who find looking at a default computer screen far more difficult than looking at a white board which in turn they found more difficult than looking at a blackboard. But there is an apparent paradox here. I say all this but the average academic performance here in the   UK appears to have been rising! But many employers seem to be saying the opposite suggesting that there may be a bit of ‘newspeak’ around.

Perhaps looking is not the right word. It is about reading rather than looking which is more difficult for many . 

Looking at a computer, using graphics appears to be making learning more accessible to more people. But there has been a huge increase in the amount of reading associated with learning. People want to read more, to ‘google’ for explanation, more detail inspired by the graphics.  

There are huge benefits from the use of computers in learning. This whole blog concerns the potential benefits but it also chronicles losses by some of us and the opportunity to really use the technology to make text more accessible, to enable a huge swathe of our people to achieve more and feel more included rather than marginalised/excluded...

In education we tend to see the advantages in using computers as helping the teaching. Increasing /improving the ‘edutainment’   and management components. But there remains a reading 'accessibility' down side for many people which exceeds the positives. BUT that the ability to control the parameters of the text, making it accessible is available.

 We need to grab and develop this opportunity. The educators need to stop assuming that we are still working with printed text, which was fixed, take it or leave it. They must stop making the assumption that someone who can read fast, finds the small fonts on a white background easy are the clever ones, the ones who could contribute, would show what a good ‘teacher’ they were.

 The educators need ensure accessibility to text by reasonable adjustment from the earliest age possible.

Perhaps I am a romantic, but I can honestly say that throughout my life I have never met pupils, students, colleagues or friends who did not want to be able to make more sense of this planet, their lives.

 I have met many frustrated individuals who after years of struggle appear to have given up. Their teachers, the society, keep devaluing them trying to put them in their place. Often it seems to me, when I am not feeling charitable, because it made the people pushing them down feel better to have people not as good as them. Or society tends to be negative towards anyone who seems to ‘hold back’ the seemingly ‘virtuous’. We need scapegoats when the virtuous are not making as much progress as we hope for or expect.

I have met many people who despite being marginalised, push themselves forward, often with tremendous support from those around them, they know that they are ‘as good as’ ( a favourite phrase of mine) despite being told so often that they are not.

I have met and worked with so many people who I admire for their talents despite lack of formal academic success, whether it is the genius car mechanic, the bricklayer, the plasterer, the carer or the street cleaner. When you talk or work with them you know you are no different; any apparent difference is just a veneer. The differences develop as in school they are taught to know their place, and that place is more often than not a function of how fast and for how long they could read.

The computer can be the liberator. It can offer us choice, the opportunity to bespoke our interaction with our planet. It has transformed the way we can communicate with each other, who we communicate with, when and what about. The world wide access to music, film, and ideas is hard to stop, to control, but the real thing that enables ideas to pass in a structured, organised way between us, is through text. With text we can craft our thoughts, develop, demolish our mental constructs our hypotheses and our theories. Test out our ideas; develop our theories, our models. True freedom depends on that access to text. That text has to be as inclusive as possible.

I think that what I have written above is clumsy. I have tried to get across my thoughts. It is a complex area to explain linearly. I think it really needs a mind map!

Nystagmus with a hearing impairment. As he would put it ‘deaf’

Nystagmus with a hearing impairment. As he would put it ‘deaf’

I worked with a young man yesterday who had a problem with the reality that as he read, his head would gradually turn to one side. He had problems reading partly associated with a hearing impairment that had most likely severely restricted his speech development in terms of clarity, sound production. It was thus quite hard to identify in terms of oral reading performance any reading difficulty.

When reading silently his reading performance was much greater but still appeared to be well below his peers.

Talking with him it was clear that there was a nystagmus (eye shaking) as he looked at you.

On the binocular eye tracker this could be seen as he was reading.

The amount of vertical movement in the graphs is a measure of the amount of muscular effort involved in collecting the visual data.

The flat steps in the fluent reader are the periods of time that the eye is actually collecting information about the words and ultimately the ideas being transmitted.

With the person with the nystagmus, only when the eye is moving slowly at the top and bottom of the loop can the visual data be collected.

The reading speed for the upper graph was less than 100 words per minute and for the lower graph the fluent reader it was over 400 words per minute.

The student with nystagmus was putting too much demand on his memory system just to capture the visual data for effective intonation, prosody and ultimately comprehension.

You could not link the reading speed to intelligence in this extreme example. I have met a few people with a nystagmus who were very academically successful; my thoughts then go to the question of just how successful they might have been if they did not have the nystagmus!

When he read from a screen using a lower light intensity and used neutral density (grey) wrap around glasses

His eye oscillation reduced to 50%.

