Speaker 1: I've never been in a car anything like this.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people haven't because yeah, they're
Speaker 2: not very common, especially in New Zealand, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's going to know the right people to take you.
Speaker 3: For a spin. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: Before today, I don't know if I could have told
Speaker 1: you what a McLaren car even looked like. But twenty
Speaker 1: three year old Michael knows these cars intimately. He buys
Speaker 1: and sells supercars for a living. It started when he
Speaker 1: was just a little boy with a passion for cars
Speaker 1: and a goal to one day own a Lamborghini. So
Speaker 1: now when we're sitting here, do you know what's going
Speaker 1: on in the engine? Do you know all the like?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, no, I know what you mean, Yeah, one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: Like the ghost bamped straight straight to what's happening in
Speaker 2: the engine and how the cars running and stuff as
Speaker 2: a sort of how I'm wired.
Speaker 1: And are you visualizing it or are you visualizing it here?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 1: You know that's a skill that not many people have.
Speaker 1: A Yeah, but I imagine when you were little most
Speaker 1: of your life you didn't know that not everyone can
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: Nah, nah, it's sort of I've only recently discovered it.
Speaker 1: To be honest, we're learning more and more about the
Speaker 1: strengths of dyslexic thinking. Michaels used his to become really
Speaker 1: good at what he does, but if you looked at
Speaker 1: his academic record, he shouldn't really be successful at all.
Speaker 1: Michael dropped out of school at fifteen, but the experience
Speaker 1: of school and the pain it caused hasn't left him.
Speaker 1: I'm diving into the complex and fascinating world of neurodiversity.
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, but my daughter is neurodivergent and
Speaker 1: a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD. In
Speaker 1: this series, you'll hear from expert and from many, many
Speaker 1: wonderful people who experience the world in a unique way.
Speaker 1: We're looking at neurodiversity from the inside, Yoder. I'm Sonia Gray,
Speaker 1: and this is no such thing as normal. In this
Speaker 1: episode and the next, we're taking a broader look at dyslexia.
Speaker 1: Over the last few decades, the focus has been solely
Speaker 1: on helping dyslexic kids to read and write, which is great,
Speaker 1: but so many dyslexics still feel so crap about school.
Speaker 1: What if the issue with words is just a small
Speaker 1: part of the dyslexic experience. Are we doing enough to
Speaker 1: encourage the specialist skills that so many dyslexics possess, like
Speaker 1: seeing openings and opportunities and patterns where others don't. Your
Speaker 1: classic entrepreneur like Michael, do you mind if I asked
Speaker 1: how much it cost your first Lamborghini.
Speaker 2: Three hundred thousand?
Speaker 1: How do you get did you win lotto? I wish
Speaker 1: he didn't win lotto, And no, he wasn't helped into
Speaker 1: a supercar by super wealthy parents.
Speaker 2: I bought and sold cars. I just hustled and stuff.
Speaker 2: I made my own way. My first business was car valet,
Speaker 2: so cleaning cars. I did it for people with Lamborghinis.
Speaker 2: I got good at it.
Speaker 1: What is it that drew you to cool cars?
Speaker 2: As long as I can remember, probably around the age
Speaker 2: of you know six, sort of a thing, you know,
Speaker 2: the little matchbox hot wheels cars, you know, I started
Speaker 2: playing with them, and then as I got older, I
Speaker 2: started to mess around with lawn mowers and engines, and
Speaker 2: then go carts, tractors and what not, and then started
Speaker 2: to learn more about cars. I'd see them out on
Speaker 2: the road and recognize them. Then it started, you know, Ferraris,
Speaker 2: Lamborghinis and McLaren's and whatnot. I just love it and
Speaker 2: I can't get away.
Speaker 4: From when I look and I think about Michael at
Speaker 4: school and now with that car out the front, and
Speaker 4: what he's actually doing to make his money. It's just amazing.
Speaker 4: But I remember him.
Speaker 1: Stuff that's Michael's mum, Jane. I actually interviewed her first
Speaker 1: for an upcoming episode on anxiety, and while I was
Speaker 1: at her house, I met her youngest son, Michael, a warm,
Speaker 1: charming twenty three year old with a story I felt
Speaker 1: needed to be heard, you know.
Speaker 4: But still he's very, very anxious as a person, and
Speaker 4: he has these different phobias that he's dealing with. So
Speaker 4: he's still dealing with childhood stuff.
