thursday!

Yesterday’s interview with Don was incredibly interesting. We discussed a whole lot of information over a period of an hour and a half. We discovered Don is dyslexic, yet at present I don’t really know much about dyslexia and are looking forward to researching it with the books I borrowed today. I was quite surprised with the large number of books on dyslexia in the universities library. One thing that was prevalent throughout our interview was Don’s ability to effectively change the subject away from his dyslexia. Don told us of how he does not feel dyslexia has influenced his life, and his successes and experiences proved this to me. Despite Don saying that dyslexia had not influenced his life, he believed and told children that if they can read and write they can do anything. Another thing that got me thinking after the interview was how schools had changed since the days Don was at school. His primary school offered subjects such as tech drawing, metal work and wood work. In my experience I haven’t found subjects like this to be offered in primary schools, and not to play a big part in high schools.
While I firmly believe in the importance of literacy skills, I also believe schools need to cater more for students who are not so academically focused. Some students are not meant for school, they don’t get good grades and often misbehave. I think this leads to them getting labeled negatively which often influences students in and out of school. My fiancé works as a motorbike mechanic and his company had a student on a sort of work experience for the ‘naughty’ kids. Apparently he was an amazing, polite, obedient worker who learnt quickly and was incredibly interested in what he was doing. The companies manager received a phone call from the school at the end of the work and the school initially thought the boss was lying when told how smoothly the week had went. Apparently the boy behaved incredibly badly at school and achieved incredibly poor results. I really think not all students are academic and schools need to offer students opportunities to develop practical skills in areas they are interested in.
Another interesting thing I learnt from the interview is that the PCYC offer a tutoring service to students who struggle with their literacy who find themselves in trouble with the law. Don has a lot of experience with children and has found that a lot of children who can’t read and write are often trouble makers. While I think the service the PCYC offers is an awesome idea and apparently effective, I think it’s sad that struggling students get to the stage where they are in trouble with the law before they get the help they need. Yet another argument that literacy is important to all teachers!