When Learning is Trauma: Marcia Brissett-Bailey, Lois Letchford, & Lisa McCarty

What a start! Welcome to our season 2022 for When Learning Is Trauma. Lisa, thank you for joining us, and our guest today, Marcia Bracelet Bailey from London in the UK.

Yes, hi.

Lisa, Marcia, Marcia has been in Forbes. She's a narrative changer provoking the representation dyslexia, which is why we have you on the show. We want to show that dyslexia occurs on every continent and on every race, and it cannot be ignored. Marcia, can you tell us about your story to start with, how you got to this point?

Well, it's a long one, but I'll give you a real good shot to give you a little bit of an insight. I think what's important to say is that I can't represent every dyslexic person, and as a Black young— you know, I was calling myself a young woman, yes, That our lived experience is really varied in terms of our class, our environment, our education. You know, those are all going to have an impact on us in different ways, and depending on our support systems, you know. And, you know, we talk about equity and all of these other things, but all of those play a real important factor. And that's who I am and why I'm, you know, talking today, because of my experience. But all those intersectionalities have had an impact on me in different ways. One of the things I always start when I talk about my journey, and yes, I'm Marcia Brissett-Bailey, is about the fact that my grandmother talked about having to work twice as hard. She was preparing me, and for a child to be told you have to work twice as hard, preparing you for something that you don't quite understand, how the world can be unfair, and there's inequalities, but you're not knowing that. You're just thinking, okay, Grandma, I've got to work twice as hard. So that ethics of building you up but not sure— a really good one to be working, you've got to work, good work ethics— but it was more about the inequalities from a cultural perspective. And then that kind of— those layers intersecting with dyslexia wasn't even a thought yet because I didn't know I was dyslexic, but already I felt different. for various reasons, whether the colour of my skin, as being a young girl, being treated differently or unfairly, and that could be within the home or within the education sector. And then knowing that I was having difficulties with a system that I loved. I loved to follow the rules, I loved school, but school didn't quite love me. So I'm hoping that gives you a little bit of a perspective that, you know, dyslexia is like a fingerprint. It's unique to yourself, and that's why there's no clear definition like there are with some our counterparts within the neurodiverse world. We don't really have a definitive, and it does overlap with other things. I'm sure I have other traits of other parts of the lovely family of neurodiversity, but yeah, dyslexia is really interesting when we talk about it. And yeah, I just think it was important to say that, that I can't represent everybody, but we could— there could be a lot of similarities and lots of stories. But those intersections, which I've mentioned very earlier on, are definitely key to my experience.

You're absolutely right, we don't represent everyone, but by telling our story, others will connect with it. Can you tell me what happened at school? What was school like for you?

Yeah, so I would say when I was about 9 or 10, I started to feel a little bit— the pressure was on. I'm just not getting the numbers. I'm loving words. I really like wanting to write, but I just couldn't get it. It was all too fast. I was having to stay behind at playtime to try and get up these— get this work. My handwriting just wasn't happening. When I speak, sometimes the words— it was a lot of— I was having a lot of things happening all at once and not understanding any of it. And knowing that I just felt so different. I felt like I was invisible but not invisible. I felt like a bit of an alien, but I know I wasn't. I didn't look like these things you see, aliens in the film, but it felt so like that. So for me, like, I'll give you an example. My handwriting was so inconsistent that what would happen is I would write really tiny to like disguise my handwriting so I wouldn't get no one to see it. You'd need a magnifying glass because I thought if you write it really tiny, then no one's going to see the inconsistencies. I'm really, really neat. I'm taking so much time to write this. And then no one will see the mistakes either, so it'll look like I know what I've written. So that was one of the masking I was doing. And the other one was that I just didn't want to read aloud. And I'm thinking, why don't they ask somebody who can read? Why are they asking me? Because I couldn't read a full sentence. I could read some words, but not the whole sentence. And that's when the trauma started. That was the real starting point, wanting the ground to suck me in. looking to see who was next to read and just hoping that it wasn't me and just hoping she wasn't doing the random and all going around because I know if there's 4 of them, that means that by the time it's time, it won't be me to read. The sweaty hands, the palpitations, the fear, and we know what fear is, that anxiety is what fear is, right?

Yes.

So I'm fearful. I don't know these words yet, but all I know is that it's making me feel unwell, it's making me feel unpleasant, it's making me feel fearful, it's making me why are you doing this to me? And that's when the anxiety— and I would say it's been some of the triggers to my future self in terms of going back, remembering that place at 10 and feeling that I wasn't good enough because I couldn't read like everybody else.

Yeah.