Speaker 1: The childhood stuff stems from school and never feeling good enough.
Speaker 1: Part of Michael's motivation is to prove that he does
Speaker 1: have what it takes. It's a story so common for dyslexics.
Speaker 2: If you see that on my hand there, that means
Speaker 2: success before thirty, the age of thirty, and that was
Speaker 2: there as soon as I could sort of get that tattoo.
Speaker 2: That's what drove me. That was my target before thirty.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted.
Speaker 1: Michael's showing me a small tattoo on the side of
Speaker 1: his hand which simply reads s B thirty success before thirty.
Speaker 1: For Michael, that meant getting his first Lamborghini, and he
Speaker 1: got it this year at twenty three. He bought an
Speaker 1: apartment too. This sounds like the tale of a kid
Speaker 1: who overcame his dyslexia and triumphed, but it's not really.
Speaker 1: It's about a kid who overcame a school system that
Speaker 1: brought him to his knees, and now he has something
Speaker 1: to prove.
Speaker 2: You don't necessarily need school, because you know, back when
Speaker 2: I was in school, I left at fourteen, fourteen, fourteen,
Speaker 2: fifteen year.
Speaker 1: You've told me a little bit about it.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a horrible experience for you in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't threat enough a it was. It was.
Speaker 2: It was like a living hell being at school for
Speaker 2: me personally, Yep, it was bad.
Speaker 1: Michael has profound auditory dyslexia, but in some he's gifted.
Speaker 1: His visual spatial skills and processing speed are exceptional, but
Speaker 1: he struggles with what we call the basics. So subjects
Speaker 1: like maths and English were a nightmare.
Speaker 2: I felt like the dumbest person in school, and you know,
Speaker 2: taking someone like me with dyslexia, you know, through the
Speaker 2: paces and pushing them to do the tests. And if
Speaker 2: you don't pass this test, you're going to fail, and
Speaker 2: you're going to not you know, you're going to be
Speaker 2: implement homeless when you're older. Sort of a thing. It's pressure.
Speaker 1: Michael has specific memories of school which still haunt him.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're in class and you have to
Speaker 2: be silent, you're doing tests and stuff, and everyone's got
Speaker 2: their head down they're writing, you know, and then you
Speaker 2: hear sort of books start closing, and then people go
Speaker 2: up and give the book to the teacher at the front.
Speaker 2: And then I'd be on the first page, stool. I
Speaker 2: don't know what the heck I'm doing. And it was
Speaker 2: the pressure from sort of the other people finishing before me.
Speaker 2: And not only did I finish last out of them all,
Speaker 2: but I was sitting there sort of feeling really stupid
Speaker 2: because everyone was looking back at me, like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: still going because this kid's on his first page. You
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 4: One day I found him under the desk in the
Speaker 4: bedroom as far away from the front door as he
Speaker 4: could possibly get, and he was curled up under the desk,
Speaker 4: refusing to go to school, and I could not get
Speaker 4: it out of him what had happened. And that's an
Speaker 4: example for a very dyslexic child who could not express
Speaker 4: himself to me. He did not have the words to
Speaker 4: say how he was feeling. He didn't know how to
Speaker 4: put that across to me at all. He was completely
Speaker 4: shut down. And I racked my brains to think how
Speaker 4: I was going to find out what on earth was happening.
Speaker 4: I howled him, I talked to him. He wasn't going
Speaker 4: to open up at all. Eventually I got a piece
Speaker 4: of paper out, and I got crayons out, and I
Speaker 4: just started doodling on the page, and I said, you
Speaker 4: seem really sad, And he picked up a crayon and
Speaker 4: he started to draw, and he drew what had happened
Speaker 4: in the classroom the day before, which is when the
Speaker 4: teacher had actually slapped his hand down on to the desk.
Speaker 4: As he drew it, the tears welled up and the
Speaker 4: anger came out, and he was able to start expressing
Speaker 4: what had happened this morning when we were talking about it,
Speaker 4: he said she threw a chair at him as well,
Speaker 4: which I actually had no idea about. That affected him
Speaker 4: profoundly and still to this day. Yeah, I just think
Speaker 4: that just goes to show the negative outcome for him
Speaker 4: at school, not being understood, not being identified, and not
Speaker 4: being helped.
