Yes, I am different. I'm dyslexic, and I analyze the world around me much differently than most. I sense and see my surroundings in a different light than you. I have a learning disability that will be with me for life. I have spent a life trying to conform to a world that doesn't know my limitations. Not long ago this thing called dyslexia was not understood, and this day some still do not comprehend this disability. Many of us have been labeled bewildered and confused. The dyslexic mind, however, develops special abilities; it can drift away into dreams that have never been dreamt before, into unknown realms.
Once a young boy bore this label too. His parents were told that he just could not learn. His mind would drift away, and his attention was not on his schoolwork. It was thought impossible for him to be taught anything. He was even whipped by his teacher for asking too many questions. One day he stormed home to his parents. He could not deal with the treatment and the humiliation that school brought any longer. He struggled with his learning disability, which was an obstacle that his teachers and classmates did not understand. His mother met with his teacher, and she was told that her son would never amount to anything. It was doubtful that he would even make a day laborer; he just "couldn't learn". She became angry with the teacher, and she took her son out of school, and decided to home-school him. Later in life he attended two more schools, but he could not deal with the humiliation that his learning disability caused. School became so agonizing that most all of his childhood, learning took place at home.
This boy became a man, and his dyslexic mind was a gifted one. He has profoundly influenced modern life through inventions such as the phonograph and the motion picture camera. During his lifetime, he acquired 1,093 patents, and marketed many of his inventions to the public. He was not only a renowned inventor, but also a prominent manufacturer and businessman through the merchandising of his inventions.
He believed in hard work, sometimes working twenty hours a day. He was quoted as saying, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." The most famous of his inventions was the incandescent light bulb.
In tribute to this important man, electric lights in the United States were dimmed for one minute on October 21, 1931, a few days after his death. His name was Thomas Alva Edison, " The Wizard of Menlo Park." He had been called "addled," which means confused or mixed up while in the classroom.
You see the dyslexic mind is not defective, but it can cause the learning of math and language to be very difficult tasks. Many adults in this country are born with dyslexia and can find a simple task, that of writing a check at the checkout counter, developing into a difficult, embarrassing experience when suddenly the spelling of numbers or words cannot be remembered or brought to mind.
My dyslexic tendencies will always be with me, and they can not be eliminated. But there are compensatory strategies and accommodations for those of us who have learning disabilities. With modern teaching methods, along with the development of various recognized educational technologies, especially the advent of the computer, our world has changed. Dyslexia has honed our emotions to an intense awareness. We can now express this awareness to the world through the written word with assistive technology, such as the spellchecker, the thesaurus, the grammar checker, and the screen reader. These modern advances have opened new ways of learning for individuals with language processing limitations.
As for me these marvels of technology, along with understanding educators, have liberated my imagination so that I may pursue the heretofore-unknown world of literature. I have explored its fabled depths, and touched the master himself, Shakespeare, and pondered the thoughts of Hamlet. I have felt the colorful sounds in the poetry of Sylvia Plath, and laughed and cried with Zora Hurston. In my humble way I can now follow these writers, and I too can now write because of these tools. Thoughts that were once buried in the darkness of my mind flow onto the lighted screen of the computer. Poetry is now mine to write, and short stories now erupt onto paper in the form of the written word.
We who shoulder this disability no longer have to be humiliated by being unsuccessful in the classroom. The agonizing pain of embarrassment which this disability brings can be removed, which makes it possible for dyslexics to compete in society.
The question can now be asked, is the person with the learning disability the one who is confused and mixed up? Could it be that our society is bewildered because of the depth of the dyslexic mind? Yes, my mind is different and I don't call it a disability. I just perceive the world around me differently than you.
Richard Warren
Works Cited
1. Love, Susan. "Thomas Alva Edison." The Education of Thomas Edison. May 1996. <http://www.naples.wet~nfno4538/bio_1htm> (21 April 1999)
2. "Thomas Alva Edison as a Scientist and Inventor". The Wizard of Menlo Park. 15 March 1999. <http://sln2.edu/franklin/inventor/edison.html> (21 April 1999)