His head no longer turned to one side.

His reading appeared to improve by sitting on a computer chair which gave him ease of upper body movement.  The need to not be static seems important for many people with reading issues.

He was bad, really bad. He would not look his teachers in the eye. Never looked to the front in class! He would not concentrate.

He was bad, really bad. He would not look his teachers in the eye. Never looked to the front in class! He would not concentrate.

Actually he was looking forwards!

Yes another one last week, actually there were two! What often happens with people diagnosed as dyslexic and slow readers is that you can look back on common episodes in their lives.

A very common experience is that they have to hold a book at a greater and greater distance from their eyes until their arms are too short!  This is often described as a ‘convergence insufficiency’. It is one of the things that along with slow reading, somewhat limits their reading stamina. (Especially if they are short-sighted as well!)

A way the visual system sometimes tries to deal with this appears to be turning one eye sideways, so that it not looking at the words being read. This leads to the person’s other eye being pulled to the same side as well and the person finds that they are turning their head sideways in order to look forwards!

In school, this can be very awkward. There you are struggling to get on with the job of reading that book or in your examination, when suddenly you are in trouble…

‘Turn round. Face the front’

‘Don’t cheat. Stop copying. Face the front’

So you look up, puzzled because that is what you were doing, only to be confronted by statement like…

‘Don’t you turn away when I am talking to you! Look at me when I am talking to you!’

Of course if you are really unlucky, you have one ear which does not work very well... the one which is on the side of your face ‘looking forwards’ when you turn your head to read.

So on the instruction to ‘Look at me when I am talking to you’ your head suddenly turns through nearly 180 degrees. Now you can hear the ‘teacher’ but you cannot see them!

No wonder his ‘dumb insolence’ got him into trouble!  He brought it on himself. Didn’t he? Didn't you........

This happens in every country in the world, with every language.

Read the rest of the blogs make some sense of what happens and is happening now.  

Reading funny stuff can be funny. Can’t it?

Reading funny stuff can be funny. Can’t it?

If you are a fluent reader then you enjoy the stuff you read. It is hard to understand why some people are reluctant to read. After all funny books make you smile; scary books get right inside your head, informative books tell you what you want to know. Why wouldn’t people want some of that?

If you are struggling to read this, then you understand.

 You would love to be able to sink into a book, be amused, excited, scared, be transported to another world, another time. After all that is why you like film, TV and perhaps theatre or dance.

If you enjoy those twisting and turning plots get a thrill out of pitting your wits against the author then it really is hard to understand why others do not.

Perhaps they were lazy, had the wrong education, were not taught their ‘phonics’, had parents who could not ‘be asked’.

Ok, so let’s think about those people whose parents sent them away to school, paid for professionals to care and nurture them.  At least they are not risking getting it wrong as parents and they are paying for highly qualified teachers in small classes to give them the right attention, do all the right things if they are having any difficulties.

But still some do not enjoy reading; some give up...so is that what dyslexia is?

If you listen to someone telling a joke, it is not what they say it is the way they say it! The musicality, the intonation, the timing is what gives the buzz.

When you read, the enjoyment is in the way you change speed, change the intonation in your head. In the way you hear /think it in your head. 

If you are stuck in one gear, then it gets boring. There is no fun, the point is missed, or you have to really analyse each sentence to try and work out what it really means.  Possibly a bit like the difference between driving a car stuck in first gear with poor brakes and driving a really responsive car able to adjust speed to the demands of the road and other users.

In that slow moving, ,unresponsive car, where you are always afraid of not noticing what is going on around you as you concentrate on the getting the car along the road, afraid that you may not be able to stop, being overtaken by everyone around you and actually seeming to annoy them all because you are getting in the way… You have to be pretty special, determined to keep going.

What is really annoying, is other people, mocking you, blaming you as if you do not want to enjoy the drive.  Also they always seem to test your memory of the journey by ‘reading and writing’ that sort of kicks you in the teeth when you know there are other ways of showing how good you are.

Ok so if you are lucky, other people like you understand your predicament and help you find ways of getting to your destination and enjoying the journey more. Performance poets and stand up comedians get inside your head without any reading. Seminars can lead to great understanding of complex ideas.

Actually you find loads of ways of surviving and thriving, so much so that you may find yourself competing with those in the smart cars!  You develop skills which the people in the fast cars would never have any ideas about. It might be mind mapping, sentence analysis.

Just imagine that with all these skills, you get shown how to change gear in your car, how to fix the brakes.  That there was nothing really wrong with your car in the first place, just a few adjustments needed... 

