Guest Post - Dyslexic Professor Duane Smith

This Reader wrote this lovely comment on the last post on the Blog - so with his permission I give you his story as a post so you don't miss it.

After failing the first grade, I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. I failed English in the 10th grade, and algebra a total of five times. By the grace of God, I graduated high school with a 1.9 G.P.A on probation for bad behavior. Following high school, I failed out of three different community colleges. The first class I failed was public speaking. After my third attempt at college, in as many years, I became a car salesman. Selling cars was one of the best learning experiences of my life, however, at the age of 21, I did not posses the discipline to work sixty-plus hours a week for commission. So I quit. Needing to do something, I applied for the Los Angeles Police Department, only to fail the written exam. My father was an LAPD sergeant. A friend of my father had administered and graded the test. Severely humbled and having no other options, I decided to try college a fourth time.

I figured if I was going to be serious about school, I should start by retaking the courses I had failed. During the summer of 1991, I enrolled in a public speaking course at Los Angeles Valley College with Professor Betty Ballew. Professor Ballew not only inspired me to take the class seriously but encouraged me to join the LAVC public speaking team. To this day, I don't know why I agreed to do something extracurricular that was academic...but I did! I joined the LAVC public speaking team, and my life was changed forever. Professor Ballew inspired me to celebrate my strengths, and address my challenges.

I am now a tenured professor of speech at Los Angeles Valley College, where I serve as the Director of the forensics (public speaking team). I am now privileged to regularly participate with and foster countless success stories as I serve the very program that changed my life. On April 15-19th, 2008 the LAVC speech team competed against 74 other community colleges and over 450 of our nation's best speakers and won the Phi Rho Pi national public speaking championship tournament held in St. Charles, Illinois. However, the highlight of the year was a very special student named Marcus Hill. Marcus, a former stutterer, became the most successful competitive speaker in California community college history, as well as, the overall top speaker in the country while at nationals in Illinois. Like my Professor Betty Ballew, I am truly blessed with the privilege of helping students discover their individual strengths while actively negotiating their challenges.

In 1991, a college professor asked me if I was "retarded?". That same year Professor Ballew told me that I had "presence," and asked me to join the speech team. Professor Ballew focused on my strengths, and helped me to acknowledge and confront my challenges.

For several years I have contemplated reaching out to the dyslexic community to share my experiences. If I could encourage others to discover the empowerment that can be discovered by identifying and exploiting one's individual gifts; while at the same time motivating people to address their personal challenges, I would honor the opportunity.

Please forgive any spelling mistakes :)

Sincerely,

Duane Smith
(Taken with Permission from...)
https://publicspeakinglosangeles.net/public-speaking-professor-duane-smith/the-dyslexic-professor/

Dear Reader

If you are dyslexic and have a story to tell you are welcome to share it here... post you potential post below and Iw ill will consider it in due time...

Eric Wolf

Why Doubt sucks.

or The physiological and psychological realities of being Dyslexic.

Thanks for reading this blog for more blog posts check out the rest of my work at http://dyslexicstoryteller.blogspot.com/

 I am sitting in a classroom in 3rd grade.  My heart rate is high I am in fight or flight mode.  I can feel my pulse beating behind my ears.  The room seems hot – I can’t help but look around the room for a place to hide.  Maybe if I slouched down in my chair I could avoid being picked out by the teacher.  I can not read.  I am the only non-reader in my class and I know it.  I am a shamed.  I wait all day for recess and pray it does not rain.

I am sitting in beginning Spanish in 7^th grade.  I have no idea what is going on in the classroom.  I work hard at night to catch up, but I slip further and further behind.  My body does not know that I am sitting in a classroom in the best junior-high in Manhattan.  Instead my body believes that it is walking across the African safari with a lion behind every bush.  I am preparing to fight or run for my life.

The teacher addresses me in Spanish and I freeze.   A useful response to a lion or a leopard, but not to a Spanish teacher.

I am sitting in basic biology in college.  I keep notes religiously.  I can’t read half of them or figure out what they mean.  When I use the text book I find the new words overwhelming.  I test on reading compression tests better then my peers, but here where the words are too many, too new and complex I find it difficult to associate the words on the page with the words that are spoken in the lectures.  I enjoy the lectures and discussions, but during labs and exams years of training kick in an I turn into a adrenaline junkie who looks like bumbling fool.

