Lois Letchford talks with Lisa McCarty, nurse and mother from Pennsylvania Dyslexia

I would take that off of, um, Max, Chris. Take what off of Max? The minimize, put it into window view. Well, well, yeah, the OBS thing.

Yep.

Put it into window view and then bring out Google Hangouts.

And I've— I'm on— I've got to—

No, to the side, to the left. Here, I'll do it. I'll do it. I know how to do this.

And I've got to do, you know, See, this is where it's really important that we start at 4.

Yep. Well, I—

This— we're still practicing.

That's right. It's fine. No, it's— Delphi was messing around. Simple as that. Okay.

That's right.

So there, pretty good.

Now we're right to go?

You're live. You can see that. That's your thing.

And now we're streaming?

Now, one thing. You're streaming. You've been streaming for 30 seconds.

All right. Okay.

So we want to go here. We want to go Ctrl+C. Send her an email. No, is this the email that we use? All right, type her name in. That one?

Yeah. Wow, she's on there. What are we doing?

Ctrl+V.

Are we doing another one?

No, this is her— your— this is your profile page. She— if she clicks on this, she should be able to see the live thing now. Mute itself so if Sophie decides to ask her a question, she can see it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that you can both see it.

Right. Now let's go down to streaming.

You're already streaming.

Yeah, but we're streaming.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, now we can go. Hello, Lisa. I'm Lois Letchford.

And I—

I missed that.

I'm Lisa McCarthy. Do I have an echo?

Well, the boys are listening and they want you to go onto YouTube and see if— see that you can see the chats as well. So we'll find out if that works.

All right, I'm trying that now.

Oh, very good. And we are talking about when learning is trauma because both of us are parents, we're both Mothers of 3 sons. My first son went to school and he flew through school but didn't enjoy it. My second son failed first grade. And sadly, I knew the failure was occurring really on day 1. But at the end of the— on day 6 of school, the teacher spoke to me and said he can't do anything.

Keep talking.

So that was really horrific, and, and I kept him there. I kept him there. And what I find interesting is that no one acknowledged how great he was failing, and the poor little soul could not say to me, I hate going to school. He kept that all within himself. What was your experience like when your children were in those early years of school?

So, um, so I have 3 boys too, as you mentioned, and it's— my first son also went to school, um, and did okay, but he didn't like it either.

Yeah.

And so, uh, but he didn't have any trouble with learning the alphabet or any of those things. And came along, um, I should have seen some of dyslexia, but I didn't know what they were. I had a tough time teaching him the alphabet. Into elementary school, he was able to do well on the standardized tests at first. And so nobody really realized that, although if you look at his handwriting and spelling and things like that, you could see that he was. And as the work— he really started to sink. And I remember, you You know, going in your conferences and just being so overwhelmed by that. It's such an emotional feeling where you're sitting there. I was sitting there by myself. I have a you know whole table chairs facing me, just saying, "I don't know. He's not trying hard enough. He doesn't want to do the work. He's potential," and it was devastating because you don't know what to do. So of course, you know, failing. Emotionally and academically. And then he would come home and then get in trouble for, you know, not turning in things like this. Nobody really recognized that this was going on. I didn't, the school didn't. Frustrating. Then when my third son came along, he had real obvious trouble. And as we've mentioned, dyslexia, you can see this on a continuum, as we said, from mild to severe. So my youngest son had very severe reading problems, so he was obviously targeted, that was struggling. But even that, he didn't seem to be getting the help that he needed.

Yeah.

It's a real emotional roller coaster for the parents. At the time, I was in— working some really crazy hours. I was tired all the time. I was sleeping during the day because I worked at night. As a mom, you're really trying your best to figure out what's going on, but it's so hard. Today are so overwhelmed, and it really wasn't until my youngest son was older that I figured out the problem. But that's when the real fight began.

Wow.

At what age did your children have standardized testing?

Well, early on in elementary school, they have— here in the United States, we have PSAT, and at first they do math and reading, and then later on they get the science portion. So I can remember—

was that what grade?

I can remember grade seeing the report for my middle son, and he was proficient in reading, so nobody really— the problem. And the funny thing about it was, here was a kid that hated school, PSSA tests, and I used to think, well, that's funny because nobody likes the PSSAs, because that was actually easier for him than sitting in the classroom trying to keep up with the work.

He was Able to—

he had tricks that he could use to extract the answers to the— without really understanding the whole passage, he could look at the question, then find where he thought the answer was. You know, they're smart. But nobody realized that he was having such difficulty reading. And then, of course, spelling and some other things that go along with that.