So that's the real— I think if I was to do that inner child work, that is truly where the triggers of everything else started to kind of make me feel like the imposter syndrome and all of those You know, self-sabotage started from that place of feeling that you're comparing yourself to other people and you don't feel good enough. And then what I did in that was that I thought if I didn't speak, then no one would notice me. I mean, these are the things I'm trying to hide, I'm trying to feel invisible, and so I became selectively mute. So I did speak, but obviously to people who were familiar to me. But I just felt like that was the only thing I had control of. And I remember doing it, and I remember having invisible friends and all these kinds of things I was doing to just protect my— I feel that was why I was doing, protecting myself. And it makes me feel tearful to feel that a child couldn't find her voice and couldn't speak to feel how she was feeling. And the cultural element is from a cultural perspective, on top of that is we don't, you know, from a Caribbean— I grew up in a Caribbean family— that we don't speak our business because that's coming from another place which we don't have time to talk about, where you don't talk about your personal stuff. So can you imagine that fusion of the cultural element and then what, how you're feeling and how you're sort of protecting yourself not to say anything because you can't say anything because you just got to listen there, that, you know, the adults are the perfect teachers, they understand, and you've got to listen to authority. So it was a fusion of culture and following the rules and being respectful, but it was having an impact on me.

Mm-hmm.

So what they did in the end, my mum said, my child's not reading, and everything, and they ended up sending me for therapy. And it was only because my mum detected that I wasn't on par with my peers and something's wrong. Why isn't my Marcy talking? Why isn't my Marcy reading? And they ended up doing therapy. I remember I used to sit in this room and there used to be a playhouse and she'd be talking about things, but they actually thought that there was something more personal going on.

Yeah, yeah.

But I didn't know that until later on in my life, so they never thought about the education. So again, I will never— I can never say for sure, but I just wonder if there's some kind of, kind of, yeah, some kind of not, you know, as a young Black girl growing up, they've got some other kind of view of what's going on for me, and it's not about my learning. But it was always about my learning. I always wanted to do well. I always wanted to show the teachers I could do something. And I spent a lot of time daydreaming. I had loads of time because when the class wasn't— I couldn't follow it, it was just too quick, I would daydream. And that was the best time to be able to be imaginative. I realized I was good with words in poetry. I think what I— one of my strengths is I can see words and see it in pictures and see pictures and sees it in words and all these beautiful things. But I didn't know any of that, and I didn't feel very good about myself.

Yeah.

And for a child who's 10 not to feel good about themselves, which— why are we there at that stage? Why are we allowing those kinds of ways of— why, you know, it was, it was really difficult. And it was, it was when I would say that real trauma started to build a fear. And fear is an emotion, right?

Yes.

And you don't understand that necessarily as a child, and it can really knock you for your— if you don't get the right support. And I think I'm always grateful my parents had a lot of love for me, but they didn't understand the education system.

Yeah.

So the education system— now this was in the UK, I'm going to assume?

Yes.

And I don't know too much about how they do testing and that sort of thing, but when you were 10, Were the test results showing that there was an issue in the classroom and then they would like separate you into like a special education, or does it not really work like that there, or then?

I don't know, how would you like— Yeah, I think I remember going off into a different classroom, but there were other children like me. I never was clear that that was a special or a special education class, or— it never felt like that. It just felt that the work was really hard. I was using my fingers for maths and getting really flustered, or using matchsticks. Everything was always a bit tricky.

Yeah.

And if you look at some of my school reports, it was like, Marcia's well behaved. So that's the first thing they're talking about, Marcia's well behaved. So if you've got well-behaved children, you're not going to get excluded, right? So Marcia's well behaved, but, you know, she's got a little bit of challenge with that. she's got a bit of difficulty with that. I looked at that a few times, I made a post on that, and I just thought, can you imagine? Nobody saw anything more than, I've got some difficulties, it's a little bit of this, but she's really well behaved, is the kind of the overall thing. But she's a bit slow in her learning. These are the terms that they said, but nobody ever detected.

Yeah.

And this is what we're saying about whether it was my environment, whether it was the statistics that this young Black girl, she's got personal problems, because this is why I went into therapy. There was something happening more, something at home. So no one's looking at what else it could be. And the fact it was because I didn't feel good enough, and I didn't feel, you know, at school, I didn't feel like I belonged.

Yeah. And I think that's an important thing to bring up, these differences in what we see with people who have different colored skin, you know, like we were talking a little bit before we started. And for white families, for example, and I live in an area that's very white. So if they're not passing the test, and oftentimes they have families that, you know, they, they, they're challenging the teachers and saying, you know, my child's not learning. And there's some help that happens, not, not a lot. I won't get into all that. But with—

Yeah.

So my son had a friend going through the same exact learning difficulty, but his mother was being told that, oh, he must not be getting enough sleep at night. And it was offensive to her because she thought, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm doing everything a mother should be doing for a child. He is getting sleep at night. It was as though they were suggesting that she wasn't really caring that he wasn't sleeping, and that wasn't the issue. He would be falling asleep trying to read, not because he was tired from not sleeping at night, but he couldn't read. And whereas my son was getting services, he wasn't getting any.

