When Learning is Trauma: Keisha Swaby, Lisa McCarty, & Lois Letchford

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Welcome! Hi, I'm Lois Letchford. I'm the author of the book Reversed: A Memoir, and welcome to our YouTube Live series When Learning Is Trauma. Lisa, over to you, then we'll introduce our guest Keisha.

Yes, hi everyone, I'm Lisa Hardy. Um, I'm working with Lois, we're doing When Learning Is Trauma, and I'm really excited to talk to Keisha today because I missed the the conversation that you guys had leading up to this, so I'm excited to get into this.

Welcome, Keisha. Keisha lives in Manchester, UK, and she said she has many passions. She's a wife, a mother, inspirational speaker and radio Diamond presenter, Jamaican Parish Ambassador, Project Operations Manager for the Northwest, founder of Empowering Dyslexics, and creating awareness of dyslexia and dyspraxia. She's passionate about speaking and sharing her story on the importance of believing in yourself, while also writing a book on experiences with dyslexia and dyspraxia. Welcome, Keisha. Tell us about your journey. That's got to be the starting point.

Thank you, Lois, and thanks for that introduction as well. Well, where do I start? It could be a long story. I don't know how far you want me to go, whether I want to go back to Jamaica, growing up in Jamaica, coming here to the UK at 14.

Where—

my first question is, where did the trauma happen?

Did you have trauma in school in Jamaica, or was it only in the UK?

Yeah, really, because in Jamaica they have no understanding of dyslexia at that time when I was going to school, and that was in the '80s, '90s.

Yeah.

So I struggled with certain aspects of schooling in regards to maths. It just wasn't my subject. So I suffered really bad, and until today I still don't like maths because the regime at the time was you'd get beat if you don't know your maths, if you don't know your times tables. So I sort of developed, uh, sort of issues surrounding maths. Just couldn't get the hang of it, and going through all of that as well just created it. And then when I came to the UK at 14, I started school, and when I started school, it was just a completely different world, as you can imagine, coming from the sunshine to the UK.

It's really cold.

And when I started school, I got bullied really badly because of my accent, the way I spoke. They'd ask me to repeat certain things, and that really affected me for a long time because I was sort of muted. So I wouldn't put my hand up in class to say anything whatsoever because I was always having that fear of someone, you know, pointing out something I just said.

So More in in the UK than than Jamaica.

We have I have it here, and this is the picture. Whoops! I'll take it out of its. Physically, you know, of the brain when we're learning. And the moment you change schools, let alone countries, I think we're back to here. To stress-relater before— and that's got to be dealt with before you can begin to learn.

Yeah.

What I'm hearing from you is that it's just stress, stress, stress, and then you just shut down.

Yeah. Definitely.

And how did you catch up then? What happened to help you catch up?

Well, I finished school at 16 in the UK, so I only spent 2 years in the UK schooling system, and then I started college after I finished school, and I didn't come out of school with any substantial qualifications at all, and I was determined to achieve my English because that was the only qualification I had.

Well, that's incredible. One of the questions I have is, how did you survive that? Um, you know, it sounds like you were— you're coming from another country. You're having trouble with, um, with the timetables, there's a lot of stress there. You come here, you're having a lot of trouble just fitting in, it sounds like, but then also with the schooling, and then you go on to college and you go on to get a degree. I mean, it sounds like you manage that somehow in order to do all those things.

Yeah, because, um, I'm going to want you to talk a little bit about that first because the American system is quite different to the English system.

Yeah.

An honors degree really takes a lot of work. Because in the school system in America, 70 is a pass. 80 to 90 is a B. And everyone wants 90 to 100, you know, in the 90s. And anything less than a 90 is unacceptable. But the questions are all multi-choice, and it's to me the testing system here is much easier. In the UK, it's not that simple. Well, no, it's not as easy as that, is it? So tell us what it means to get a first-class honours degree in the UK.