As long as you have not crashed, or abandoned the car then the future could be fun, the books could be funnier, more exciting more enveloping, life more exciting and with all those other skills that you have developed, you may well find other people getting frustrated when you overtake them!

Of course this may not be a real possibility, perhaps.

The white board and the blue felt tip pen

The white board and the blue felt tip pen

I have spent the last 30 years of my life trying to understand why one of my students, a Math and Biology student in 1983, came from his math into my Biology lesson almost in tears.

Why was he so upset? Apparently because his Math teacher had just got a white board and was using a blue felt tip pen!

My response was to ask him why it mattered.  He told me that he had always had difficulty keeping up but this just tipped him over the edge, he was totally stressed out, ambitious the first in his family to have the opportunity to go to university, but he could see his opportunity slipping away.

We stopped the biology course and tried to work out what to do.

We were not supposed to even use the word ‘dyslexic’ in the school and actually I don’t think I had any idea what it might really mean. I do not know if my student would have been diagnosed dyslexic. If he had been, I doubt if he would have been given any relevant assistance.

I did have a boy in my class who was diagnosed as ‘Dyspraxic’, but that was a ‘medical condition’ nothing to do with his work in school, there was no assistance given to him, I don’t think he would have wanted it. I don’t think anyone would have known how to help him anyway.

When we started to discuss with the class, how he was finding it difficult with a blue pen on white, others got involved with their experiences. One guy had on his own been using orange transparent toffee papers to help him. His mother had found them in a drawer in his room at home when she was cleaning and thrown them out, telling him off for saving such stupid things.

For the first time we started to really discuss how easy or difficult each person found reading and writing.  The idea of using colour was experimented with and some basic experiments done with colour filters.

The only thing that mattered was that each student did everything they could to increase their chances of achieving their dreams.

So back to 2013.

 Across the UK, the USA, Australia indeed across the world there is a universal use of ‘colour’ to assist people who find reading ‘hard work’. Reading and writing on a white background is ‘normal’. We do not yet know why ‘not being white’ is easier for so many people. What is exciting to me as a biologist is that there is agreement amongst most people working in this field, that each person that ‘each person is different’.  To me this sounds like a genetic origin!  But genetics interacts with the environment, even more variation and confusion, so even more like real biology!

In April, in Oxford there will be a symposium attended by many of the leading researchers from across the world.  This is an opportunity for real discussion and analysis, hopefully a time for moving forward.

By moving forward, what really matters is that more understanding will lead to enabling more people to read more effectively; more strategies; more effective strategies.

I want to really understand why so many people who are leaders in the world of enabling dyslexic adults who I have worked with and have benefitted so much from my work, rarely talk about what has assisted them. I want to understand how what I did with them worked so well.

At the ‘coalface’ of Dyslexia Action, in the UK, coloured filters are sold for their ‘clients’ but nowhere on their website do they refer to the use of colour. Why?  

Perhaps I should just keep quiet and pretend that the emperor’s clothes are beautiful.

At a basic level, it is as if a hospital working with people with walking problems, do not talk about the benefits of using a walking stick or the use of crutches.

In the USA, the ‘International Dyslexia Association’ avoids even considering any visual aspect to the difficulties almost as if the ‘religion does not allow it’. There is a feeling that you can get excommunicated if you question the creed.  I am getting that ‘emperor’s clothes’ feeling again. Hans Christian Anderson was making an important point there. A great Dane!

So let’s get back to visual attention span again. If it is as important and as relevant as Valdois and others have demonstrated then anything which increases visual attention span will be very relevant and enabling to millions. I wonder if the creed will change.

Perhaps back in 1983, I should have just told him, not to be so stupid and stop making excuses.

Le tableau blanc et le bleu feutre

Le tableau blanc et le bleu feutre

J'ai passé les 30 dernières années de ma vie à essayer de comprendre pourquoi un de mes étudiants, un étudiant en biologie et en mathématiques en 1983, est venue de son maths dans ma leçon de biologie presque en larmes.

Pourquoi était-il si en colère? Apparemment parce que son professeur de mathématiques a juste obtenu un tableau blanc et bleu a été l'aide d'un stylo feutre!

Ma réponse a été de lui demander pourquoi il importait. Il m'a dit qu'il avait toujours eu du mal à suivre mais cela vient de lui pencher sur le bord, il a été complètement stressée, ambitieux le premier de sa famille à avoir la possibilité d'aller à l'université, mais il ne pouvait voir son opportunité échappe.

Nous nous sommes arrêtés au cours de biologie et essayé de travailler sur ce qu'il faut faire.

