When Children Learn Differently: ‘Outsiders’ Guaranteed To Bring Unique Contributions to the World
Jul 19th, 2009 | 6 responses
I have been trying to teach myself graphic design out of a book. It is slow going. Learning things that have many parts combined with abstract ideas take me much reading, re-reading and re-re-reading.
I can learn more easily it seems if there are applicable pictures of whatever the learning is… and living poeple actually moving their eyes and hands to make the expert motions so I can see how the body does these things… and follow it with my body in a similar manner…
In what little I know about graphic design right now, I know that I love color and perhaps like you too, I experience color viscerally… some colors can make me swoon literally, the color is so pure…
but others… well, I think you know what I mean… there are kryptonite colors in this world. You have to stay away from them. They make you weak… and not in a good way.
My goal tonight was to begin to make a series of posters for special needs children and adults… People who see differently and hear differently, have visionary intuition in one or many ways, and thereby perceive differently than mainstream society. I want them to know the strength in their gifts, gifts that the culture still too often says are deficits. I want them to know while they are young that they are whole.
And for those grown to adulthood who have never known and still suffer feeling they are nothing, for them too, to know the real wonder of their gifts.
So here is the first poster. It is about dyslexia, an odd set of ways of seeing and apprehending, that for me as a child, wired me into wanting to read from right to left …and backward thereby…
instead of reading left to right and forward… like ‘normal’ folk. Reading in the ‘wrong direction’ was as strong a ‘need’ to read that way, as say being right-handed or left-handed is. It’s a strong preference, and to read or use the ‘wrong’ hand to write, just does not feel right.
I could also read upside down and backward… far faster than reading forward and right side up.
You might say, what the heck kind of gift is that??!! And in asking that way, you would be kinder than many when I was growing up, who gave up on me, saying I was ‘slow’ and nothing could be done… or ‘lazy’ or wasn’t ‘applying myself…’
One skill that comes from reading backward, wrong direction, upside down, is being able to see the letters as beautiful shapes rather than as making words… tall towers with widow’s walks around the tops (t’s) and a pregnant woman leaning protectively over her baby in her belly (lower case ‘a’– oddly learning as an adult that ‘a’ stood for alpha, ‘the beginning’ …I thought perhaps my child sight and mind has understood this by assigning to the letter ‘a’, the spark of life in a sheltered pregnancy).
Many other letters were creatures with tails and paws, and ‘m’ was a horse leaning down to eat grass… with an invisible rider causing the horse’s back to swag in the middle… and so on.
…So by the time I was seven, I was inventing alphabets made of intricate colors and animals that I saw in the ocean of black squiggles as I struggled to learn to read. My creatural alphabets were not exactly appreciated because I was having such trouble learning basic printing and cursive… remember the Palmer penmanship method, anyone? pages and pages of what looked to me like bales of barbed wire. Writing practice was one of the most deadly dead endeavors I’d ever undertaken in my life.
But cha-know, we’re Catholics, and that was the style back then in the backwoods, the good nuns by gosh would see us through no matter how dim we seemed to be.
It wasn’t until I was way grown up that someone told me what I was doing as a child, was inventing fonts and typestyles. Something that grown ups did after they had gone to school to learn such.
So, at least by some people’s lights, I have been inventing fonts and typestyles all my life, the most recent one being a Greek-lightning bolt font, called ‘Zeus’ … for writing phrases of meaning that ‘strike’ the mind and heart in a certain way.
I would never count a ‘backward’ child out, never say a child who excels in chasing the rabbits, but not in cracking calculus… is down for the count and out… rather I’d encourage all to take a far closer look and catch the child in what brings them joy… what calls their hearts… those are the real clues to learning how differently some of our species are set down on this earth…
children with work to do, business to take care of, talents to hone… contributions of heart and soul to make… hopefully without being forced into learning against natural comprehension for twelve or more years of the child’s one’s wild and precious life.
Above, I made a thumbnail for you of the first poster about special learning needs so you can double-click on it, and then the picture will enlarge to full size.
The little block of type to the lower right isn’t in Cyrillic.
But, It is upside down and backward, the way I used to see blocks of print on the page…
until one amazing day, one miraculous day, when I discovered…
well you read it, decipher it, and you’ll have some idea by doing so how hard it was to learn to read… but also you will see what treasure I came across…
something that has sustained me– has sustained many of us– all our live-long lives.
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CODA, and if the block of type to the lower right is too hard to read/ decipher, I’ll put the ‘translation’ up tomorrow for you, first thing. Right now it’s 3:48 am, and this AfterMidnight Blogger has to go get some serious zzzzs.
*Also note, Attribution in poster is Basho, but similar came from Isa and also Mizuta Masahide. The quote I put there is a paraphrase I used in a book I wrote to illustrate one of the only goods that can come from not good at all.
6 Responses to “When Children Learn Differently: ‘Outsiders’ Guaranteed To Bring Unique Contributions to the World”
Hi there, it's 11:41 a.m. the next day now… Here is what the block of type in the lower right corner of this poster reads:
I am dyslexic and this is how words
pretty much looked to me
when I was learning to read.
Things changed
when I saw poetry for the first time;
the lines were farther apart,
and suddenly I fell in love with reading…
and with poetry.
This is the most beautiful poem I know.
It is by Basho.
This poster ©2009, Dr.C.P.Estés
—————–
That's a Creative Commons copyright… may be downloaded, printed out, etc., used for non commercial purposes as long as nothing is changed or added.
I was thinking of adding under the poster in one more line of color, the 'translation' of the block to the lower right.