Yeah.

At all.

So that's— yeah, and that's the kind of thing what I'm talking about, that if my mum didn't come knocking on the door, I would have just slipped through that particular system and just moved on to what may be called high school, or we have secondary school. So that's what I'm talking about, those intersections of diversity, equality, inclusion. What was going on there, and was it because of other elements of my heritage, that diverse, as being a young Black girl? Was I going to be the statistic? It's okay, I'm a statistic. Was it my area, the class? Because white children who, when we look at social deprivation and class, it happens too. But there are things that are even so more for people from my heritage background where statistics show that there's a high percentage of exclusions that we can't deny. And there's a high exclusion for— what are some of your backgrounds into the pipeline of prisons? So these things we can't deny they're happening, but nobody talks about them. We're not bringing them to the forefront. And I know that I could have been a statistic. My end of the— when I was 10 going into 11, they said to my parents, I will not academically achieve.

Yeah.

They said they had written me off. Who does that to a child? And you're sitting there. Who does that?

Yeah, yeah.

Do you see what I mean?

Absolutely. I think we have to talk about it. We can't be afraid to talk about that. Um, because you're right, who does that? And this is why we're doing all this work, because it's about the kids, their lives. Um, and everybody, I think, by this point knows what I do. I'm a nurse in an inpatient drug and alcohol facility, and They grow up as adults and the scars that they carry from this, from this 9 and 10 years old and before, it's, it's brutal. Yeah, yeah, the scars are there.

Yeah, those scars are, you know, I, I talk about my trauma to growth through my traumas of school, and it did all start at school. I had to find myself around self-love. healing, acceptance, believing I was good enough. And that's taken a long time. That's been my own investment in myself and developing myself through my education. Because I ended up getting 3 degrees. Not that it sounds like 3 degrees of temperature, but degrees of, you know, a degree, first degree in information science, then in career guidance, which in America I'm sure it's career being a counselor.

Yeah.

and then I did an MA in special education. Sometimes I wonder if some of that's to prove, but obviously I know that I wanted to be educated, to learn, and I knew I had it in me. But when you have people who don't believe in you, there's self-doubt, you feel it. And I felt that those teachers didn't believe I would achieve, and they said it to my parents like I was invisible.

Yes.

Like the child doesn't matter. We have to be careful how we speak and how we talk to our children to elevate them. and finding their strengths, and none of that was available to me. And I do think the area, my environment, those are factors to me not getting the right support.

Yes.

It is factors, and it was so traumatic, and I wouldn't want any other child to go through it, but I know children are going through it, and I do still feel tearful. I still feel— I'm welling up now, and I just think it was just, it was so It feels like I was robbed of my education.

Yeah, you were.

Does that make sense?

You were.

Yeah, yeah, it does feel like that. I feel tearful, not because I have changed that direction, but I had to do a lot of work to do it. It almost felt like I had to hack the system to do it, and that, I mean, in a legal way, but, you know, a way that I had to go work around everything. And jump over things, have templates, create my own resource pack in order to, you know, I could write a book on just resources of making sure you highlight, making sure you know how to read, stay alert, be motivated, tell yourself it's going to be all right, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. All of this self-talk in a positive way to get me through and not to give up. But it was hard, and we can't deny it, and we need to listen to our young people. when they're talking and be advocates for them. That's why I do what I do. To feel that you want to be invisible, you want the ground to swallow you up, that's not what your starting point should be. It shouldn't be. So there's something not quite right with our education system, but nobody's— we all know it, but we don't want to seem to tackle it. I don't understand. Why can't we just start again? We can't be preparing children for the factories. They don't exist.

Yes.

So this kind of rote learning and, you know, kind of linear way, there is a purpose for it. Just like there's somebody who can really write a really good piece of work, they don't have to do it 3 or 4 times. That's great, and we need those types of people. We need the people who've got good memories, but we also need the creativity and the people like us who are neurodivergent. So we all have a place. We're all born here by design. But to tell somebody there's a kind of idea of perfection It's not right.

I think you also mentioned supports, which are important because a lot of dyslexic learners don't have any support, meaning they don't themselves understand why they struggle and the people around them don't understand or they misunderstand. And some dyslexics are fortunate enough to get some information about that early on. So like my son, for example, he was in the 8th grade when we finally started to understand exactly what was going on. So we've had some way of repairing some of that damage. But was your mother— was your mother someone that struggled in school? Was that hard for her to help you?

See, for some of us who have come from— in the UK, some of us are migrants, just like in America there'd be migrants, but we were migrants from the Caribbean. So my parents came here when they were 8, and 10 to the UK, and their experience were very hard.

