At Least I Could Write Her a Phonetic Dictionary

You have absolutely NO idea on the challenges of navigating through your first three years of school if you are unable to SEE what your peers are looking at. How about an entire 12 years of the same?

• Ever had someone supply a riddle and everyone in the group grasped what it meant before you did? How did you feel? Imagine if this happened to you 10 times a day, day after day. Would you try to figure out a way to evade this situation? Would you become uncomfortable that they must've gone to some secret riddle school and didn't tell you about it?

• Ever had anyone drop you off in a deserted wood near nightfall with only a buckknife and a blanket then inform you they will be back in 3 days to pick you up? Can you imagine the adrenaline rush, the disempowerment, the wild-eyed panic look on your face as your brain rationlizes how to quickly get out of this situation? How are you going to survive this?

• Ever been placed into a 9th grade chemistry class when you are merely an average 6 year-old and told you must complete the same amount of work as the other students in the same amount of time? Doesn't this seem a bit ridiculous? Will a parent or friend help you when you plead to them that this is impossible for you? And why you? You would want to know, why not all those other kids your age?

• How about if you had walked out into a peaceful field, with no trees, and suddenly realized a raging bull was thundering towards you at full speed? What would be racing through your mind? If you survive, would you ever allow yourself to get into this predicament again?

All these examples above can be compared to what a person who is UNKNOWINGLY dyslexic feels all day, everyday while at school. They are bewildered. They were "normal" until they started school. Now school, with the written word, becomes a very scarey place to be.

When it's a dyslexics turn to read in front of the class or to stand up for a spelling bee, they feel as if they had been placed into one of the above circumstances. The rising pace in heartbeats, the sweat breaking from the brow, the sweaty palms...all resultant from panic. The adrenaline rushes in, fight or flight. To be sitting in a peaceful environment, surrounded by your peers one moment and then the next to be place into a position of being judged is a cruel, antiquated, primitive human experience by anyones definition.

Most of us attempt to evade all of these possibilities. It's not required that we be a rocket scientist to know that being thrown repeatedly into a situation which releases adrenaline severely weakens the immune system. Adrenaline requires 36 hours to dissipate from your system, is this a good thing? The body will, eventually, develop an evasive tactic. A tactic designed for survival.

Over 90 million dyslexics in the U.S. and U.K. are finding ways to deal with this...but only AFTER they get beyond the confines of high school (if they can stand to wait that long). Want to hear how they do it? Want to hear from them what it's like to be in a school which is designed for 2-D linear thinkers and not 3-D spatial thinkers? Want to know what it's like to be genius but not allowed to communicate this for the first 18 years of your life? Time to talk turkey......

AND...we will address the ridiculous rationalizaton behind spelling and the English Language and why it aids and abetts illiteracy in our countries...