Speaker 1: But you were there to say every day, you're amazing,
Speaker 1: You're wonderful. A lot of kids don't have that. Jane
Speaker 1: knows a lot about dyslexia. It was her master's thesis
Speaker 1: topic and she's co authored a book about it. He
Speaker 1: tells me about a guy she interviewed who got very
Speaker 1: emotional when he told her about school.
Speaker 4: He was describing school and he said he looked at
Speaker 4: me and he said school was just a place I
Speaker 4: ate my lunch. He never did anything at all in
Speaker 4: terms of his education really at school. And when he
Speaker 4: talked about there being one particular teacher, he said who
Speaker 4: got me. And then he's teared up and he started
Speaker 4: to cry because that one teacher who got him made
Speaker 4: all the difference to him emotionally as an adult. And
Speaker 4: that was his story of school to me. Nothing about
Speaker 4: school achievement, but the one teacher who got him.
Speaker 1: And so many say that. So many adults say that
Speaker 1: there was that one teacher that just understood them. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, but I feel like some people
Speaker 1: just have it. Then the empathetic people have it. And
Speaker 1: if you don't necessarily have that doesn't matter how much
Speaker 1: training you have. I don't know. Yeah, I like that
Speaker 1: comes down to the when you're dyslexic, every school day
Speaker 1: holds the potential for failure and shame in front of
Speaker 1: your peers. Michael is a kind, polite, lovely person, but
Speaker 1: you can hear the anger in his voice when he
Speaker 1: has to relive the memory of school speeches.
Speaker 2: So another living hell of mine. I guess you could
Speaker 2: ask mum doing.
Speaker 1: Speeches, Yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: It was just that scared the living life out of
Speaker 2: me to have to stand in front of these people
Speaker 2: who I felt like, we're going to judge me for
Speaker 2: messing up one of my words, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: mispronouncing something or just sounding stupid in front of a
Speaker 2: thirty kids and a teacher. You know, sometimes even more.
Speaker 2: I was sort of always the quiet kid, not wanting
Speaker 2: to really talk to people. But then when I got
Speaker 2: into business, which I had an interest in dealing with people,
Speaker 2: dealing with clients, with selling cars, negotiating, buying, selling. It
Speaker 2: came natural to me. And now, you know, put me
Speaker 2: in front of thirty thousand people, I'll do it. I
Speaker 2: I'd probably want to do it, but I couldn't do
Speaker 2: it back then in front of thirty kids. I believe
Speaker 2: strongly that I, you know, day to day have been
Speaker 2: impacted from that very thing. I carry those you know,
Speaker 2: anxiety and all those feelings because of how I felt
Speaker 2: back in class. For sure, yeap, just flipping that a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Was there a teacher or a situation or a subject
Speaker 1: or anything at school that gave you that was positive?
Speaker 2: Oh? Not that I can remember, you know.
Speaker 1: So there was no teacher that kind of went, Michael,
Speaker 1: you're actually you've got something. We know that teachers who
Speaker 1: take the time to understand neurodivergent kids can change their lives.
Speaker 1: And I am constantly blown away by the teachers I
Speaker 1: know who go above and beyond, always looking for creative
Speaker 1: ways to help the kids who are struggling. Michael didn't
Speaker 1: have that.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting in school, you know, in front at
Speaker 2: the end of the year when you're doing any exams,
Speaker 2: and I was just thinking, just get me the heck
Speaker 2: out of here. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: None of us want to fail. No kid wants to
Speaker 1: not be able to sit the exam. The system failed you.
Speaker 1: The school system completely failed you, and it's failing so
Speaker 1: many For me.
Speaker 2: It created all the anxiety. You know, me being self
Speaker 2: conscious and you know learning things, and you know struggles
Speaker 2: I have today.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're super sensitive too. I am, which
Speaker 1: is a lovely quality, but it can work against you
Speaker 1: because you feel everything.
Speaker 3: You feel it all.
Speaker 1: Michael is thriving in a world that is so foreign
Speaker 1: to me, buying and selling supercars. This is a game
Speaker 1: with so much money on the line, you can't afford
Speaker 1: to get it wrong. And I'm curious to find out
Speaker 1: how he does it.
Speaker 2: I picked them, well, I know what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: I know what I'm buying, I know the numbers, and
Speaker 2: I work my way up to make profit.
Speaker 1: So you do your research, and you look.
Speaker 2: At immense research. Absolutely, yep, because you will lose your money.