Dr E this is so creative and can see how your overcoming the different way of seeing became such gift and blessing for so many, . . .
can also relate, for the first four years of schooling i was like a little wild animal trying to make an escape, the teacher had to teach guarding the door, nothing in the class room made sense whereas everything in Nature spoke my language . . . . then in 4th grade stopped trying to break out and went on a “strike”, would sit still but refused to interact or speak . . . .then 4th grade the second time around, the information going into the brain started to comprehend . . . .and started excelling . . even though the grades where good, always felt “dumb” and knew the way the world came to me was different than other people. . it took longer and often times taking in information was physically painful . . . could never do left and right, for tactile everything felt like it should be left . . .but was a right handed child. . . .
years later went to a neurotoxicologist for a complete testing and at the end of the testing he was excited by the scores, told me my brain had re-wired itself in an amazing manner, and the intelligence was such, i could undertake any endeavor, but physiology the corpus callosum was not connecting properly. . . . the way he had explained it, could understand for the first time the continuous frustration with all things verbal, with seeing so many layers and textures yet being so delayed to speak it into the linear . . . i had always pull information down into the body before a synthesis can be obtained, like there was a brain in my womb, then it would circuit up to the part of the brain that could put it into language . . . where you went up into creativity and opened to the mythological and symbolic world, i went down into the body and now have surrendered to the energetic healing world . . . kinda like out of differences that get treated as wounds the gifts come forth. . .
The poster is great, it makes such a difference for those different to hear it difference and diversity rather than their intelligence being based on conformity . . . and one person helping them understand the differences can make such a difference . . .
blessing to you Dr E. . . .
Thank you for the insight.
Beautiful poster and poem.
Interesting that the way you saw the alphabet at first is how some schools teach the alphabet, as pictures and that's how the written word started, as pictures…
Dr. Estes,
First know that I have tried to write back to you for three days now, but become so overwhelmed with emotion that I cant even organize my thoughts or clear my eyes to be able to type anything readable. Your post obviously “struck a nerve” or more accurately uncorked a pressure cooker of pain, years and years of it, and daily doses of it built up for years and years/
I am crying so hard right now that I am having to retype every other word because I cant see the screen…
OK, someone camme into my office so I had to wipe off my face and gather myself. Now I have returned and am better able to write…So here is what you need to know…
I am a mother who loves her children….
I am not dyslexic. School was an easy breeze. I tested off the charts without killing myself to do it. I scholarshipped through college. I knew as a child that there were kids as deserving as I who struggled in school. My teachers would have me “help” them because I was already finished with my schoolwork, and they were always behind. I felt protective of them and wondered at God “why they dont see what I see when they look at a paper with math or reading or spelling on it?” I felt guilty, unworthy. I sensed it was unfair, even as a kid. Why was it easy for me…and not for them?
School success was my safe haven. Books were escape. I knew my teachers loved me-even if no-one else did. I made them feel successful. School success was a lifeline to me. It came to define me as a person of value. I mattered as long as I did well. I got enough love, because I was smart.
Fast forward…
Now Im 38 and mother to 2 sons, who are obviously both similarly “dyslexic.” When my eldest was 5 I could tell something was different. I was teaching him sounds to go with letters, so he could learn to read. I knew he was looking at typed figures, and that he was not seeing what I see. For a mother, I cant express the anguish of feeling that you are blind to help your child. I felt across great oceans from my child- desperate to reach them… to be able to see what they see so I can know how to help them LEARN TO READ! What will become of them if they always do poorly in the “standard testing,” they feel wrong…bad…stupid…dont belong…give up? “what's wrong with me mommy? All my friends can do this and I cant….whats wrong with me mommy?” What do I say? I cant tell you what it feels like to take your childs face in your hands, nose to nose, breath in their face and say “Nothing is wrong with you baby, you have magic eyes that see more than most people…you are different…but it's good, and it's OK.” And having your child look at you and not be sure if he can believe that, because the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is telling him otherwise. No 5 year old, precious, little child should come home from school, crawl under the dining table to hide in a forest of chair legs, and not ever want to go back to school and weeping to his mom, say “you are the only one who says Im OK. You are just saying that because you are my mom.” And no mother should have to crawl under a dining table and rock her son, to soothe what she doesnt have any new or better words for fixing or helping. I can only repeat the old ones, and keep rocking. After my sons would fall asleep for the night, I would end up back on the floor weeping noises that only dying animals make- to God or anyone who might be there to help me know what to do. Give me eyes to see what my sons see so I can help them. Please. Please.
Thank you for hearing me.
I was blind. “now I can see.”
Written with infinite, unstatable gratitude…and a face covered in tears..,
Thank you,
Carla, Christian, and Gabriel
first of all, dear commenters, thank you. I think the more people we can tell about how we are still standing, even though having swum far far out as children with little aid, the better. I hope you will download the poster which has a Creative Commons copyright on it so it can be redistributed without persmissions, just as long as nothing is added or taken away.
Secondly, watching for the child's joy is the center of seeing a child. Also, watching for happy eccentricities which will be a delight to many others… and not dangerous at all to a child's development the way some of the pinched noses attempt to brand a child.
I am happy to see you all tell your stories of self and others who have or are struggling. It is the only way I know to help others… to reveal the challenge and the ways of meeting it… so others can know too. So thank you all for being part of a large group of people who help others through the electrons. What an amazing time we live in, yes?
Lastly, Carla, Christian and Gabriel. As I read, I thought your children are so lucky to have you as their mummie, and I can tell from what you wrote, you already know how 'meant' they are in your life. Hang in there. Your motherly instincts are in good shape.
dr.e
Dr. CPE
thank you for sharing your unique contribution (s) to the world.!
mariposa