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2005/09/03

dyslexia, a good excuse

head over to the newspaper soon being published in the "berliner format" and read todays article on dyslexia.
I dont know much about dyslexia and havent doen any research on this but i've always believed that dyslexia[wikipedia] is being used as an excuse. It is much easier to be dyslexic then to admit "yes i am not very good at reading". Admitting it would mean it is your fault, in some strange way, you know what I mean. Being diagnosed with dyslexia allows you to not try hard to improve this, you will get extra time in exams, you are kind of special(well with more and more people being diagnosed with dyslexia thats going to change), it lets you sleep at nite because afterall it isn't your fault, its this bloody illness that causes all the havoc.
Whats wrong with this approach? Afterall it seems to be human nature to try and find a way to be able to say "aint my fault, blame XYZ"(we see it in politics all the time). Furthermore I'm not goign to stand up against a whole bunch of scientists and claim that dyslexia does not exist and isnt a genuine illness, it might or it might not this isnt the point. The point is that with parents knowing about dyslexia they'll take their kid to the doctors as soons as they see it having trouble with reading. He will then diagnose and hey presto you only just started learnign to read a few years ago, not good at it and now have an excuse why you are not. Its like someone expectign to learn the art of painting in a few weeks, some people might be able to do it others will take a few months, your mileage may vary. Jim can learn how to paint in 5 weeks, Veronica can, but John can not. So John probably has some illness that prevents him from doing so. Right? What I havent mentioned is that Jim&Veronica are not doign much else then trying to learn how to paint in those 5 weeks, where as John has a fulltime job he has to attend during the week. THe illness theory does not seem as likely anymore does it?
Dyslexia has to do with reading not painting, get to the point man! Are the kids which are diagnosed with dyslexia sitting in front of the telly all day? Playstations? Someone around encouraging them to learn something? Learning is well uncool, it makes your brain hurt, watching the telly does not. There are so many reasons, so dyslexia is a good excuse for parents, they won't have a guitly conscience because their kid is not keeping up with others, afterall it isn't their fault. They then go on telling th ekid "you have got dyslexia, tell your teachers, you just can't read as fast/good as others, but it isn't your fault", fair enough, but they are not going to step back and analyse their way of bringing the kdi up.
You say "Oh this is a laod of bollux tim, it is a genuine illness, once diagnosed the kids received special teachign and all that so they can catch up". You are rigth, but the few dyslexic people I have meet use it as an excuse, it is always in their head and as soon as they get bad marks in language classes due to spelling and stuff they pull out that magic dyslexia card and say "but it is not my fault", but it bloody is, i would be willing to place a substanial amount of money that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the majority of those kids, or even grown ups. ...uhmm make that a small amount of money, Im a student.,)).
Noone ever said "Oh poor tim your crap at PE but it isnt your fault you have "Lankiness" an illness that makes it impossible for you to be good at sports".
So bottomline, dont try and find excuses, dyslexia might can be a genuien illness, im not going to debate that, people will start thinkign im a weirdo as most of them already do because i dislike medcine and the usage of drugs...but thats a whole nother can of worms.

i sort of lost intrest in this article by now, might continue it later or not...off for coffee now. want to get zope and apache" and mod_proxy and mod_ssl up and running, any good hints?

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