Speaker 2: You'll buy out of emotion. See I never buy even
Speaker 2: the Lambeau, even though it's something I always wanted. I
Speaker 2: didn't buy that car out of emotion.
Speaker 1: So you're looking you're trying to make that connection because
Speaker 1: it's all about I'm not even going to pretend, but
Speaker 1: there's But you need to know the details, don't you,
Speaker 1: because you can't miss anything.
Speaker 2: Well, I want I want to know the detail.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I'm so interested in the art of sales and negotiating
Speaker 2: and talking with people now, which I never was.
Speaker 1: When you were at school. If someone had gone, he's
Speaker 1: really into supercars, let's create something around supercas have been easier.
Speaker 4: Like when you said, sonya, when you said that the
Speaker 4: school system failed, Michael, I had a bit of a reaction,
Speaker 4: you know, because to actually really look at that and go, yeah,
Speaker 4: actually it really did. But if he had been offered
Speaker 4: something of interest him, if that had been an interesting environment,
Speaker 4: that's where I think that you would have excelled at school.
Speaker 1: Like so many dyslexics, it's not just the reading and
Speaker 1: writing that's challenging for Michael. Maths, especially the basics, pose
Speaker 1: a whole lot of problems. In general, maths is taught
Speaker 1: in a very linear way, which doesn't work well for
Speaker 1: dyslexic thinkers. Michael hated maths in school, but in his
Speaker 1: job it's not a problem.
Speaker 2: Like maths with me. I deal with numbers all the
Speaker 2: time because all the cars and whatnot. But that's because
Speaker 2: I'm interested, and that's because I want to.
Speaker 1: So the numbers when you're dealing with cars, isn't a
Speaker 1: problem for you, no, See, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But if I'm doing it for some I don't know
Speaker 2: what you could say to just any equation. If someone oh, well,
Speaker 2: what's this, I wouldn't have a clue. Well how much
Speaker 2: did you buy and sell this car for? How much
Speaker 2: profit did you make out? Blah blah blah dang easy wow.
Speaker 2: And even though it's a numbers game and I have
Speaker 2: this dyslexia and these school problems, I'm deep in that
Speaker 2: it's because I have an interest in it.
Speaker 1: See people need to know this, don't they They do
Speaker 1: that's all numbers, and you just go. You could have
Speaker 1: been the kid that goes, I'm never going to be
Speaker 1: able to do anything with numbers, but you found something
Speaker 1: of interest. I feel like there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: kids out there that just go, I'm bad at maths
Speaker 1: and so that's and or whatever. I can't do anything
Speaker 1: with numbers, and they don't realize it was just the way.
Speaker 2: It was talked to them buying and selling cars. Making
Speaker 2: profit is numbers. It's maths. Now that I've grown my interest,
Speaker 2: I found what I like. I can do it easier
Speaker 2: natural Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. But say I gave you a times
Speaker 1: table like a fast fax question. Say have I said
Speaker 1: to you, what's six times eight? Can't do it? Don't
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 2: Give me a calculator I can other than that? No chance?
Speaker 4: Could you think about it?
Speaker 2: If you tried, it'd take me quite a bit for me.
Speaker 2: Give me the hardest equation supercar question you can think of.
Speaker 2: I'll do it. Anything else, I just don't want to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for a dyslexic or for all neurodivergent, really,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to work at something when you don't
Speaker 1: know the why. Yeah, so maths and stuff around supercars,
Speaker 1: there's a why to that. Some in the field would
Speaker 1: call this struggle with maths dyscalculia. Others say it's just
Speaker 1: part of the dyslexic profile. Regardless, I think it's fundamental
Speaker 1: to know that the rote learning side of maths is
Speaker 1: likely to pose lifelong problems for a dyslexic learner. My
Speaker 1: daughter is a classic example of this. She couldn't do
Speaker 1: maths at primary school and she still can't do the
Speaker 1: basics very well. But now in high school there's calculators,
Speaker 1: so she can do geometry and trigonometry. Not a problem.
Speaker 1: That stuff makes sense to her, but she still loses
Speaker 1: marks for not showing working.
Speaker 5: Actually, that's common for quite a few dyslexics. They will
Speaker 5: have the answer, but the working is not something that's
Speaker 5: good for them.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Ruth Gibbons. She's a social anthropologist and dyslexic researcher.
Speaker 1: She featured in episode nine of this podcast, and her
Speaker 1: take on dyslexia is amazing.