Nous n'étions pas censés même utiliser le mot «dyslexique» à l'école et en fait je ne pense pas que je n'avais aucune idée de ce que cela peut vouloir dire. Je ne sais pas si mon élève aurait été diagnostiqué dyslexique. S'il l'avait été, je doute qu'il aurait été donné toute assistance utile.

J'ai eu un garçon dans ma classe qui a été diagnostiqué comme «dyspraxiques», mais ce n'était rien d'un «état de santé» de faire son travail à l'école, il n'y avait aucune assistance donnée à lui, je ne pense pas qu'il aurait voulu elle. Je ne pense pas que quiconque aurait su comment l'aider de toute façon.

Lorsque nous avons commencé à discuter avec la classe, comment il a du mal avec un stylo bleu sur fond blanc, d'autres se sont impliqués avec leurs expériences. Un gars avait de lui-même eu recours à des documents d'orange caramel transparente pour l'aider. Sa mère les avait trouvés dans un tiroir de sa chambre à la maison quand elle faisait le ménage et les jeter, en lui disant hors de sauver ces choses stupides.

Pour la première fois nous avons commencé à discuter de la façon vraiment facile ou difficile chaque personne a trouvé la lecture et de l'écriture. L'idée d'utiliser la couleur a été expérimenté et quelques expériences de base fait avec des filtres de couleur.

La seule chose qui importait était que chaque élève a fait tout ce qu'ils pouvaient pour augmenter leurs chances de réaliser leurs rêves.

Mais revenons à 2013.

 Dans l'ensemble du Royaume-Uni, aux Etats-Unis, l'Australie fait partout dans le monde il ya une utilisation universelle de la «couleur» pour aider les personnes qui trouvent «travail acharné» de lecture. Lecture et écriture sur un fond blanc est «normal». Nous ne savons pas encore pourquoi «ne pas être blanc» est plus facile pour beaucoup de gens. Ce qui est passionnant pour moi en tant que biologiste, c'est qu'il ya accord entre la plupart des gens qui travaillent dans ce domaine, que chaque personne que «chaque personne est différente. Pour moi, cela ressemble à une origine génétique! Mais la génétique interagit avec l'environnement, la variation encore plus et de confusion, de façon encore plus comme la biologie réel!

En Avril, à Oxford, il y aura un colloque auquel ont participé de nombreux chercheurs de renom du monde entier. Il s'agit d'une occasion de discussion et d'analyse réelle, nous l'espérons un temps pour aller de l'avant.

En déplaçant vers l'avant, ce qui importe vraiment, c'est que plus de compréhension mènera à permettre plus de gens à lire plus efficacement des stratégies plus, des stratégies plus efficaces.

Je veux vraiment comprendre pourquoi tant de gens qui sont des leaders dans le monde des adultes dyslexiques qui permet avec qui j'ai travaillé et ont bénéficié tellement de mon travail, rarement parler de ce qui les a aidés. Je veux comprendre comment ce que j'ai fait avec eux si bien fonctionné.

Lors de la «front de taille» de Dyslexia Action, au Royaume-Uni, les filtres colorés sont vendus pour leurs «clients» mais nulle part sur leur site web font-ils référence à l'utilisation de la couleur. Pourquoi?

Peut-être que je devrais me taire et faire semblant que les vêtements de l'empereur sont belles.

Au niveau de base, c'est comme si un hôpital travaille avec des personnes ayant des problèmes de marche, ne pas parler des avantages de l'utilisation d'une canne ou l'utilisation de béquilles.

Aux Etats-Unis, le «International Dyslexia Association évite même en considérant tous les aspects visuels des difficultés presque comme si la« religion ne lui permet pas ». Il ya un sentiment que vous pouvez obtenir si vous excommunié en question la croyance. Je reçois ce sentiment »des vêtements de l'empereur» à nouveau. Hans Christian Anderson a été un point important là-bas. Un grand Danois!

Donc, revenons à la durée d'attention visuelle à nouveau. Si c'est aussi important et aussi pertinent que Valdois et d'autres ont démontré alors tout ce qui augmente la durée d'attention visuelle sera très pertinente et permettre à des millions. Je me demande si la croyance va changer.

Peut-être en 1983, je viens de le dire, de ne pas être si stupide et cesser de faire des excuses.

Il bordo bianco e l'azzurro pennarello

Il bordo bianco e l'azzurro pennarello

Ho passato gli ultimi 30 anni della mia vita a cercare di capire perché uno dei miei studenti, uno studente di matematica e biologia nel 1983, veniva dalla sua matematica nella mia lezione di biologia quasi in lacrime.