Well, it was to get a first-class honours degree. We have a thing where we have exams, so we have mixture of exams and then assignments. So sometimes you can get an assignment ranging from 3,000 words at the minimum going up to 6,000, you know, 10,000-word assignments. However, for me, I was really, really happy with myself to achieve that regardless of what I was going through. So it was one of the greatest achievements that I've done. But your strength is in English, in writing? Yeah, I love writing. I love communicating. That's my passion. That's my strength, communicating and also writing as well.

I'm jealous. I am so jealous. So what, what are you— what are your weaknesses then? What do you struggle with?

Oh, that's, that's, that's a lot.

Um, things like in my daily— in my studies, I go back to it. Yeah, it's when I'm doing assignments, trying to get my understanding of what I need to do. It takes me a lot longer to get my head around it. Also, I can read something and then I just forget. I can't remember what I just read, so I have to read it again. And then things like making notes as well, like trying to put things down to get it in my memory. I know what I'm trying to say, but the words just come out. Other things like looking after myself, diet, that's my biggie. I've got a lot of things to do. I've got everything on my phone, so I've only had to go to the toilet 3 times with different occasions. And things like keeping up with work online as well, that's a big thing. I'm not always allowed to be online for lectures. Yeah.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

Lisa?

Well, I'm amazed that you didn't have any support through any of that. But my question is, how did you feel about yourself going through that? Did you feel different? Did you feel a sense of despair?

I don't know.

It's amazing to me that you didn't have their support and you didn't know why you had to struggle. How did you feel about yourself at that point? No, before that time. Yeah, before that, here you are doing essentially very well, maybe working really hard on the nursing and having some struggles with no support. Of course, not knowing that you're dyslexic, what was your self-esteem like during that period?

It was very frustrating because here I am, I know there's something not right, I know that I have challenges, but I still wasn't sure how to deal with it. I wasn't sure how it was, what it was that was wrong. My self-esteem was fluctuating, you know.

I can feel with you. I know exactly how you feel, you know, with doing that work. And yes, I can do it, I know it, but getting it— for me, it's getting it down on paper.

Yeah.

And not only getting it, getting it in a way that's acceptable to the professors. Yeah, and that to me is just— that stops me from doing it. And you're like you say, your emotions are going up and down and up and down all the time.

Yeah.

But you—

yeah, anyway, that's— that I love it. But you know, you wanted to talk about what you wanted people to know about dyslexia.

My mission right now, this is why I developed Empowering the Collective, because my mission is to create more awareness, especially in the Black community. There's a lot of stigma attached to it, there's a lot of shame, there's a lot of embarrassment. There's people that overlook the situation that they're going through. Some people don't even know what it is, Black themselves, they don't know what it is. So what I want to say to you is just find out what it is, find out what it is, own it. The moment you own it, your life will completely change. Nothing can stand up. You should be so proud of you. You are that special.

And yet there's so many people that will say, well, it's not a superpower, it's terrible, it's awful, I can't do it. Um, and it's just Interesting that you have such a—it's almost like you just a mind shift to say, okay, well, I have struggles in these areas, but the second I reduce that on it and then look maybe more to the positive aspects and you know focus on that—is that basically your mindset? Definitely.

I've spoken to you earlier saying that there's so many things that.

Do you think that when you came to the UK, you mentioned that you had a different accent, I guess, and that you were sort of singled out?

I don't know if you said bullied.

Do you think that that experience in a sense toughened you up to— for this?

Yeah. Wow, that's incredible.

You, you were there by yourself with no support at 14?

I take my—

that's phenomenal.

Were you in boarding school?

No, no, it was a normal regular school. And where did you live then? At the time, I lived in the middle of the class, so I lived with my aunt and my relative, and then my grandma. So those were the only people who really, really cared about me that much.

So, Asia, when you were in school, a lot of dyslexic learners who are struggling, they tend to either hide or they act out. Did you have any— what was it like in school?