Speaker 5: The way it's taught in some countries overseas is that
Speaker 5: you just let the dyslexic come up with the answer,
Speaker 5: and then you teach them how to do the working
Speaker 5: backwards from the answer, rather than building up to the answer.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, do you think that happens in schools much?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: No, because it's that linear thinking again, is like you
Speaker 5: can only get the answer once you've done this, this is,
Speaker 5: and this dyslexic has already done all of those things
Speaker 5: and come up with the answer. Not all dyslexics, but
Speaker 5: some have that strength.
Speaker 1: What is it about showing the working and doing the steps.
Speaker 1: That is difficult, Like how do dyslexics get to the answer.
Speaker 5: It comes back to all those leading all that different
Speaker 5: pieces of information to bring it together. That's a natural
Speaker 5: way for a dyslextic to work. So when they're doing
Speaker 5: something like maths, they will be bringing those things all
Speaker 5: together to get the answer. They won't be doing it.
Speaker 1: Linear, right, so that we're pulling information maybe from a
Speaker 1: past experience or just stuff that they couldn't actually write down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, right, that's the natural way for them.
Speaker 1: Ah, and then they get to it is wrong. It's
Speaker 1: quite extraordinary how minds work. It's like this high level thinking.
Speaker 5: It absolutely is again not all but yeah absolutely. And
Speaker 5: when you're not taught to be dyslexic, but you're taught actually,
Speaker 5: yes you've got the right answer, but no, you've got
Speaker 5: the wrong answer because you didn't show all of your
Speaker 5: working in the correct way. Means that you're being told
Speaker 5: yet again that you aren't valuable, that you don't do
Speaker 5: things right, that you need to do things a particular way.
Speaker 2: You know, the saying think outside of the box. That's
Speaker 2: sort of I'm not going to speak for others, that's
Speaker 2: sort of what I do. You know, people go down X,
Speaker 2: Y Z way, where I'll go complete, you know, back way.
Speaker 2: A lot of people say, well that doesn't make sense,
Speaker 2: but I still get there. It's just that it's just
Speaker 2: a different way of thinking. It is hard to explain,
Speaker 2: but we just don't go down the normal route.
Speaker 4: So Michael had to read a book that was really difficult.
Speaker 4: So difficult I knew that a dystexic brain tends to
Speaker 4: this sounds very simplistic, but thinking pictures. So we got
Speaker 4: the book and we've got a three paper and we
Speaker 4: sat down and explained characters, what a plot is, and
Speaker 4: put it all in picture form right through the book.
Speaker 4: It took a long time, but we read the book
Speaker 4: book on paper and.
Speaker 2: All through drawing pictures.
Speaker 4: Through drawing picture Remember, we sat night after night to
Speaker 4: the end of the book. And then Michael understood the
Speaker 4: book completely. And then when he sat down to write
Speaker 4: down what the book was about, he had the whole
Speaker 4: thing down fast and clear and got excellence for it.
Speaker 4: But there was no way he was going to sit
Speaker 4: and read the book.
Speaker 1: Michael has always been surrounded by books. His mum, Jane,
Speaker 1: is an academic, and he's the descendant of a very
Speaker 1: famous nineteenth century author, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine,
Speaker 1: The Country of the Blind. HG. Well's your great granddad.
Speaker 1: So he's your great great granddad. If I pulled N.
Speaker 2: HG.
Speaker 1: Wells book out and said, can you read it? Where
Speaker 1: that freak you out?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I haven't read a full book in my life. If
Speaker 2: I was to read a book now, I will read
Speaker 2: the words fine and actually quite fast. But by the
Speaker 2: time I'm at the end, I wouldn't know what the
Speaker 2: heck I've read, not one, but I wouldn't know what
Speaker 2: the book's about. I couldn't say anything about it. It
Speaker 2: would make sense to you, guys, wouldn't make sense to me.
Speaker 2: Hand me a book about HG. Someone again, who I'm
Speaker 2: related to, I wouldn't know what I'm reading. Give me
Speaker 2: a very detailed car sales agreement, which probably someone without
Speaker 2: the slexia would find it hard to fully understand what
Speaker 2: it's saying. I know exactly what it's saying. So because
Speaker 2: I've had that, I have that interest on that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. You know, they're very it's a very detailed thing.
Speaker 2: We're dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's in that book. No, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: That's just fascinating, isn't it. Do you find it fascinating?
