But there isn't any evidence that there's anything fundamentally different about dyslexic students. We have no proof whatsoever that they enter school any different to their non-dyslexic peers, but we do know that they leave school with poorer reading skills. To say that these students are dyslexic, rather than saying that we have failed to teach them to read, is a political rather than scientific decision. We are arbitrarily labelling those most poorly-served by school as learning disabled, for no rational reason other than to absolve the system of blame.
I'm not big on throwing this out there but I've struggled with dyslexia. As an example I wasn't able to read until I was in 5th grade. I can get lost in my own neighborhood. I have trouble learning something without physically writing it down or actually doing the activity. I'm 44 now and I wouldn't say that was a lack of skill from my teachers. When I grew up in the 70's and early 80s there was very little awareness about what to do with kids with dyslexia but it seems like your point is that if these kids just were taught properly then we wouldn't see this symptoms. From my own personal experience I can tell you that's not true at all. I also have a friend who's so dyslexic that he can't drive. He's so crippled by it that he can't even type in his own pin number. If he needs money from the bank I'll drive him and get the cash out of the ATM for him. I'm sure I could teach him how to type in 4 numbers but that's clearly not going to help. This is just a personal story with a sample size of two. I get that. With that said, maybe will shed some light on something that's affected me in a very profound way. best.
There may indeed be no evidence that these students enter school any different from their peers. However, in the absence of evidence, you cannot make any conclusions at all. It does not necessarily follow that the school is at fault, nor does it follow that there is some sort of conspiracy at work. All we can do here is give our opinions.
If a person has a low aptitude for something, then they themselves will naturally tend away from it, and toward things at which they feel they can succeed. I liked programming initially because it fit with how I thought and what I liked to do, so I practiced it and became better. I don’t care that much about cars, so I don’t know a lot about them—just enough to do basic repairs once in a while. So it could very well be that the child has no learning disability and the educator is not at fault. We cannot know without hard data.