Yeah.

You know, there was lots of stereotypes, racism, you know, lots of institutional racism. So my parents' education was like, go out and find a job, be a builder, my mum be a nurse, very stereotypical, you know, roles that they were expecting my parents to achieve or do because they thought that's what they should do. And my mum and dad followed those kinds of careers. My dad went into the carpentry and my mum became an auxiliary nurse. Didn't really— still didn't have that understanding. And I go back to that intersectionality. There was things about the system, you just follow the rules, you do what you're told, but those systems failed them too.

Yes.

As young, young Black children, they were failed as well, not understanding the system. My grandma was here working as hard as she could but didn't have that knowledge and insight. And I'm not saying everybody's the same, as I'm saying my story is unique to me, but there are some who can relate to that story. story, that it was very difficult when you're just trying to work to survive. So you want the best for your children. You give them love. But you don't— you're trusting that system. Oh, I did that.

Oh, I'm sorry I did that. I really am. So yeah, and one of the reasons I asked is because sometimes, it being a genetic trait, sometimes the families have gone through difficulties with the school system. And they themselves have anxiety. With relating to the school, and then the school will turn around and say, well, the parents aren't involved. See, it's a, it's a parental, parental thing. Well, well, the parents are anxious too from maybe their learning experience, and it's a cycle that has to be broken, and help has to be found for the kids in areas, as you said, finding their strengths and helping them with these areas of relative weaknesses. And breaking it.

Yeah, yeah, if we call it weaknesses, because remember, it's about what we've been taught in that way.

I call it relative weaknesses for that reason. Yeah, you're asking a student to, to say memorize multiplication tables and they struggle with that and you're not giving them any other way of understanding it, that's a relative weakness. And I think it's a teaching disability Yeah, that's an interesting one.

So going back just to what you said about my mum, so that's really interesting because sometimes you can't detect whether it's because she didn't have a strong education or she did have other genetic things. So bringing that in line, so if we can understand that intersection again, my mum didn't have a good education system, but it's not that she wasn't knowledgeable, but there were all of those other things the institutional racism, being an immigrant. There was a lot of things like no Blacks, no dogs, no Irish. There was a lot of that going on, lots of different things. So we put it into the time that they came in, you know, at that time there was a lot of discrimination. So we can't deny some of those having access to learning the same way as some others might have, even though we know class can have a factor to that, but also your culture and race can have factors to that. But Sort of, if we was to fast forward, when I was a tutor and my mum did a counselling course and I was helping her with some assignments, as you would do with your family. Everybody can help, it's nothing wrong with helping people, but sometimes people make you feel that that's not a good way to support people. But then my mum was having the same kind of traits as me. I was like, Mum, this is, this is, this is really strange, but you're— I'm helping you, but I'm finding it really hard because you're— the things you're asking me to do with things that I struggle with, but it's the same things that I struggle with. I think you might be dyslexic. And there's no way my mum would have been, you know, even though it was 1866 when they first found out about dyslexia, you know, I can't remember, it's something like that, I remember writing about it. And I'm thinking all those years, my mum is dyslexic.

Yeah, yeah.

My mum's dyslexic, I'm dyslexic, my daughter's dyslexic. So We know it's genetic, you know, you know, so, but that was how many years later that my mum found out she was dyslexic. But she knew there was something, she always knew there was something, and that's why she wanted her Marcy, she wanted better for me.

Yeah.

And why— and that's why she went to the school, do you see, because she was trying to protect me. And that's why I said I'm very fortunate I had— not to say other people don't love their children, but she had so much passion and love in the— to want me to achieve and do the best I could, but realize she couldn't provide that for me.

Yeah.

But this was the only way she could, so she was in that flight and fight, trying to find a way to help me, because she could see that something in me was similar to her, but she never shared that with me.

Yeah.

She masked that from me all those years until I was an adult and was saying, Mum, I think something— so I never knew she wasn't— she was dyslexic. never.

Yeah.

And I knew about her being left-handed and all these other things, but not that she could have been— yeah, so sorry, I'll let you speak.

That's all right. My mother was 70, and I'm teaching my 7-year-old son, and she said to me, I needed help like you're giving your son Nicholas.

Wow.

And that's when I recognized. And then you start, like you, you start to see the traits. You start to see, you know, Mum didn't read outside of her little narrow area of reading. And, and, and, but she was like your mum in that my daughters are going to be educated. End of story.

Yeah. She didn't know how she was doing that, but she was fighting for me. And that's how I got the therapy to know, like later on when I did Lizzie's talk, my mum said they thought that something was happening at home that wasn't quite right. So that's why they thought they'll do the therapy for me. They thought that I was selectively muting because it was, you know, there was something happening that was traumatic at home. The trauma was in the classroom.

