A Labour MP has claimed dyslexia is a myth invented by education chiefs to cover up poor teaching.
Backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, describes the condition as a "cruel fiction" that should be consigned to the "dustbin of history".
21 comments
No, he's actually got a point. South Korea and Nicaragua have both adopted the synthetic phonics method of teaching and dyslexia seems to have vanished. Maybe the condition is real, I'm no expert, but I would not be surprised if the number of actual sufferers, as opposed to those who have just been taught badly, is much lower than currently thought. Our primary education system is not of the best, although better than it was in my day, back in the 1960s. It truly was shit back then. Luckily I could already read, and didn't suffer the dreaded Initial Teaching Alphabet, which must have caused more diagnoses of dyslexia than anything else.
I don't much like Stringer - I used to work for him - but he isn't a nut, and not likely to say stuff like this without backup. More research required, I reckon.
I like this guy... is he saying that what I suffer from, something I work constantly to control, doesn't really exist and it's down to bad teaching?
Well, glad to know that... maybe now I can stop expending so much effort and just let the words flow from me in any way they feel fit...
Nope... I don't want to look like a drunk cat typed things for me.
@DevilsChaplian: With Dyslexia, it could spell anything. :)
@Psittacosis
On a similar note, both my children - at aged 16/17!! - have been told they are dyslexic. Both, despite suffering hearing impairment, have good grades - my daughter got 10 A-C passes at GCSE. But their college is adamant that they are dyslexic and need special support!
Tangentially to both Antichrist and Lady Anne, my nephew was diagnosed with ADHD. Turned out he was deaf. I wonder if Lady Anne's kids are being misdiagnosed because they get words wrong, not because of any dyslexia, but simply because of mishearing?
There'a a debate to be had about teaching methods, false diagnoses and what primary education is actually for, but education is so often used as a political football, it's hard to have any reasoned discussion. The symbiotic relationship between the teaching unions and the DES is something of an obstacle to objectivity, too. I think Stringer has gone too far in saying dyslexia doesn't exist at all, but this is not FSTDT material by any means.
Its quite amusing. The Chinese do not believe Dyslexia exists. They have a condition called Disgraphia however. (See our words are recognition of patter, theirs is recognition of shape so dyslexia does not affect their writing)
However it does exist. The problem is that its becoming an excuse like ADD in the US. A lot of people claim it to get benefits.
I have number dyslexia, so no matter how much I apply myself to addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, my answers appear as if CT's drunk cat got loose in the equations.
He's not claiming that it's overdiagnosed or used as a cop-out, he's claiming that it's a vast education conspiracy.
He's an utter moron. CTSTDT.
@Lady Anne:
Dyslexia (god I hope I spelt that right lol) does not equate to, or result in, bad grades. Unless of course it is such a bad case of dyslexia that they are unable to read and/or write quickly enough in tests to answer enough questions in the time allowed or something.
One of my best friends in high school was definately dyslexic. I saw often first hand his relevant abilities, or rather lack thereof. It wasn't bad teaching or anything else like that as we were in the same classes through-out primary (elementary) school and I'm fine. Anyway, he got the best GCSE results our high school had ever had in its 25 years history.
Dyslexia does not mean you have lower intellegence or lessen your ability to remember facts (which is really what school exams test imo).
After all, Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Churchill, Hans Christian Andersen, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson all had dyslexia. You'll note two of those people were even writers.
I have two dyslexic cousins and a dyslexic best friend. The aforementioned friend? Yeah, she reads <i>upside-down</i>. That's not bad teaching, Mr. Stringer, that's a genuine medical condition.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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