For such a glorious day it seems such a glorious waste to spend every waking hour trailing through endless revision notes but this is the reality that many of us young people now face. I particularly feel sorry for those who are to take part in their GCSE examinations. I found cramming my head full of useless GCSE subject details laboriously difficult, I can understand your pain.
There is no doubt in my mind that GCSE are way harder than ‘A’ levels. It may sound surprising but it is true, the quantity of GCSEs staggers even the brightest of minds and conclusively leaves you a numb stupefied mess that wishes to vow never to take another examination again.
Although school for me has always been a little different to everybody else. My brain has been wired back to front, topsy-turvy and consequently I seem to be living in a world full of opposites. I know it sounds ridiculous, perhaps even a little strange but for me dyslexia is like an eccentric gift.
I don’t consider it any problem that I am dyslexic. I am grateful that my dyslexia is only light. I often get my opposites confused, find directions hopelessly confusing, maths is an alien language and my auditory memory is rather bad.
School has provided me a challenge not only academically but personally. I have had to recognise the various problems I have and find ways to get around them. The concept of milk going on the cereal and water going in the cup was difficult to grasp when I was 5 years old.
Now as a student proceeding to finish his A level exams I would be lying if my dyslexia challenge is now finished. I have to accept that my brain has been wired back to front and that everybody else is usually just talking incorrectly, I’m normal. What I can say is that dyslexia is not a problem, I have beaten it academically and have achieved higher than those without dyslexia.
At school it is very easy for fellow students to mock, in the past I have occasionally experienced such instances, especially with grasping mathematical concepts. However, just because I can’t understand Pythagoras’s Theorem does not mean I cannot understand the possible influence Pythagoras had upon Plato.
A while ago I wrote an article for the British Dyslexia Magazine explaining the certain difficulties of being dyslexic at school and the methods to get around them. Of course bullying was common in Primary School, after all I couldn’t read until I was eight, but something which is always true about the bully is that personally he is not satisfied and usually suffering from far worse issues.
From what I have observed dyslexia is usually the bully at school. It makes academic life that little bit more difficult, socially can make it difficult to relate but ultimately we have to realise we must beat the bully. Dyslexia is the bully, beat it.
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