2nd May
02/05/09 16:33
Creativity and Dyslexia, pedagogy, bashing square pegs into round holes
These are some thoughts that have come up over the last few days due to a few incidents. The first was an argument on Tuesday, or a heated discussion with my painting and drawing teacher Cathy particularly relating to how we structure the art is at school that pedagogy internal workings and structure
she is quite keen that we should put a lot more structure in that we should have a lot more skills sessions and help and advice to teach the children and I’m not uncomfortable with that at all I think it is very comfortable as a teacher to be able to teach that it is all so to my mind got to fit in with the structure of the school but we have some students that a on timetable some who are off timetable and some who are already better artists than we are and need to just go off and do it and some of whom the problem isn’t that they wouldn’t do it but they don’t know how to get started and there are some who are very good artists but they are pathologically unable to get past their inertia there is a whole range of different types of people who come through art rooms and it is how we create a structure that will cater to the bulk of them and work the bulk of them that was the first incident the other two really move on from that one
the second was a book that I was sent by an 88-year-old woman who was diagnosed at the age of 80 as being dyslexic she has written a book about her childhood now looking back in relation to her dyslexia she was Sidcot old scholar and was told at school or had the feeling at school and she was stupid in fact the test that she did when she was 80 proved that she is highly intelligent she just has difficulty with sequencing language reading spelling all sorts of things that in a milder form I am sure I am beginning to think that I that it’s the way my brain works too
and the third one was a talk yesterday with IB examiner Moderator and I was talking about the dyslexic students that we have and how it’s very difficult to them and they often choose art because it is a subject that they can do and in fact often dyslexic students are extremely good at art music drama that sort of area as well as Asperger’s students and yet the school system mitigates against them and I was complaining particularly about the IB system and the fact that they had to keep this journal workbook sketchbook and the students that it seems to favour other ones that work in a sequential order the ones that use language very well the ones that can do the research the ones that can put their course into sequence and put them down in writing and the ones who will make beautiful pages and do the thing very beautifully perhaps the one who’s writing is neat and this is the particular one where I always get caught out because my handwriting is awful which is possibly and my spelling is even worse so I have great difficulty in putting anything down partly because of the embarrassment of the spelling mistakes and partly because my writing isn’t readable anyway unless I go very slowly and if I write very slowly I often lose what it is that I am writing so the whole system is set up to favour girls I think in particular who are neat and organised and will do things in order and often the system itself is mitigating against our most creative students who are dyslexic possibly walk will have dyslexic tendencies come to think laterally or have a very good spatial awareness can think in the big picture and be sparky and creative but not wanting to or not able somehow to put it down in order because it is not in order it is there all at once in that wonderful Ted Nelson phrase intertwingled that everything is intertwingled that I see everything at once I can’t be bothered with the structure the writing of notes and making marks in a notebook or whatever I see the whole picture at once and it moves into my teaching what I feel is my teaching and the way I would like to structure the Department which is this sort of whole feel to get everything working as a whole if we get everyone in the arc from a working passionately if we said that fire alight and have fires burning in the art department then people will be attracted to that fire that warmth and that light and that is where the teaching happens an okay so we need to build the fire structurally so that it can light but that is not necessarily about the teaching of skills in particular because there are so many different skills in art I think that people will find the skills if they want to find them so what we have to do is teachers is make them want to find the skills and to give a skill might encourage them to want more or might not do for thing actually was an interesting thing on radio four’s today programme that I recorded which was about how to teach art to attract boys as well as girls and there does seem to be quite a big gender issue thing as to how boys and girls react to school and I do feel with my own own children that school is set up a very particular way of learning often and it’s not very good with other ways and what got me particularly annoyed with the IB examiner who was in she said if we have dyslexic students then we can go down the special needs root you can register them as having special needs and I’m crying no no no no no no no dyslexia is not a special need every child has needs and they are all special and we have to cater every child’s needs and to every child’s strengths and weaknesses whatever just because one child’s brain doesn’t work in the same way as another child’s brain it doesn’t mean that that child has special needs a large child who might not be able to sports very well the classic Billy Bunter has a special need everyone has needs I am completely convinced about that. it’s not about bashing a square into a round hole but carefully moulding a material around the square peg to keep it snugly secured.