Yeah.

I think we talked about yesterday about screeners. It would have been nice if we had a dyslexia screener. On some of these nuances of that problem, because the standardized tests sometimes aren't— aren't— and so, you know, he looked okay on paper until the— much harder. Now, it wasn't until the 10th grade where he just gave up.

Yeah.

That's when he just flat out gave up. He just didn't care anymore. And at that point, what do you do with a kid that's given up?

And the struggle is just too much then, isn't it? Right.

Yeah.

You know, in many ways, I— this sounds a terrible thing to say, but I was very lucky that Nicholas failed so dramatically in first grade because there were no questions that there was a problem.

Right.

But that's the positive. The negative is that they said, you know, he's got a low IQ, he's got no strengths, He's got— the problem lies within him. And that's all they could see was this child is a problem.

Yeah.

And I think that's— I think, you know, that's part of the problem, that all they're looking at is the child, the child's strengths and the child's weaknesses. And my philosophy now is captured in the words from Professor Curt Dudley-Damarling, Learning and learning problems dwell in activities and cultural practices and not in the heads of individuals.

Yeah, and you've mentioned before that the primary thing you want to have is to be engaged.

Yes.

In what they're learning and the learning techniques too. So for us in terms of educating teachers, So they can— all students, but especially these dyslexic learners.

Yes.

Yeah, because all too quickly we blame the child. You know, we give them the child isn't working hard enough. If only, if only they would engage. If only they would try a little bit harder. If only he would listen. he would get there. And that's part of the problem, is that we're then looking and focusing on the child instead of focusing on what is stopping this child from learning.

Yeah. And don't you think too, the kids, early on, that they're not good at something, and they can tell that their classmates maybe are surpassing them in reading or writing, math, whatever. And then you have a kid who already feels a And now we're asking them to come down to, you know, to a room and be tested.

Yeah.

Sometimes this happens to these kids several times. There was a friend of my son's who did a bunch of times, and he was so exasperated by this, and he really just felt earlier just having to go to the room and do the tests. So of course the testing results came back— the kid just didn't want to be there. And then in the write-up, they tried to make it look like, well, only If he was cooperating and paying attention, then his scores would have been better. But, you know, he was struggling immensely, was never diagnosed with dyslexia in the school. Took his parents, you know, thousands of dollars to go outside and get this diagnosis of dyslexia. And you could tell when you look through the tests that they did, they were very similar. And my son had a diagnosis of dyslexia, but only because I The psychologist before he evaluated him. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't be in the paper because the schools don't want to have to do that. Again, not bashing schools, but they know that if that dyslexia is there, then they have to provide some other sort of instruction that they're not to provide to everybody.

Didn't—

And it becomes a game. And that's why I said once we knew what— that's when the real fight started.

Didn't Texas get into trouble for limiting the number of people coming into special education?

I think, actually, that Texas was a little bit farther ahead than we are here in Pennsylvania with some of that. So maybe that had happened before. I'd have to look that up.

Well, it certainly started when I was there. It started with No Child Left Behind. And, you know, I think in about 2016 or '17, it was acknowledged that they had deliberately excluded people and limited the numbers going into special education.

They only have a certain amount of spots, and that's another thing that we found out. A friend who— the special education department just sent this one parent A letter saying congratulations, your daughter is going to be exited from the program. Now most parents when they see that are happy because they think that means that they're fixed or not stupid or whatever. But this parent knew enough to know that the reason she doing well was because of the special education program. But what happened was fought and this email this email. game went back and forth in the special education supervisor, and then they finally said— the school said, oh, we're sorry, that's a misunderstanding. It wasn't a misunderstanding. They were trying to exit the student and another space available because they only have limited amount, amount of spots for these. But then that goes back to, well, why is it— why are so many kids in special education?

Why?

Why are these kids not keeping up? Why are these kids not reading well? You know, teacher preparation.

Early on, they really push children. And I think that's got to stop. You know, my videos are now the Lincoln Project, and Lincoln said, slow to learn, but slow to forget. Once it's engraved, it's like engraving it in steel. It's very hard to get out. And we're pushing children so early to learn these things. Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, go faster, go faster. When in fact, we have to slow this learning down and give them depth. Yeah, not shallow, skipping stuff that they can pick up a little bit of and then I've done it. We want depth of knowledge.