Yes, that's where it is.

Say that again. The trauma was in the classroom.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

And you know, the paper, the academic paper that I go back to regularly is titled Beyond the Deficit Theory. And the first thing we do when children fail to learn to read or struggle is blame the child. We look at their home background, we look at their IQ, we'll look at this, look at that, look at the other, and we fail to look at how we are teaching. And that's exactly what happened to you. It's what happened to my son. It's what happened to me. It's what happened to Lisa's children.

I have to bring up something that's hard for people to hear, but again, this is what I do in my job. And a lot of this trauma that's happening in the classroom, and a lot of this is intergenerational because of it having a genetic component. So Sometimes, and not always, people are dealing with their traumas in unhealthy ways such as drugs and alcohol. Once that pattern gets set up, oftentimes— just for an example, you might have a father who struggled and dealt with his anxiety and low self-esteem by drinking, for example. Now he has a son or daughter that's having similar experiences, and they want their kids to be better than them, but they don't understand why they themselves have struggled because nobody sat them down to say, you are bright people that have these fantastic skills and this thinking brain that doesn't quite fit in this education system the way it is. And then a lot of the times the parents who maybe are drinking are acting out towards the kids because of their fear Yeah. And their love for these kids that they don't want them to follow in the same path, but it turns into trauma at home. And that's where this cycle continues. And not to mention, oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes, if you're not doing well in school and you don't have the same opportunities, maybe you're at risk for underemployment or unemployment and the stress that that creates. And it's this whole snowball effect that people don't really see isn't coming from necessarily the family as though the Family's bad. They'll say, well, the family's bad. Where did it start? And when you start talking to these people, you realize that, you know, you can ask, well, what did your father do for a living or whatever? And then you start to uncover what really has gone on. And the trauma, as it turned out, started in the classroom. So I'm glad somebody's not afraid to say that because people dismiss this and say, no, it's the families, it's because they're drinking. What Where is— where did the trauma start and why?

And I just feel that we, we're losing humanity, the care and the compassion, because that's the real work, isn't it, to break that down. We talk about being personal-centered, the holistic approach, but that takes time. We can't measure that by cost, and that's the real work. And I would love to see that work really happening, but there's never— we say funding, or you need to get It's always something like that, but that's the real work because, you know, when— if we talk about race, we talk about marginalized communities that don't have the opportunities. Some of this stuff is what's happened over time, generations of, you know, and I don't want to make assumptions, but I know I can speak from my own experience when, you know, you're seen as working class, you're seen as in these systems that have been created, that the opportunities can be limited or— The opportunities, you know, I did an information degree, but I never got into that environment. But when I went for those interviews, I never felt like I fitted in. So again, it felt like I was back in the classroom.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So I don't feel like I fit. And again, then it can trigger things in you because of those traumas. You go back to that place of feeling not good enough, and then you have that self-sabotage and then those imposter syndromes. And it's a lot of work to keep reminding yourself that you are good enough, you are worthy, Those self-esteem, your low self-esteem. So mental health, it can be on a thin line. And I know Neil Alexander, he wrote about mental health and dyslexia. There is definitely a link, there is no doubt about it.

Yes.

I'm not shy to say my mental health— and everyone has mental health, let's get real, even we've had COVID and everything, everyone has mental health. It's not a bad word. We should be saying mental health is a real thing that everybody has, but it's how that thin line of how it can go one way or another depends on what happens or how life throws and how you're thinking at that point in time and your mindset and how we can, you know, so you don't get triggered. When I was bullied at work, I was triggered right back to feeling when I was 10.

Yes.

And do you tell your HR, well, it's because I'm feeling like this, well, because I don't feel good enough, this came back to when I was— people don't understand. We need to understand that more, work so people can belong in some way to feel that then they're not crazy, even though I'm just using that lightly. It's a real thing and it's okay. Let's work through it.

Yeah.

You know, let's do this, whether it's mindfulness, whether it's— let's work through this to understand what it is. So you have to do a lot of the inside work, and organizations need to do the inside work about what are their real values and their belief systems, and what is it they really want to, you know, support and nurture. The systems of, you know, you, you're the top set and you're the lower set— do we want to create that kind of, kind of, kind of environment?

At the age of 10.

Before that, no, this happens before that. Yes, the kids know very early on who's looked at as the smart kids, or, you know, the teacher's pet, or whatever, the good kids that are just sitting down and doing the work. That's, that's where this starts. And, uh, yeah.

And children pick up on that very quickly, who's smart, Or, you know, who's reading well and who's not.