Yeah, yeah. So you just shut down basically. And yeah, yeah, yeah. It's— I mean, it blows my mind, really, that we allow people to just sit at the back of the class. And I go back to Martin Bloomfield, and what he says is the way we treat people like you, we then say it's acceptable for that child to be quiet and for us to put her down and mock her because she doesn't have an accent like that. That's the way it is. That's the part that really breaks me apart, that I find as adults and other children that no one pulls up and said, can we deal with this in a much better way and in a much more inclusive way?

I mean, as you know, children can mature.

What's amazing too, to me, that you didn't self-medicate in a way. That's the folks that I tend to see as adults where they've had struggles and unfortunately they— their defense mechanism maybe was to pick up substances. And I just find that really incredible that, you know, you were really— I mean, I think it's like people in general are very resilient people. They really are hardworking and resilient, but unfortunately sometimes they just get so exasperated and they shut down and give up. And I just find that so encouraging, um, and just incredible that you had that stick-to-itiveness. I do have another question. I'm so fascinated by this story. Sorry, monopolizing.

Go ahead.

So you always knew that your strength, or one of your strengths, was the creativity with the English language or with writing and that sort of thing. And I find that a lot of dyslexic learners tend to be really good in other areas that don't involve language, like maybe art or Or, I don't know, builders or very hands-on learners. And I wonder if that's part of the difference between how you were able to push through, because that's the thing that you were going for, versus these kids that maybe don't find anything for themselves in a traditional school setting. I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there because I find that interesting. Definitely.

You know, there's a real overlap between poor teaching and dyslexia.

Yeah.

One of my biggest concerns for marginalised people of any race is that they do not see themselves in literature.

Mm.

And that compounds any learning disability that they have. They start to question, not out— they can't say it out loud, but why should I be doing this?

That sounds like it goes back to what she said earlier about helping.

Maybe that's part of that. I'm sure it's part of that.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely that. Because it goes deeper to say, you know, you have to be a thought leader. Everywhere.

When I teach young children in particular, and I was teaching a young black boy, he was repeating second grade, can't read anything, and I had been given, or we had access to a certain number of books, all leveled for these children. And what struck me, particularly with this little boy, was that it was white It was female and it was middle class. And if you want to engage a child, don't do that. You know, and it goes back to you. How do we— if— what did you say? If I can't see it, I can't be it. Can't be it, no. And that's there from grade 1. So we're alienating people from grade 1. So what we want is right at the beginning, teachers should be taking pictures of children and of their— well, where they live and their community to say, there you are, you're part of it, instead of excluding. I mean, we've got such a shift to make in the teaching of language and the teaching of children.

To be inclusive. Yeah, definitely. It's finding out what makes that child tick, finding out their strengths, what their interests are. What, what, you know, if nobody's going to be telling them to be doing certain things, certain subjects, and they're not interested, they're not going to stick with it. They're just going to play off of that, and then they're going to lead to behavior problems, and then they're going to get excluded. That's going to be a change. And that is a change. And that's the block that we're trying to do.

Not everything, you know, I mean, I totally agree with you. I don't understand how we do it for so long and we're not recognising, you know, it's found— the cost. It's foundational for children's lives. Yeah, you know, why can they do it in university? Why can they diagnose in university and not at 4th or 5th grade or 2nd or 3rd grade? You know, what's the mind shift there?

The awareness, the knowledge, the understanding, and within schools you need teachers Who really understand what they need to look out for. You know, there's so many children who are just slipping through the net because the teacher isn't there. People don't understand what is exactly going on. And the only thing they can do is capture them and say, look, you're going to be put in the red card or whatever. And it's not that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I actually, I feel like the manners tend to have pretty common characteristics, a lot of variation. They're very common characteristics that you tend to see the same patterns over and over again. And I don't know if it's because I've been studying this for a while, but I think that teachers have got to see pretty much the same patterns as well. And the fact that they don't recognize this is mind-boggling to me. I mean, I find frustration with that because you don't— I mean, teachers don't get training in this, and I wish that they did, but I feel like you're speaking You see the same things sort of over and over again, and all you have to do with most of these class boundaries is go look at their reading scores or see how are they writing, and it's kind of, you know, it's very similar. It's not so clean-cut. Like, you do see these patterns. I don't know why they don't recognize the patterns.