Speaker 2: No? No, it buzzes me out.
Speaker 1: But I hope one day he does read The Country
Speaker 1: of the Blind. It's a short story by HG. Wells,
Speaker 1: and it challenges our perception of normal. Wells, just like
Speaker 1: his great great grandson Michael, wasn't afraid to push societal boundaries.
Speaker 1: It would be nice say this is exactly how a
Speaker 1: dyslexic person thinks and learns, but it's so individual, which
Speaker 1: in turn makes it so fascinating.
Speaker 5: So for some dyslexics, the way that they access text
Speaker 5: will change, and the way they read is incredibly sensorially dense,
Speaker 5: so they get kind of sucked into the book and
Speaker 5: it becomes alive and they can feel things like if
Speaker 5: the wind blows in the book, they feel that on
Speaker 5: their skin. But other text is not that way. Other
Speaker 5: text is very not sensory, and they can struggle with that.
Speaker 5: So that can be a moment when or all becomes important.
Speaker 1: And that's also difficult because you'll have I don't know,
Speaker 1: adults potentially saying, well, you did it in that setting,
Speaker 1: why can't you do it here?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you can read the words of that book. Why
Speaker 1: can't you read that book?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Whereas for they're totally different things. Those words change.
Speaker 1: So really, so interesting. It's not just that we're looking
Speaker 1: at it the wrong way. We can't actually look at
Speaker 1: something like dyslexia from where we are at.
Speaker 5: We actually have to stand in your divisience and look
Speaker 5: out at society from that perspective.
Speaker 1: To truly help dyslexics, to help every child be the
Speaker 1: best they can be, we have to find out more
Speaker 1: about them, how they learn best, what they love. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, the panic over our low rates of literacy continue.
Speaker 1: The debate about the best way to teach kids rage
Speaker 1: is on and the solutions are ever changing. Ruth calls
Speaker 1: it the reading Wars.
Speaker 5: There's assumptions about how reading is learnt in the best
Speaker 5: ways to teach it if we do it only one way.
Speaker 5: For understand that all dyslexics will be better if it's
Speaker 5: all done this one way. That's not going to work.
Speaker 5: It's never going to work because for some people, yes,
Speaker 5: the words move on the page, For other people they
Speaker 5: do not.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: You know, for some people FOLLICX, it's fantastic and it's
Speaker 5: really well for them. For some dyslexic phonics, it's a
Speaker 5: disaster and actually what they would rather have as a context.
Speaker 5: So if you go back to the original meaning of
Speaker 5: the word and it's roots and then teach it from there,
Speaker 5: are dyslexics better with it. So it's about finding what
Speaker 5: works best for them. If you look at the way
Speaker 5: that we're taught to write is very linear as well,
Speaker 5: and that's done on purpose because of it's regarded as
Speaker 5: being the way that people can access information more readily.
Speaker 5: So neurotypicals can pick up on that way of learning,
Speaker 5: neurodivisions don't. It's just not a comfortable place to take information.
Speaker 5: And in fact, dyslexic brains get bored very quickly, so
Speaker 5: if you're going to ask them to be linear, they're
Speaker 5: going to switch off.
Speaker 1: Michael has talked a lot about how he needs to
Speaker 1: be interested to learn and the fact he needs time
Speaker 1: not just to work through any challenges, but to let
Speaker 1: ideas marinate. But in his school days it wasn't recognized.
Speaker 2: This is due by tomorrow morning, because it's not a
Speaker 2: big project for me that's a week's worth of stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, after school. It just wasn't possible for me.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I'd go back to school the
Speaker 2: next morning. Michael was your with your homework? Don't have it?
Speaker 2: Why not? Because I couldn't do it. I really couldn't
Speaker 2: do it. And it was it's pressure again.
Speaker 1: No, No, I know, I know.
Speaker 4: I think the pressure is a really important point because
Speaker 4: I think when the pressure comes on, that's where the
Speaker 4: trauma triggers up, and that's when the brain then either
Speaker 4: goes into a panic motor or shutting down, and then
Speaker 4: there's no way a dyslexic person can gain words, to
Speaker 4: say anything, or to express themselves.
Speaker 2: So I've seen.
Speaker 4: Michael, when the pressure is on, I've certainly seen those triggers.
Speaker 4: But I also see that when you have time and
Speaker 4: you're given space and it all slows right down, then
Speaker 4: you come round to it and it's all been in there.