Dyslexic individuals have millions of years of biology working against them as they attempt to work there way through the literate world.  As I have written before in this blog the biggest block to the success of a dyslexic person is the realization that success starts outside of the fields that dyslexic students are weakest in.  As human being’s we need to build on previous success and previous triumphs in order to build into our weakness.  The disadvantage that dyslexic people start with such a handicap they need to create other areas of success to hold them over whether is theater, sports, math, science, fantasy, or relationships.  Before suffering the trials and tribulations of dyslexia it is important that students have some touch stone of success.

Thanks for reading this blog for more blog posts check out the rest of my work at http://dyslexicstoryteller.blogspot.com/

4) Humans are capable of learning on a J curve.

This post is part of series on 7 Principles every parent should know about dyslexic children.

The spark of desire is the one true gift a good teacher can give a student. Everything else is just a matter of access and time. Once exposed to the desire to learn something in the modern age where the internet has made any information that you may need immediately accessible. The only thing missing is your child’s desire to know.

Schools were built during an age when it was necessary to create a uniform cultural identity through compulsory schooling. While nationalist may still argue that for the good of the state individuals should be normalized across a wide spectrum of types and religions – I would argue that in a creative economy that normalization will kill the engine that fuels the governments economic success. Government schooling is killing the drive and the ability of the economy to supply the needs of the state.

One of the few good arguments that I have heard for running government schools that makes sense to me is that for many children Public School is the one time a day that they get a good meal. I think that's great - let's build a cafeteria in the pubic library and any hungry person can get a modest meal government paid. Or let's run high school and middle school the way many private colleges are run - you take the classes you want to take from the teacher you wish to learn from.

When your child feels competent and emotionally safe they will learn when they are ready. In human development there are windows of opportunity that open up as the child develops – now is a good time for music, now is a good time for stories, now is a good time for character development Each of these windows open and close with a the development of the human being. I'm not saying you can't teach a old dog new tricks, but... it sure is hard.

I have spoken with teachers who teach college level algebra to 5th graders - but the response they get form administration is - What are we going to teach them in 9th grade algebra?

I’m ranting I know - but I am ranting against an ideology of schooling that says that the smartest - and every student is smartest in one subject - whether or not it is apart of the schools official curriculum - example - boys, cars, or comic books. - the smartest students must wait for everyone else - or must conform to culture that says fit in.. oh the exasperation!

I got impatient today again and I blew it.

I sent an email to a listsev – I’m sure a few of you are on that listserv email. I started the email with me and another person instead of other person and I. Pretty obvious really I could have spared the thirty minutes to bother some body else. But honestly I was impatient and feeling really successful with other stuff so I didn’t get the document corrected. Spent a better part of an hour feeling guilty - beating my self up.

Most of the email was cut and paste from other previously corrected emails. Wait I’ll get it out so you can see it.

Here it is…

Well - Tracking the college E-Cats Free E-course.

Me and Rachel Hedman would like to give every storyteller on the planet a no cost E-course to help you get campus gigs.

We have prepared an E-course for you to take and use at no cost to you. It will give you an idea of what the full conference call course is like. If you are interested, go to
http://www.storytellingwithchildren.com/college to sign up for the free e-course. Fill out the form and after a few moments check your email and click the link inside the email
to activate your course.

Rachel Hedman has performed at Brigham Young University, University of Utah, California State Fresno University, West Hills College, Snow College, Weber State University and is
the co-chair of the Youth, Educators, and Storytellers Alliance. Here is what some people have said about the workshop Rachel Hedman presented at the National Storytelling Conference this last summer - College Big Cats: Tracking and Capturing the Performance.

I'm sure there are people on this listserv who are already experts in finding work on campuses and honestly I would love your feed back on the e-course.

Peace

Eric Wolf
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/college

I’m sure that you see other issues with the posting. But here is the thing – dyslexia really requires that you have a certain degree of optimism to continue writing and that same positive attitude gets you in trouble when you think of course I got it right this time.

Or maybe I just get tired of writing and getting everything proofed – baa humbug to proofing.
FREEDOM from editors!
Dyslexic people of world unite!

Truth is I just need to have patience with myself and my editors.