she is quite keen that we should put a lot more structure in that we should have a lot more skills sessions and help and advice to teach the children and I’m not uncomfortable with that at all I think it is very comfortable as a teacher to be able to teach that it is all so to my mind got to fit in with the structure of the school but we have some students that a on timetable some who are off timetable and some who are already better artists than we are and need to just go off and do it and some of whom the problem isn’t that they wouldn’t do it but they don’t know how to get started and there are some who are very good artists but they are pathologically unable to get past their inertia there is a whole range of different types of people who come through art rooms and it is how we create a structure that will cater to the bulk of them and work the bulk of them that was the first incident the other two really move on from that one
the second was a book that I was sent by an 88-year-old woman who was diagnosed at the age of 80 as being dyslexic she has written a book about her childhood now looking back in relation to her dyslexia she was Sidcot old scholar and was told at school or had the feeling at school and she was stupid in fact the test that she did when she was 80 proved that she is highly intelligent she just has difficulty with sequencing language reading spelling all sorts of things that in a milder form I am sure I am beginning to think that I that it’s the way my brain works too
and the third one was a talk yesterday with IB examiner Moderator and I was talking about the dyslexic students that we have and how it’s very difficult to them and they often choose art because it is a subject that they can do and in fact often dyslexic students are extremely good at art music drama that sort of area as well as Asperger’s students and yet the school system mitigates against them and I was complaining particularly about the IB system and the fact that they had to keep this journal workbook sketchbook and the students that it seems to favour other ones that work in a sequential order the ones that use language very well the ones that can do the research the ones that can put their course into sequence and put them down in writing and the ones who will make beautiful pages and do the thing very beautifully perhaps the one who’s writing is neat and this is the particular one where I always get caught out because my handwriting is awful which is possibly and my spelling is even worse so I have great difficulty in putting anything down partly because of the embarrassment of the spelling mistakes and partly because my writing isn’t readable anyway unless I go very slowly and if I write very slowly I often lose what it is that I am writing so the whole system is set up to favour girls I think in particular who are neat and organised and will do things in order and often the system itself is mitigating against our most creative students who are dyslexic possibly walk will have dyslexic tendencies come to think laterally or have a very good spatial awareness can think in the big picture and be sparky and creative but not wanting to or not able somehow to put it down in order because it is not in order it is there all at once in that wonderful Ted Nelson phrase intertwingled that everything is intertwingled that I see everything at once I can’t be bothered with the structure the writing of notes and making marks in a notebook or whatever I see the whole picture at once and it moves into my teaching what I feel is my teaching and the way I would like to structure the Department which is this sort of whole feel to get everything working as a whole if we get everyone in the arc from a working passionately if we said that fire alight and have fires burning in the art department then people will be attracted to that fire that warmth and that light and that is where the teaching happens an okay so we need to build the fire structurally so that it can light but that is not necessarily about the teaching of skills in particular because there are so many different skills in art I think that people will find the skills if they want to find them so what we have to do is teachers is make them want to find the skills and to give a skill might encourage them to want more or might not do for thing actually was an interesting thing on radio four’s today programme that I recorded which was about how to teach art to attract boys as well as girls and there does seem to be quite a big gender issue thing as to how boys and girls react to school and I do feel with my own own children that school is set up a very particular way of learning often and it’s not very good with other ways and what got me particularly annoyed with the IB examiner who was in she said if we have dyslexic students then we can go down the special needs root you can register them as having special needs and I’m crying no no no no no no no dyslexia is not a special need every child has needs and they are all special and we have to cater every child’s needs and to every child’s strengths and weaknesses whatever just because one child’s brain doesn’t work in the same way as another child’s brain it doesn’t mean that that child has special needs a large child who might not be able to sports very well the classic Billy Bunter has a special need everyone has needs I am completely convinced about that. it’s not about bashing a square into a round hole but carefully moulding a material around the square peg to keep it snugly secured.