Yeah.

Yeah, actually we talked a little bit about that last week about the fact that in America anyway, it's really much easier to get a diagnosis of ADHD and then the schools basically say to the parents, here, you take them to the dental doctor. And again, some of these kids really could benefit from those types of medications. But they don't always help the way they should because the other problem really is that they have these different patterns of thinking. And I would just, you know, I would say dyslexic learners really do tend to— and we know this from science— they tend to process this language information differently. And I feel like that's the pattern that you can see and that they don't want to— I don't know, they're frustrated, they get very frustrated.

But you, you were commenting on you really wanted to be a force in the Black community and say it's okay to be dyslexic. From what I've read about numbers in the US, the most— the people who are diagnosed Children diagnosed with dyslexia or a learning disability are often white and middle class.

Yeah, yeah. This is where a lot of change needs to go because I can honestly say since I started doing— I created the Facebook group that I'm running now in April, that's coming up to a year now, April this coming, and when I put that out and I So much work to be done, and that is my mission.

Yeah, yeah. And to be inclusive and part of, you know, the whole dyslexic world is not just these particular colour people, but it's a whole range.

Yeah.

And that's what we want to get across. And the trauma, and I think when you haven't acknowledged it, then you're not acknowledging the trauma that comes with it either.

No, no. And that's a real shame because to be going through it, say you don't get diagnosed like the girl called me, and you carry on 60s, 70s, 80s, never get diagnosed, carry all that all the way through your life without knowing anything, not being able to do anything about it because you don't know what it is.

Yeah, well, my mother came to me and she was 75 and said, Lois, I needed help like you're giving your son when I was in trouble.

Wow.

And that's the first time that she had openly acknowledged, to me anyway, that she had had a problem. But it's— and then I was then similar age to you, and then you look back on her life and you see, ah, these are the little pieces that all came together. Yeah. My mother has it. I have it. My son has it. Two of my sons have learning disabilities or dyslexia.

That's a big thing as well. The genetic side of it. When I had my assessment done, I had a diagnosis. I identified that my mum is dyslexic, my dad is dyslexic, just from the test that I was given. Wow! Because I know that they can read but not very well. It's not consistent. Yeah, yeah. Are your children dyslexic? Yeah, I have a child. One of my first daughters, she is dyspraxic, and I've got twins as well, and I have 2 different diagnoses, especially girls, identified. So it's definitely in regards to dyspraxia, especially dyspraxia and the fear of maths and all of that.

I've sort of like seen it playing out in her, so she's So what have you been able to do to help them and stay in school and enjoy school?

Well, she's probably in college.

Reach out to me if you need some help.

Thank you. Thank you.

Because— yeah, well, you know, there's no reason why children shouldn't learn to read. But then again, saying that, there's a number of things that don't happen because we have this fixed mindset on what has to happen as opposed to the depth. That's another story. We're talking about, you know, the importance of stopping the trauma. And as you keep saying, the things that we can do. And then you were saying for adults, I love that idea of swapping, swapping skills. That I've never come across before. Tell me more, tell me more about that.

Okay. And your other Solutions? Yes, so, um, if you had— if you were working with business, you had your own business and you struggle with things like sending emails and making sure that everything is correct in the email, spelling, everything is right. If you struggle doing that, find someone who's more, you know, more open doing things like that. That's it, that's their game, that's their ball game. If you're not asking, they can start creating flyers. If somebody asks, what kind of design are you looking for? Get them to do your flyer. You just talk to them about that and say you like what they've done. And yeah, check their work. That's how I got identified. Always get someone to check your work and make sure they trust you to do a kind of thing like this. What happened was I was taking 9, by the way, did not do that degree. And the reason why I was identified is because the counselor from my last organization I had, that one assignment, which was the last assignment of my, of my degree, she identified me as being a student. So it's just about looking at a way What did you say when she pointed that out to you?