So everything seems in a competition, everything. And these kids, you know, they come into kindergarten They should still be socializing and learning who they are and how to interact with others from the get-go. We're expecting a lot from them.

Yes.

And I think that's, that's a disaster for a lot of kids, but especially those kids that are learning difference, different learners as opposed to disability, because disability really means that you don't have ability. Well, they do have ability, but they're They're different learners. They need hands-on things or some different instruction. They can certainly learn. But, you know, these poor kids, we're just— we're a society that's so competitive with everything. And no wonder these kids are growing up with depression and anxiety, kind of, you know, severe mental problems. And I think that's, again, one of the reasons we're Series.

That's right. And so when we talk about it, our series, When Trauma— When Learning Is Trauma, we have got 10 fantastic speakers, and I'm going to put their videos on my site so people can access them. And our first speaker is Dr. Steve Dykstra, psychologist. What do you know about him, Lisa?

Well, I saw a talk that he gave, um, the IDA, the International Dyslexia Association. I think it was the Pennsylvania, and, um, and I watched this video and I thought, wow, this guy, um, he really— he works with a lot of, um, uh, he's a psychologist, so he's worked with some tough cases, uh, of juvenile, uh, kids with mental problems.

And what he found that—

and I won't give his whole speech away, of course, but it was so great that he acknowledged, like, a giant problem for these individuals. If they can't read well, that doesn't go away. And his point through the talk that I saw was that they have the most traumatic experiences, they can have, you know, homelessness, maybe, maybe they've been abused, he says, and they can generally work their way around that stuff. But if they can't read— That's forever. And they really have an increased risk of— well, if their literacy skills continue to be poor. It's just, you know, he— his— I won't give his talk away, but that's kind of what he's— again, he's a psychologist.

Yeah.

He'll stand up and say, look, I'm not an educator, but this is what he knows about all that.

And these are the people he sees. He's seeing these people every day.

Right.

So he's number 1. I look forward to him. And number 2 is Hillebrand Pelsner, author, teacher, educator, principal. And I think his book is From Pipeline to Prison or Prison Pipeline. I'll get the name properly. I'll get that. I'll write that down. And he talks about Lack of literacy skills, you end up going from school to prison. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's definitely— you're at unfortunate situations, and that's one of them.

Yep. And to me, a lot of that is lack of connection and using— asking children to read literature to which they cannot connect. You know, use it if you're a Black student, particularly Black male student, what literature are we asking them to read? Are they engaged in it or is it, oh, I don't care about this and why do I have to do it?

Right. So yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of other factors that go into all that as well, um, but we can't ignore the fact the literacy is a problem across the board. And if we don't get— not giving people a fair chance. So maybe city schools are underfunded than the suburb schools. Maybe there are some additional issues and problems. Use that as an excuse to not continue to help these skills.

Yeah.

It's more complicated maybe, but we You know, we can't ignore that. Yep.

And number 3 is Rosalind Kiranartley. Now Rosalind's from Ghana and she grew up non-reading. She learned to read at 17 and she's become a chef, or she's in charge of catering in Ghana in the Disney hotels. So I look forward to hearing her story and looking forward to hearing how she manages to survive that long.

I'd like to say real quick, I'm interested in her. I watched her a little bit also on YouTube, and my middle son has a— he loves culinary arts. In fact, he went to the culinary high school, tech school, and he's always loved that. So I would even say, you know, some of these dyslexic You find their strengths early on, and that was certainly one of his, that creative mind that he has with that sort of thing. And as she was talking, I could kind of, you know, I could identify with this. And I thought, what a shame that these people sometimes have to then go like failures in this part when they have such great strengths and such great abilities over here. Like, this is the part that we've got to fix for them so they don't feel like failures over here. Writing and that sort of thing, that we can keep people's self-esteem intact to what they're interested in and where their talents are. So her— yeah, her story is, um, it's home a little bit.

And number 4 is my sister Lenore, who— and last night Lisa and I had a conversation because we're practicing, we're making sure the technology works, that the other people know how it works. And getting an idea of what knowledge they're bringing to this series. And my sister Lenore is a psychiatric nurse and been dealing with psychiatric problems for the last 30-something years. And learning about how the brain functions and how when children are stressed, how the brain shuts down. And how then that limits their learning and their growth.

Yeah, that was an amazing talk that we all had. And I feel sort of like the oddball out because I've got this horrible American accent. Sounds terrible to listen to. And the two of you have these wonderful voices, and I'm so jealous. But her talk was so— I mean, we really had a good time chatting about all that.