But also, and I have to point this out because I had a conversation with somebody about this yesterday, when the teachers— and I'm not bashing teachers, please, I love teachers— but when the teachers are being asked to do what they're being asked to do and, you know, pass the standardized tests and all this, when they have those students that are not doing well and they're getting frustrated with them, The teachers getting frustrated with the kids gives the other kids license to also mistreat these kids. And there's where a lot of the bullying starts. You know, and it's coming from a system, not individual people necessarily, but a system that is valuing these skills.

Oh, yes.

You know, over—

Right. Totally agree.

Yeah, 100%. No, we've got a question.

Sorry, what advice do you have for parents that have children that are struggling to read in school?

That's a really interesting— I mean, there's no definitive way of saying it, so I can only give an example from my daughter. So there are set books that you have to read in the curriculum, and my daughter was reading some of these books, and she would be reading the same words and then asking me again, Mummy, can you read that word? Or, Mummy, I don't know that word. But we've just read that word, so So what's— so there was obviously something with her memory. So I just had to keep tapping on the school and say, hi, do you remember me? But she's in par with her peers. She's, you know, she's just— she's at the same level as her peers. But I'm an expert on my child, so I'm gonna keep knocking that door. So I was a bit, you know, and I'm not— I'm, you know, I'm not like gonna be like, what's the word, apologizing for it, but I was one of those parents who just kept on knocking. Using my support network, but because I knew about dyslexia, I was—I guess—I was at advantage. But it still got two years. It still took two years for us to actually get a diagnosis, but they acknowledged from an internal test. So I—I'm saying that what I did was I just kept reminding me every so often. Hi, it's me. Yes, I can see. Yeah, her assessment. She's oh, she's really good. She's well behaved. These things are cultural for me. It's like you need to behave at school. You need to follow the rules, but if something's not quite right, you need to tell mummy. And I just consistently was just knocking on the school because I could see that I was filling in the gaps for her, and I had to do things. So for example, one of my coping strategies— I don't read words, I memorize them, okay? So generally I recognize words. It's not— I don't do phonics, so most of my reading is by recognition. So what I did for her, I taught her how to chunk. So like chunk up the words into 3 bits or visualize them. Like say like because, it's got lots of words in there. So be, us. So I learned her ways of trying. It sounds really weird and long, but I taught her different ways of finding ways to learn. So she used to get tops for spelling, so school never recognized, but she still had this learning difference and a way of learning. So I'd My point, to go back to the answer, because I could go around and talk forever to get to the same point, is to say that I was consistently reminding the school about my daughter and some of the concerns I had. And I would just say, hi, remember me? In a nice way. But I'm not going to be taken that I'm a pushy parent and I'm thinking my— but I know my child and I can see she was struggling. I want you to hear me and it's a duty to support my child and I'm going to— I'm not going away.

Good on you.

I hope that answers it. It took 2 years for me to get a diagnosis, and, you know, yeah, it was a real, real, real struggle.

Did you get adequate support after that 2 years?

Yes, we did, we did. So she had interventions which she really found helpful. She didn't know because as far as she was concerned, she was doing okay, but I knew differently. Not that she, you know, because I had all those strategies, we were really getting to grips with everything. I was filling in the gaps that the school wasn't doing, I would say, and that's fine. Some of that is— parents have to take a responsibility as well. And then I did tutoring, so I did pay for tutoring in the end. I made, you know, I'd done my best. I just thought, I'm gonna give her what I didn't have.

Yeah.

So I was able to do it because I'm a trustee of an organization called the Waltham Forest Dyslexia Association, and they do discounting tutoring to support parents. So I— and that's how I got involved in being a trustee by taking my daughter to tutoring. So I did a test, they do assessments, and I did the assessment so I knew she was, so I just had to push the school. So I hope that kind of answers the question. Yes, it does. To me it does. Yeah, it's just, yeah, just never give up, never give up. Just keep reminding the school and just keep knocking on the door and don't feel like you're a pushy parent. You know, try to get answers and, you know, and if you don't feel you can do it, bring a friend.

Yeah.

Bring somebody. Yeah, because I've done it for other parents. I've been there, I've been their representative or advocate, and it was just like, if you feel there's something and then you— it's autism, it's like, well, when did the school not notice? Or not to say they couldn't notice, that would be wrong to say. It doesn't mean everybody displaying different traits of, you know, autism, but it was like, yeah, let's get a plan, let's get something in place. And it was just through those conversations or being a champion with that parent to feel, to find their voice. Because sometimes parents are fearful, and we've got to understand where these different parents are coming from, to why they feel fearful to ask the authority, or feel like, okay, they've said it's not, and I'll just go away. But you still know deep in your heart there's something not quite right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. This is a phenomenal discussion because what I know, you know, with dyslexia and learning disabilities, you're right, it does come in layers, you know, and, and if you've got one problem, but there are multiple layers that are often ignored, and the first thing we look at is behaviour.

