As you read this story, I am patiently waiting for the outcome of the fiercest mental battle of my life; the result of the 2017/2018 Nigerian Law School Bar part 2 exams. I faithfully wait for it in anticipation of my Call to Bar Ceremony as a Lawyer and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Amidst the excitement for the proposed auspicious moment, it is an anticipating accomplishment I look forward to dedicating to some special individuals, especially those that are found within the academic institutions in Nigeria and the whole of Africa. It is a fervent moment to beckon the attention of our society to the pain and frustration of a particular set of special people in our educational system. They are called “The Dyslexics.”

In blinkered understanding, Dyslexia is only characterized as a reading disorder in which the brain has trouble properly processing language, making it difficult to spell, read quickly, and write words and also solve math. But experts would tell us that it is a language-based learning condition caused by a different wiring of the brain which has no relationship to intelligence. They are neither more nor less intelligent than the general population. Rather than refer to it as a disability, it should more accurately be called a conditional liability. Some would say that people with dyslexia are geniuses whose way of thinking can actually be an asset in achieving success.

Mine all started before I was born but everything began to connect right from primary school and through my university education. I grew up as a young boy who can be referred to as a tech geek with keen, intuitive and eccentric understanding of how almost everything works. I dismantled and repaired every gadget in the house without anyone putting me through any form of training. I was very imaginative and inventive. With this understanding, I developed the ambition to study Electrical Electronics Engineering. But my ambition began to wane when I discovered I wasn’t good at math. I was very terrible in anything that involves calculation. It wouldn’t just stick to my memory no matter how hard I tried. To concentrate in class and learn generally was a ceaseless fluctuating exercise. To escape the horror of listening to figures and words that make my brain to spin and also the countless number of canes I received from my teachers for being “unteachable,” I became a truant (especially math classes) for a considerable period in primary and secondary school. As a result of this, I gave up my ambition for a torrential academic performance that wouldn’t score me higher chances for admission into the university. That was the start of my academic frustration. To avoid the wrath of my parents who are unrepentant disciplinarians, dropping out of school was never an option. Despite the bad grades, frustrations and disappointments I got from school, somehow beneath my heart I was still in love with school. As a result of this, I ran to arts class and naively opted to study law to escape the demands of any form of calculation. But unknown to me, being admitted into the higher institution to study law was the beginning of my miserable years in pursuit of education.

All through my years in the university as a law student were moments of horror, panic and trepidation. From my first day in class, it was obvious to me that I was in a wrong environment. I was meant to understand that except I consistently cram substantial part of my lecture notes and text books and reproduce them word for word, I would never make good grades. Subsequently, it became crystal that classes that involved strict reading and writing were mental torture chambers for me. I struggled to understand almost everything, that is, if I did at all understood any at instant. Because of the parallel academic calendar law faculties run and the voluminous course outlines, every student was expected to read ahead of the teachers and also cover the areas where they were unable to.

Some of my teachers would spend a few hours in a bulky topic and would expect you to reproduce it in tests and examination in less than forty-five minutes. This was cruel to me. I never hesitated concealing my hatred for any lecturer who asked me to attempt answering any random question during lectures. I never got many correct; if indeed I got at all. While some teachers were more interested in covering their assigned lecture areas before the next teacher walked in. Others were more concerned with their personal engagements. Whether you were in terms with the lectures for that day or not was never their business. To them, they have registered their presence in the class and whether you understood anything or not, you should just expect the topics during examinations. Some would tell you, “just cram it and give me back what I gave you in the class.” These situations sent me mentally ablaze. Not only did I struggle with the mental capacity to quickly understand the marathon lectures, I never got enough time to read and properly digest any topic. Proper understanding of a topic would take me reading it for not less than five times before it would sink into my memory and to go round the whole course outlines for not less than five times was an impossible adventure given the voluminous work load. My brain became stiff and saturated. I was frustrated; nothing again at that point caught my interest. Conclusively, I became “dumb and stupid” before some of my lecturers and some of my classmates. I neither asked nor got any question correct in the class. Despite these difficult times, I came to a realization one day that I was already in love with the study of law because of its diverse, explosive and scintillating nature. Studying law brought me to an intersection where I connected with every other field of study. But the unfortunate process I found myself in literally rejected me but I was already deeply in love.

Throughout my five years in the university, I miraculously recorded an ‘A’ in one course out of more than twenty five (25) courses, others were below ‘C’. Every exam was a torture and I can’t recall not going blank in all of them. Crying after sitting for each examination was a routine. I never entered any examination hall prepared. While other students studied to make high grades, I studied not to have any carryover. My grades became so low that I suffered depression and low self esteem academically but no one ever found out except my close friends. For too many times in school, I considered dropping out. But my passion for education, coupled with the devastating stigma I would suffer from both family and friends wouldn’t let me do that. Nobody would just understand me. I couldn’t even understand myself too. I knew I have a “problem” but I can’t just figure it out. Why can’t I just perform well like other students in class despite all my frantic efforts? I surfed the internet daily for the causes of my “mysterious condition” and I saw many related cases but they were never compatible with my situation. I guess I wasn’t even sure of what I was searching for. My frustration grew higher, I was convinced I was “dumb” academically, not good enough and was never going to fit in. For the remaining part of my years in university, I became more interested in graduating with my class mates rather than being concerned with grades. The pain would be more if I ever spend any extra year in that torture chambers called class room. All my goals and ambitions became far from attainment. I felt I lacked the capacity to achieve them. All I did was to fantasize about them in their amazing rendition.