Yeah.

Having her on and her expertise in that area.

Yeah, and the importance of emotional and children going to school and feeling safe, even when they cannot— when they're struggling with learning, because that's the problem, is they struggle with learning and then they are in trouble or they feel they are in trouble.

Right.

And that's when everything starts to plummet. So, you know, yeah, and I've got— I sent you her blogs, well, they'll be coming out. And did you get the picture of the brain that I sent you?

I got that too. That was really good. I took a— I took a picture of the picture you sent me.

Yes, and we'll get that out and on there. That'll come up on my, um— ah, can't see it. Ah, there it is.

Can you see it now?

Yes.

Yeah, that was good.

Yes, so we'll be doing—

So important.

Pardon?

And so important when you have these poor kids that Class makes them feel unsafe sometimes. Is the teacher going to call on my homework? I'm not keeping up with what's going on. You know, they feel this, this level of it just sitting there. So how much are they really taking in, you know, trying to learn? Brainpower is busy trying to stay, trying to survive, basically.

Well, yeah, that was that. And That's where, you know, my story had this phenomenal change. I mean, take— that's, that's what happened to Nicholas, is we were able to change the environment dramatically from stress to just enjoy learning. Forget about the detail and just enjoy learning. And that was the start.

Yeah.

And I was speaking to another lady after Lenore, and she said, well, how long were you— did Nicholas spend out of school? And I said it was 6 months. And I really only spent 4 months teaching him. And it was that 4 months that gave a dramatic change. And she said, only that? Yeah, I said that it was only 4 months that he and I worked together, that he went back in, and that was transformative. You know, and that's what I want. That environment is what I try and create with every one of my students. That it's one where we can laugh together, one where you're never going to get anything wrong or be in trouble for getting anything wrong, because I'm asking in my mind, what is stopping the child from recalling this? That's my thinking as now a reading specialist. So yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I have so much guilt as a mom that I didn't recognize And, you know, there was my middle son who, uh, he, you know, he would have stomachaches all the time or whatever, and, and I would be angry as a parent, you know, school, and not recognizing the struggle.

Yeah.

Kills me. It kills me. It's just something I have to work through, but that's one of the reasons that we do— other kids don't have, or families don't have to go through that. Awful experience.

I wished I'd removed Nicholas from grade 1. I think I said that early on, didn't I? I wished I'd moved him, removed him from the class after week 1. I don't feel— I remember, you know, my youngest son was 2, and I suppose I didn't feel I could work with Nicholas at that time with another child at home. You know, you have all these things, but I think it would have been better. to not have him have that failure. But then, you know, then you've got the other end of the stick. The school will come back and say to you, but, you know, he failed because you didn't do your job. As opposed to, well, you weren't doing it either, so. Well, that's what—

and that's what, as a parent, you feel like. And that's why I say parents— and we trust that the school is, you know, educating the kids and they know about But I, for example, I read to all 3 of my boys constantly.

I know.

I mean, yeah, like constantly. And to hear, well, you're not reading enough. How much more can I read to them? Or the best was when they sent books with my youngest son. And we have— you can't see, but there's books all over the house. They're everywhere. And books, I'm like, what am I going to do with more? I have them right here, by the way. Here's just some of them.

Yeah.

Sent home for him to read, and I don't— like, we can't read anymore. So that's a really terrible feeling as a parent, to feel like you've done something or something, and, and you're trying the best that, that you can, and still some kids really continue to struggle. It's a nightmare.

The books are really important, even though, you know, the critical part— and even now, Nicholas, I remember that book. I remember that was such a funny book. You know, so that's a critical part, but it's not the whole piece.

Yeah.

And I've got to remember to click on you, and I've forgotten that. So, Lisa, that's our, that's our 30 minutes for today. We're practicing, we're getting used to the technology, and we've talked about 4 of our 10 guests. We can talk about the rest. We'll be back at 4 o'clock tomorrow. We're trying to get all of our bugs ironed out, and I have to thank my youngest son Isaac for doing all this technology in the background because I could not have done it without his support. So, Lisa, thank you. Thank you for today, and we will talk again tomorrow at 4 o'clock. So join us. Enjoy the day. And we will share more of our, our guests that are coming on from the 31st of August.

Sounds good. We'll see you tomorrow.

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for visiting today. Lois Letchford, When Learning Is Trauma, August 31st.

Bye. Bye-bye.

Can I call you? Do Google Hangouts again. You're still showing. Ah, I've got to do that.