Perché era così arrabbiato? A quanto pare perché il suo insegnante di matematica aveva appena ricevuto un bordo bianco e stava usando un pennarello blu!

La mia risposta era quello di chiedergli perché fosse importante. Mi disse che aveva sempre avuto difficoltà a tenere il passo, ma questo solo lui mancia oltre il bordo, era totalmente stressato, ambizioso il primo della sua famiglia ad avere la possibilità di andare all'università, ma poteva vedere la sua opportunità scivolando via.

Ci siamo fermati al corso di biologia e ho cercato di capire cosa fare.

Non avrebbero dovuto usare anche la parola 'dislessico' nella scuola e in realtà non credo che ho avuto idea di cosa potrebbe realmente significare. Non so se il mio studente sarebbe stato diagnosticato dislessico. Se fosse stato, dubito che sarebbe stata data alcuna assistenza pertinente.

Ho avuto un ragazzo nella mia classe che è stato diagnosticato come 'disprassico', ma non era una 'condizione medica' a che fare con il suo lavoro a scuola, non c'era l'assistenza data a lui, non credo che avrebbe voluto esso. Io non credo che nessuno avrebbe saputo come aiutarlo comunque.

Quando abbiamo iniziato a discutere con la classe, come è stato trovando difficoltà con una penna blu su bianco, gli altri sono stati coinvolti con le loro esperienze. Un tizio aveva in proprio usato arancione carte mou trasparenti per aiutarlo. La madre li aveva trovati in un cassetto nella sua stanza a casa quando lei era la pulizia e buttato fuori, dicendogli off per il salvataggio cose così stupide.

Per la prima volta abbiamo iniziato a discutere veramente quanto sia facile o difficile, ogni persona pensa che leggere e scrivere. L'idea di utilizzare il colore è stato sperimentato e alcuni esperimenti di base fatto con filtri colorati.

L'unica cosa che importava era che ogni studente ha fatto tutto il possibile per aumentare le loro possibilità di raggiungere i propri sogni.

Ma torniamo al 2013.

 In tutto il Regno Unito, Stati Uniti, Australia infatti in tutto il mondo vi è un uso universale di 'colore' per aiutare le persone che trovano 'duro lavoro' lettura. Lettura e scrittura su uno sfondo bianco è 'normale'. Noi non sappiamo ancora perche 'non essere bianco' è più facile per tante persone. Che cosa è eccitante per me come un biologo è che vi sia un accordo tra la maggior parte delle persone che lavorano in questo settore, che ogni persona che 'ogni persona è diversa'. Per me questo suona come una origine genetica! Ma la genetica interagisce con l'ambiente, variazione ancora più confusione e, ancora di più come la biologia reale!

Nel mese di aprile, a Oxford ci sarà un simposio hanno partecipato molti dei principali ricercatori di tutto il mondo. Si tratta di un momento di confronto reale e l'analisi, si spera una volta per andare avanti.

Spostando in avanti, quello che conta è che più la comprensione porterà a permettere a più persone di leggere in modo più efficace, più strategie, strategie più efficaci.

Voglio capire davvero perché così tante persone che sono leader nel mondo di consentire adulti dislessici che ho lavorato con e hanno beneficiato così tanto dal mio lavoro, raramente parlare di ciò che li ha assistiti. Voglio capire come quello che ho fatto con loro ha funzionato così bene.

Al 'coalface' di Dyslexia Action, nel Regno Unito, filtri colorati sono venduti per i loro "clienti" ma da nessuna parte sul loro sito fanno riferimento al l'uso del colore. Perché?

Forse dovrei solo tacere e far finta che i vestiti dell'imperatore sono bellissime.

A livello di base, è come se un ospedale che lavora con persone con problemi di deambulazione, non parlare dei vantaggi derivanti dall'utilizzo di un bastone da passeggio o l'uso di stampelle.

Negli Stati Uniti, la 'International Dyslexia Association' evita anche tenendo conto di ogni aspetto visivo alle difficoltà quasi come se la 'religione non lasciarlo'. C'è una sensazione che si può ottenere se si mette in discussione scomunicato il credo. Ricevo che 'i vestiti dell'imperatore "sensazione di nuovo. Hans Christian Anderson stava facendo un punto importante lì. Un alano!

Quindi cerchiamo di tornare al livello di attenzione visiva di nuovo. Se è così importante e così rilevante come Valdois e altri hanno dimostrato quindi tutto ciò che aumenta la capacità di attenzione visiva sarà molto rilevante e che permette a milioni di persone. Mi chiedo se il credo cambierà.

Forse nel 1983, avrei dovuto appena detto, di non essere così stupido e smettere di fare scuse.