Yeah, and that's why children get excluded, um, yeah, because of behaviour.

Well, that's cheap, because the, the, the things that they come up with to deal with that don't cost them a lot of money. I mean, it costs the child a lot in self-esteem and missed opportunity, but it doesn't cost the school anything to have pages and pages of behavioural contracts. It costs them money to have supports to help them. This is where my big mouth calls it out. And, you know, I think— because we have to.

They've forgotten the world has changed. You know, we are now required to do teach 100%, or pretty close, children to read. We can't just write children off. We have to provide resources for all children.

And reading comes in different ways, doesn't it? You know, I've just started doing audio or some of the software because we have something called Access to Work. So part of my arrangement, or reasonable adjustments, or you call it accommodations, is that I've got a software that reads back to Can you imagine if they had that in school? It's not hacking. Can you imagine if you had that? I was trying to show my daughter, but because she's so used to the linear kind of way, I was like, listen, look at this software. She may want it later on. This is great. So my brain doesn't get overloaded and gets what you were talking about with that child, gets tired because I'm really focusing, concentrating. And actually my reading's quite good now.

Yes.

But I still sometimes have to read, I still kind of have to really, with everything in my brain, to concentrate on reading those words. It just feels, it just feels all exhausting, so it's not a natural thing for me, but if it's like red to me and I can follow it because it highlights it in yellow, that's it, I'm, I'm good. Yeah, yeah, it's not too much pressure on me, the strain.

Yep, and you don't get as much as the knowledge gap that happens and they can keep up.

Keep up, I mean—

Keep up in the class, like with what's going on in the classroom.

I mean, yeah, because what used to happen with me, I used to miss words, so Somehow you'd have to— in the end I had to use a ruler because when I was reading I didn't read the whole word, I would miss off the end or I'll read the wrong lines.

Yeah.

My brain wasn't able to just follow. So all of these things, you know, things have changed, we've got the technology so why not use it? We need to update the school system and it's not all negative, you know, just to say before you speak, Lisa, you know, I got diagnosed when I was 16 and my teachers just said, Marcia, in my politics class because I had to retake all of my GCSEs, which we have, because I only came out with one. So I'm not even— we never even touched on secondary school, so I'm going to leave that for now because we might not have the time. But my teacher said to me, and I never forget, and I'm just always grateful for him, I can't remember his name, and he said, Marcy, you're so articulate when you're talking, but it's not matching up on the paper, and something's not quite connecting together. So I'm going to go and take you to this lady who I remember was Jenny McWhinney, and we're going to do an assessment. It was a new world to me. I didn't know assessment, what was even that? I didn't even know what that meant. So what I'm saying is that it was the education system, but it was later on when I was 16. College is so different, it's all about independency, independent, being independent. But here was this teacher who saw something in me.

Yeah.

And by him seeing something genuine in me, it enabled me to find my purpose. Dyslexia has become my purpose and my passion to enable others to find their voice. I didn't know I had dyslexia, and I feel like I've been one of the fortunate ones at 16 to be diagnosed.

And then you wrote a book?

No, I have wrote a book. I've written an anthology with 8 other ladies called Pioneering Speak, and I've got a chapter in it called Neurodiversity in business, and it talks about being an entrepreneur, talks about goal setting because I'm a careers advisor, so it talks about goal setting, and it talks about my dyslexia and about how looking at the strengths of that and what that means for me. So it's like 3 little mini chapters within a whole book, but I'm actually writing a book, and actually, no, I've submitted to the publishers, I'm just waiting to get some feedback now, so it's really exciting. It's not something I really talk about because it's just something I like to do in the background because it's something Marines and lots to me. It's about being dyslexic and Black, and about all of the things we just shared a little bit about that intersection. And about— I talk about being invisible, but I've also felt invisible as a young Black girl growing up because I never saw any role models. I never saw anybody who looked like me, and that makes a lot of difference.

Yes.

The people we see today, and I still see today, don't represent my stories. I've shared a little bit of my story, but some people are not going to recognise that story. It might mean, what are you talking about? sections overlay of culture, because cultures, you know, in society, we're all the same. It's not. There's so much difference. There's so much difference to possible stigmas, taboos, to society and how it portrays that representation or stereotypes of a person.

Yes.

You know, so my grandma's saying work hard. So not only was, as a young Black girl, I'm having to work hard because I have to, to achieve things, then your gender, the glass trying to achieve things, and then I'm dyslexic. This is just a lot of different things I'm having to fight for a system to find my place in the world.

Yeah, yeah.