Speaker 4: It's just that once the pressure is off, those smarts
Speaker 4: come out, you know, and you can process again. I
Speaker 4: think pressure is a huge factor in this.
Speaker 1: Doctor Ruth agrees that pressure at school causes kids to crumble,
Speaker 1: and as a lecturer, she sees it at university as well.
Speaker 5: When a student comes to a point where they can't
Speaker 5: do what's required of them and they just shut down.
Speaker 5: You know, I have my students now write an email
Speaker 5: at the beginning of semester saying I've reached down moment.
Speaker 5: I can't cope at the moment, and just so they
Speaker 5: can send that email to me in that moment rather
Speaker 5: than having to write one from scratch, because you can't
Speaker 5: write one from scratch to that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So just explain that to me. At the start of
Speaker 1: the semester, you get every student to write like a
Speaker 1: draft email saying I've shut down yep, and all.
Speaker 5: My new individuent ones, I recommend it. I recommend it
Speaker 5: because of their adults. Some do, some don't. Those who
Speaker 5: don't usually at the end of semester tell me that
Speaker 5: they should have done, so they do it next semester.
Speaker 1: That's so easy, such a simple thing. But that would
Speaker 1: mean so much to those students, just even because they
Speaker 1: can then go Oh. So Ruth has said, our lecture
Speaker 1: has said that shutting down is not it can happen.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 1: I don't need to beat myself up about it. Number
Speaker 1: one and number two, she'll hear me when that happens,
Speaker 1: and you probably get less shutdowns.
Speaker 2: Because of it.
Speaker 5: Because of that, we also start the conversation. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't get as many shutdowns because of it. That
Speaker 5: made very few shutdowns because of it.
Speaker 1: Just just like this, compassionate ones help break the anxiety
Speaker 1: cycle because often the fear of failure or humiliation becomes
Speaker 1: a bigger obstacle than the original academic challenge. And Ruth
Speaker 1: says people with learning differences, like dyslexics, tend to be
Speaker 1: more sensitive to the world around them.
Speaker 5: Even the little signals that people are making in their bodies.
Speaker 5: You're reading all this information all the time. Think of
Speaker 5: it as your nerve endings being on alert, and you
Speaker 5: don't get a chance to kind of decompress regularly. You're
Speaker 5: just loading this weight on top of yourself. That pain
Speaker 5: builds up in the body and then yeah, the shutdown happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're adding to it. I imagine, particularly for dyslexics,
Speaker 1: if you've gone through the school system and deep down
Speaker 1: you feel you're not quite enough yep. So then as
Speaker 1: soon as that you hit a brick wall, say it
Speaker 1: an assignment you're doing, that voice comes in, Oh, here
Speaker 1: you go again, screwing up again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that negative self talk tape that gets built over
Speaker 5: your educational experiences year. It's just like it had to
Speaker 5: play and it just starts running through your head and
Speaker 5: then yeah, it just reinforces your sense of not coping
Speaker 5: and then you internalize this external not coping. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: just you shut down. You can't cope anymore, and you
Speaker 5: just kind of need to crawl away from the world and.
Speaker 1: Reboot what happens.
Speaker 5: So it's like, think of it as your nerve endings
Speaker 5: being standing on alert and being like a saw place,
Speaker 5: and then you just keep touching that saw place, you know,
Speaker 5: like a bruise or something. That's what can happen if
Speaker 5: you don't get that time to decompress, and that's then
Speaker 5: that pain builds up in the body and then yeah,
Speaker 5: the shutdown happens.
Speaker 1: You must hear this a lot. I hear it a
Speaker 1: lot parents saying about their displexit kids. We've just got
Speaker 1: to get them through school. Yeah, it's not a question.
Speaker 1: I just wonder what your thoughts are there, because there's
Speaker 1: so much wrong with it.
Speaker 5: Yeah there, Well, it's also it's societal societal expectations, isn't
Speaker 5: it that to be a good human being, to be
Speaker 5: a successful adult, you need to have survived the school
Speaker 5: system and achieved everything and ticked that box so you
Speaker 5: can now move into the next stage of your life
Speaker 5: rather than looking more broadly at why is it the
Speaker 5: survival system we've set up that this is what you
Speaker 5: need to do at school, and it is for people
Speaker 5: who are dyslexic and you're a divisent. It's life's fival.
Speaker 5: It's not about learning, it's about surviving the system.
