I’ve just got back to Hove after a night out at Dyspla at the Camden People’s Theatre. Five of us spoke about whether dyslexia is a help or a hindrance and the audience voted with balloons, white for help, red for hindrance. (Btw, here’s the Mind Map of my presentation that I totally failed to send to the organisers in time. You can see an animated one on YouTube here). I was probably rambling a lot, but at one point I suggested that dyslexics might be more visual in their thinking (there have been studies that back up this idea. See for instance Everatt, J et al (1999) An Eye for the Unusual: Creative Thinking in Dyslexics in Dyslexia 5: 28–46). I also suggested that dyslexics tend to think globally, that is they see the whole. I have a feeling that these two skills are interlinked, that we see in pictures and can see the whole picture. one audience member commented that everyone thinks in pictures, but some people think that they think in words. The term ‘linear thinking’ came up a lot and perhaps that’s a better distinction: linear thinking or visual thinking or a mix of the two. I was very nervous, especially coming after such a funny and insightful opening talk. (Have a look here for a glimpse – especially the images at the bottom of the page.) So I decided to get the audience to join in and try out some quick writing exercises. They were free writing, Creative Visualisation and Close Observation, by the way, just for the record. I’ve written about them before. See for instance this article which appeared in Creative Teaching and Learning Magazine, and I’ll be talking about them again at the SEDA Conference in Bristol later this week.
Anyhow, the pictures that stay in my mind in relation to my own talk are: the silver board from my primary school with the name of the best handwriting and best speller of the week, the notebooks full of my scribbled writing that I never meant anyone to read, the Spanish Inquisition (just because I couldn’t think of the name for ages and I had three writing exercises to remember to talk about), and – I didn’t talk about it but it was in my head somewhere – the piles of books I was expected to read before starting University and the feeling of dread they gave me; it was like a moral issue, it was immoral of me not to have read them, but I found it too hard. (I think that, gradually, I taught myself to read by tapping into the endorphins that another speaker mentioned – I turned it into an emotional experience).
The pictures that stay in my head in relation to the rest of the evening, in no particular order: the trays of snacks (!), the end of the rehearsal for Y&P I sneaked in on by mistake, the letters and monologues in the basement – especially the woman reacting to the advice that ‘you’ll never be a writer unless you read’ – the red Dunce’s cap – you can see it here, the word SKOOL in giant letters on an advert and the viper-like pen.