You see what I mean? So that's what inspired me to write a book like this, to share my story with 20 other people, 25 other people, because I believe in other people having the platform to find their voice. I feel I'm really into equity, building other people and lifting each other up. It's very important to me, and I just feel that my voice, I did— I've always felt invisible for those reasons, that I didn't feel that I could see myself as well as a young girl growing up, and think people I could relate to. Not that I can't relate to other dyslexics, but there's just something about sometimes those stories, those familiar stories, even if it's a girl from London.

Yes.

That's a story in itself to somebody who lives in Birmingham, or it's— we've got different stories and different things that we share together, and some things we don't share together.

I think that's fantastic. I've really enjoyed this whole conversation, and I just appreciate all the things that you do. It's important stuff. We have to have these conversations. Sorry, Lois.

I have to agree with you, Lisa. I totally agree with you. It's been phenomenal. I love what you've said, and I totally agree. We need role models who we connect with.

And across the— and yeah, across the globe, not just the same set of Romans. So there's something about not everyone has got a place at the table, but we need to all have a voice. It can't be just one narrative, and that's why the Narrative Changer came into play. It's about we all have— we've all got a story to tell, every one of us inside of us, and we shouldn't be denied that.

Yeah.

Those stories. So we— and that's how social media just came by, just tapping my views, and then There you go. I just felt like I needed to share, I needed to say something, I needed to represent in a way.

I agree with you, you do. Well, this has been a phenomenal conversation, and I have to say thank you to my son Chris and his buddy Isaac, for whose tremendous support this show would not go on. And for their—

Thank you, Christopher.

And their expertise, because I can't do it.

You can, you can do it, you can do it.

We need—

we all need help, and that's, that's part of it. So we're doing it because you're, you're here doing it, but you've got support. And support systems are really important for everybody, rather whether you're dyslexic, neurodivergent, or not. Support systems are really important to everybody. So you are doing it with some support.

I am, and I've got a brachial plexus lesion at the moment, and I cannot move my right arm, so I'm in serious trouble. Anyway, where can we find you, Marcia? Where can people find you?

So I'm on LinkedIn a lot. I try to— I'm trying to have a break. I think they have got a real interest, so I just keep saying things. I keep thinking I've got to stop. So I'm on LinkedIn under my name, Marcia Pressitt Bailey. I'm also on Instagram. Those are 2 places you can find me, and I'm called The Black Dyslexic. And as you can imagine, the reason behind that is just to have that kind of visual representation. It's not that everything's just about being Black, but it's just about highlighting that Black people can have dyslexia too, and not that we're just, you know, I'm just silly or anything, and, you know, all the sometimes the stereotype and representation that's put out there. It is really true, I do have dyslexia, so, you know, that's why I kind of emphasized on that, the Black dyslexic, just to make that point, yeah, but there's nothing else in it.

I think I'm following you on Instagram, but I'll have to check.

Yeah, you are, you are, because I linked you on to the post for today's talk. So those are the two. I do do Twitter, but I must admit, if we're talking about neurodiversity or dyslexia with social media platforms, Twitter I find really tricky. I just about can retweet a tweet. I find that really— but I'm on there as well, just as I say, Marcia Brissett Bailey, but I don't go on there as much. You know, you've got to sometimes know your place. You build on things, just like anything you build and you grow and whether you want to— I mean, TikTok, I'm not even there, so I'm not even talking about it. Maybe— And it's all topography. Yeah, so Marcia Brissett-Bailey's in my LinkedIn, and then the same for Twitter if you want to look for me there, and The Black Dyslexic for Instagram. I love engaging and, you know, sharing, and, you know, we just work together, isn't it? We're a community. Sharing's caring. That's what I used to tell the children in the front room when I was working in school. Sharing's caring. We have to, we have to work together as a team and collaborate and try to get as much out there about what's actually going on, you know, to change the narrative.

And Lisa, where do we find you? Well, look guys, mostly on the old people Facebook thing still. I got the LinkedIn and the Instagrams and all this. Well, I do have to say my signed me up for TikTok. I don't post anything, but I'm like addicted to TikTok. So Marcia, I need you to start making some TikToks about this so I can start sharing those, because that would be fabulous. But mostly just here with Lois and Facebook.

Oh well, this is a good space. This is a good space to be.

So smash the like and subscribe buttons, hit the bell for notifications. notifications and uploads to my channel and share the channel with friends, friends and family, and with all who have dyslexia who benefit from hearing our stories and books and poems to know that dyslexic people are not alone. And so this channel can grow. Find me Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and my website at loislatchford.com. Links to my book and audiobook and Amazon are on the website. And next week's guest is another one from the UK, and it's Steve McHugh from The Unique Dyslexic Eye. So we look forward to having him join us. Lisa, thank you. And Marcia, I am so delighted we have got to speak with you, and I look forward to further conversations.

I love that.

Thank you. That's the end, Isaac. Let me—

Nice to meet you. It was really fantastic. Thanks again. Oh, you're