Speaker 1: Everything's invisible, all the efforts they're putting in. Yes, we
Speaker 1: can't see it.
Speaker 5: No, no, we can't see it at all.
Speaker 1: Did you get in trouble at school like behaviorally?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I won't go too much into it, but
Speaker 2: you know I got and I got in trouble because
Speaker 2: people shaming me for being stupid.
Speaker 1: Okay, right right, Yeah, we don't have to go into that.
Speaker 2: Because the teachers put me in that situation, right They didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't, and I asked them, you know, can I
Speaker 2: go somewhere else to do this? No, you'll do it
Speaker 2: like all the rest of us. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason I was that was because we know that
Speaker 1: the rates of dyslexia amongst prison and mates are crazy high,
Speaker 1: between about fifty and some people say eighty percent of
Speaker 1: prison in mates are dyslexic. Well, so there's this fork
Speaker 1: in the road looking back. Do you think I could
Speaker 1: have gone that? I mean, you got you're in the
Speaker 1: positive direction about you could have taken the other road
Speaker 1: if you hadn't had a supportive mum, if you hadn't
Speaker 1: had certain things.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, it comes down to the point of you
Speaker 2: need a support system. Dyslexic kids need a support system
Speaker 2: to feel like they actually can do it. You know,
Speaker 2: some parents aren't. His understanding is my mum. When it
Speaker 2: comes to dyslexia and learning, some kids don't have any support,
Speaker 2: no help, no nothing, to the point where they're just
Speaker 2: they just start to hate and hate and hate because
Speaker 2: that's the only way to get it out. You know.
Speaker 2: I felt angry in school. I was sitting there and
Speaker 2: my blood was boiling and I just wanted to scream
Speaker 2: and just rage.
Speaker 5: So we're constantly targeting what was perceived as a lack
Speaker 5: rather than perceived as the possibilities and the abilities of dyslexics.
Speaker 1: But if we take the beautiful creative thinkers and from
Speaker 1: the age of five are telling them that actually they
Speaker 1: have these deficits in these really important important areas urocy
Speaker 1: and literacy. Then there are we going to get that
Speaker 1: beauty out of them, because they're going to come through
Speaker 1: with shame and anxiety and a really low self esteem.
Speaker 5: And there are studies that prove that. Alexander Passe has
Speaker 5: done in research with dyslexics and he found over sixty
Speaker 5: four percent of dyslexics have PTSD and that was caused
Speaker 5: by their experience of education.
Speaker 1: So it's educational trauma.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's educational trauma.
Speaker 1: Are you angry about school?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, angry. I'm angry because of it because I
Speaker 2: feel that, you know, doing anything any day to day tasks,
Speaker 2: when I feel pressure, I feel the same feeling that's
Speaker 2: what I felt in school, and that makes me angry.
Speaker 2: I can't get away from it at all.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, you will. This is just the beginning. You
Speaker 1: know that, it is absolutely the beginning, and you'll be
Speaker 1: more empathetic because of it. You already understand that not
Speaker 1: all kids can do that. When you meet people in business,
Speaker 1: you're better at I imagine understanding how they best communicate.
Speaker 1: As an example, I.
Speaker 2: Am angry from what school did to me, you know,
Speaker 2: because I couldn't help it back then. I'm angry what
Speaker 2: it did to me, But in saying what you said before,
Speaker 2: I put that anger, the anger towards like I'm going
Speaker 2: to get this done now.
Speaker 1: And as Michael drives off and has super expensive supercar,
Speaker 1: I get the feeling he already has next time on
Speaker 1: No such thing.
Speaker 6: As normal ironically, like I can't. Really It's quite difficult
Speaker 6: for me to write stuff that's not fiction. So I
Speaker 6: think I've taught myself to write fiction and I can
Speaker 6: kind of write an email, but that's about it. Like
Speaker 6: if I have to write anything else, I find it
Speaker 6: like incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1: No such thing as normal as produced and presented by
Speaker 1: me Sonia Gray. The editor is Jamie Lee Smith. Arwen
Speaker 1: O'Connor and Mitchell Hawks are executive producers. Production assistant is
Speaker 1: Beck's War. The series is brought to you by the
Speaker 1: New Zealand Herald and Teen Uniform and it's made with
Speaker 1: the support of New Zealand on Air. If you like
Speaker 1: this podcast, please rate and review it. It helps people
Speaker 1: find it