Knockout.

It's such a life change. I couldn't work. She said to me, Keisha, I didn't know that you looked like this. And it was like, it's nothing to do with that. So they thought that— Did you know what dyslexia was at that point?

Yeah, it's interesting because we find that people don't really quite understand dyslexia across the board, and so that's one of the reasons we're doing all this is to bring awareness to that's what it is, those patterns of relative weaknesses and strengths that you see. And there's certain characteristics like just as the person in the library could see, there's, you know, You know, there's certain things you can look at pretty quickly. And so I think that the more people really start to really understand what dyslexia is, hopefully this problem will start to get fixed. That is so interesting.

This is why we need to invite people to swear, because she was able to identify me and you think that she had to work at it.

Because she knew that It's interesting that you had heard this word. And then it's almost like we shut it out, isn't it? And we don't ask any questions.

Yeah. I feel like people think they know what it is. They'll say, oh yeah, I've heard that before. That's that thing where they read backwards.

And that's where it stops. I also have people that get a little bit nervous about saying it's my superpower because I think they don't want to put that pressure on somebody to feel like, oh, I have to be Superman now. But I do think it's so important to highlight the positive aspects because then people would feel not ashamed to say, you know, maybe even in just identifying in different communities to say, hey, you know, I'm proud to be disabled.

You know, as you say these things, I mean, I'm right in this— the same position as you, and I haven't done a swap of my skills because it means identifying my weaknesses. Writing is a real struggle for me. But one of the things that I have done, because I know I have to write more in journals, is reached out to a professor and said, will you write with me? And that has been huge. But for me to reach out, it makes me very vulnerable.

Definitely. I totally get what you're saying.

We don't want anyone to sort of identify What you're saying, I didn't see how long it took her to get it down or how many times she revised it or whatever, but, but I think that dyslexic learners are so creative. And my youngest son really, really, really struggled with writing, um, big time in, um, in school, and now he's actually doing some writing, and I enjoy the way he writes. Technically, there's some issues with it, but I also—

I'm not sure I understand.

Because we know why that happens. And who cares? Because it's the creativeness. Now, I do a lot of reading. I am a reader. And I love it when the writing is good. Not technically. I mean, like, creatively. When the writing is good and the story is good. And sometimes I'll read a story where the story's not so great, but the writing's so fantastic that I love the book. And so, to me, so I, I know what I'm talking about.

I saw that, I saw those posts on that. And we have a question. Some say that dyslexia can be like a superpower. What are your thoughts on that? That's from Chris, who talks to us every week, which is phenomenal. What are your thoughts on being a superpower, like a superpower?

Well, my superpower is I am creative in other ways. I might not be able to put things that I do do it.

I can do it. However, about as it comes back to it, where it's only it's realizing that I do what I do.

Yeah, that's so important.

You can see me identifying with you. You and I must be sisters.

We are sisters.

Because it, you know, I think like when you go to school and you're always lesser because you've not been identified or you've not been given the support. Even though I wasn't traumatized in such, you're never allowed to be really good because everything else holds you back. And that impacts the way you see yourself as an adult. And, you know, the first thing that will come out of my mind is, I'm stupid.

Yeah.

It's overcoming that and working on getting rid of that. To say it's okay.

Another big part is try not to do this to other people depending on what they think of you, because what they think of you is never going to be anything. It shouldn't be your business. Nothing to do with you what they think of you. And that is the massive thing to reflect, because we have to try so hard in everything that we do. We don't want anyone to say kind of Yeah, yeah, but it, you know, it's all—

it all comes together from the way we are seen early on and the way people react to us and we get put down. And then you've got, like you say, be persistent and come out of that. I mean, my persistence, I think, is the only thing that got me through college, through school and college, and all my education was sheer pigheadedness, really, more than anything else. So I think we have another question here. What is it? How would you say this could be used for students dealing with bad professors? How can you use your superpower to deal with students dealing That's the loaded question.