In every sense of humility and due respect, part of the things that made my situations worst were some of my teachers/lectures. They were more interested in using people like me to set examples as the students who were wasting their time and parents’ resources in school than finding the solutions to our problems. They have little or no knowledge of the mental and physiological challenges of their students. They maintain zero personal relationship with their students that all they see in them is their good and bad grades. But only a few are amazingly caring. They showed great concern but were too helpless to figure out our challenges. For the unconcerned ones, they would frantically tell us repeatedly; “with the way we are going in the accumulation of poor grades, the society would not have any place for you.” These words haunted me repeatedly like predators. They made it clear that we would not amount to anything in life. We are simply “dumb and stupid.” Their daily emphasis of these dehumanizing utterances made me lose motivation the more. Their words pierce my heart and gave way for all the slightest accumulation of courage I gave myself to flow away. I was losing the grip of my breath and dying every day I set my feet in the classroom. As far as class room activities and intellectual discussions were concerned, nobody remembered me.

Amidst all these academic predicaments, my activities outside the classroom were mastery. I was socially ascendant, full of life, energetically flourishing, physically fit and never exhausted my elasticity. I was aware of these and I capitalized on it to also make my impacts in school. It is never in me to leave any environment I found myself the same, no matter how little the positive impression. I was gifted with the skills of human management. The overwhelming student leadership activities I demonstrated in school were too unexpected of a “dumb guy” like me. In any activity outside classroom, I never lost the childhood gift I developed of looking at an object or situations and just know how it works. I master many skills faster than the average person could comprehend or understand. My primary thought process is non-verbal picture thinking (this was actually my challenge in classrooms for they are more often verbal) which occurs at an average of thirty-two (32) picture per second. I was exceptionally good at the above mentioned skills but unfortunately, my teachers/lecturers would never consider them while grading me in both character and learning. All these happened coherently and I was leveraging on my ingenious skills and gifts to console my academic deficiencies. A few days after I wrote my last paper as a final year student, the mysteries surrounding my neurological conditions were unraveled. I am dyslexic. My first acquaintance with the word was in one of the corporate social campaigns of Richard Branson’s, the celebrity entrepreneur and CEO of Virgin Airlines. He was discussing Dyslexia and I became curios as a result of my ignorance of what Dyslexic meant. I searched for the meaning immediately and I became more interested. I learnt that dyslexia is a neurological condition. I took the test and to my greatest shock, I have the brain condition. Although I was apprehensive for a long time but out of curiosity to find a lasting solution to what have been my misery all long, I discovered I am a special child not less than the others. People like me are unique and rare in our own special ways. I discovered I had no problem; I was just in a wrong system that enhanced frustration rather than breeds my ingenuity. I cried heavily but this time, crying produced tears of joy. I am free from my bondage of ignorance. I have discovered who I am. I have accepted myself the way I am.

Looking back to all the years I spent in the school, I made a conclusion that the system was never designed to help me. Many of my kind all over the world dropped out of school and pursued their passion when they could no longer face the frustration. Some gave up their dreams and quite a number landed in jail as a result of the hostility they exhibited due to little or no adequate support. I hated the school system for not taking notice of people like me. I hated some of my teachers/lecturers for telling me I would never amount to anything because of my grade. They are wrong. They never knew that Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Richard Branson, Walt Disney, Leonardo da Vinci, Muhammad Ali,etc. were all like me and their achievements were made possible because they are dyslexic. I hated some of my classmates and colleagues who mocked and laughed at me for not being “brilliant.” They turned my overwhelming admiration for their erudition and intellectual prowess to hate. They bullied and mocked my pet projects in school and made frantic efforts to always tell ugly stories about me. To drive their unfounded stories and allegation home by ignorantly assumed responsibility for my challenges. Unfortunately, the gullible ones believed them. I was their greatest fan but they never noticed me. I dreamt often to be as “brilliant” as they are.

The struggle is over now. I made the discovery too late in the school and I regrettably had no form of assistance or professional support. The school wasn’t just a challenge to me, it was a nightmare. My ignorance of dyslexia embarrassed me and I performed terribly in all my tests and examinations. These were tests and examinations which according to Richard Branson, “they measured abilities where I was weak. But in the end, it was the test that failed”. They totally missed my passion and skills in leadership. “They had no means to identify ambition, the fire inside that drives people to find a path to success that zigzags around the maze of standards doors that won’t open.” They never identified I am a good cook, that I am a very fantastic driver and story teller. “They never identified the most important talent of all. It is the ability to connect with people, mind to mind, soul to soul. It’s the rare power to engage the ambitions of others so that they too, rise to the level of their dreams.”
Conclusively, I write this piece to raise public awareness of Dyslexia. I look forward to pushing for a campaign through “Dyslexia Nigeria” across regions and nations to encourage all dyslexics out there to live above their perceived predicaments. We are geniuses who simply see the world differently. We are gifts and an asset to the society when given the opportunity to manifest our talents. I call on our leaders, individuals and organization to intervene. Many students are unaware they are Dyslexic. Adequate mechanism should be put in place in the school system to enhance our potentials. Early discovery of dyslexia in a child would go a long way to help in their proper upbringing. The risk of neglecting them would put the society at a loss for being unable to benefit from their ingenious mindset and intuitive aptitude towards the maze the difficult situations that seem to defile a solution.

We are not dumb and stupid! We are just Dyslexic!

Kindly share the story. You or someone around you could be affected.

Edwin Ugwuodo
Ugwuodo.edwin@yahoo.com
https://twitter.com/ugwuodo_edwin

Dyslexia Nigeria
01-6327387
09025446486
screening@dyslexianigeria.com

Success on your call to bar
So you went for nysc before law school

Thank you very much. Yes I did went for NYSC before law school