Yeah, it's— let them understand what it is that you're going through and all the things that you might be struggling with, or things that you might not be doing.

It's letting teachers, lecturers, professors all I think it also helps if you, like you say, you have documentation.

Yeah, yeah, that's key as well because without getting support, we have the Get paid for care without, um, disabled student allowance. And if you haven't got a diagnosis and that piece of paper to show that you have it, you won't get the support that you should get. So that is key. That is one of those— I'm always warning the iGirls, get your diagnosis. Getting a diagnosis is key to everything.

Before you were diagnosed, did you go to the professors and advocate for yourself before you had the diagnosis?

No, because I didn't know. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't know the book or anything. I just responded.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wondering because it sounds like you need a little bit of self-understanding. In order to do that, a lot of dyslexic learners might feel very nervous to talk to a teacher. So it sounds like what you're saying is really understand yourself, get that diagnosis, and then you really have a leg to stand on once you understand yourself. Does that sound accurate? To be able to stand up to authority, basically, and advocate for yourself, you know, in a kind way. But you need to do that. You have to be persistent, it sounds like, too.

Right. Because now I have experience. I never had before. I didn't have the confidence. Now I'm very confident. I'm doing the master's. I know how to advocate myself. I know what to tell them now. Yeah, yeah.

And I would say mentorship, mentorship too. Find that community and get some backup, I guess.

Through conversing with other students, I identified that they too had struggles. So I reached out to them and since then we've been doing things like trying to find people to help by interacting with them or by supporting them. And I've always reached out to anyone I haven't helped. I need to slow this down so I don't want anybody else to take more up.

We've been talking for 50 minutes. I'm trying to summarise what you've said, and I think, you know, if I say build on your strengths is one of the first things. Identify what you're good at, and then acknowledge what you're good at, but acknowledge the weaknesses and get support to do that. And if you need to then do some swaps, or outsource what your weaknesses are, do that. That all helps you through. And then, you know, that in the Black community in particular, that it's okay to struggle with things and put out that it's— you're not lesser.

Yeah.

Is there anything else you want to say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen that, which is very good.

Oh, thank you, thank you for spending time with us, and we'll certainly have you back in September. Um, where can people find you?

Thank you kindly. Oh yes, yes, yes.

Do we do Twitter?

Yeah, I do, but not much. Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

There's only so much I think you can do. That's my—

Yeah, I'm not too keen on sticking away of doing what I do on there anyway.

Yeah. Lisa, where do we find you?

Well, apparently I should probably get on to LinkedIn. Because that seems to be where everything's happening, and I'm getting lost in the sauce over here because I'm on it but I never check it. So I am going to make a promise to you that I'm going to check it out. I'm going to get more active with LinkedIn. I am on Facebook, and you can find me talking to Lois on Monday afternoons.

And I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter @LetchfordLois, I'm on LinkedIn, and you can find my YouTube videos, and there's a whole range of videos that I talk about. And I have to thank my son Isaac for all his technical support, because it wouldn't happen without him, and his buddy Chris who does my editing. And next week we talk to Vic Williams, also from the UK, who runs the Audacious Training Company Dyslexic. He's creating, delivering bold initiatives and forward-thinking So— Yes, I said I can find myself. I could find myself on Facebook. Then I've just repeated all of that. And I get my COVID shot tomorrow.

Oh, good luck.

So we'll see. Anyway, thank you so much for your time and for your expertise. And I'll write up a little blog about what we've talked about today.

Thanks, Lois.

Thank you. I will talk to you again soon.

Thanks, Lisa. Take care.

Bye.

Bye.

Hang up.