ok here's the punch line(s)...
I too have dyslexia. I'm actually a dyslexic agnostic, I lay awake at night
wondering if there really is a dog. After many sleepless nights without
answers, I decided to give up and sold my soul to Santa.
sorry..
-----Original Message-----
From Charles Christ [mailto:cfchrist at earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 8:26 PM
To: spridgets@autox.team.net
Subject: dyslexia vs. linear thinking
i had a very interesting discussion with 2 fellow racers at the local
college's motorsport expo late last year.
i had no idea that these 2 other fellows were dyslexic untill wehad lunch
together and discussed some of our local hillclimbs and how we saw and
learned the courses.
the one fellow drives an aston martin, theother has a mgb. we started to
discuss handling problems of handling on city street courses with crowned
road surfaces(to facilitate water runoff) and changing surfaces (cement,
asphalt and road work patches) ad how our cars were reacting to the changes
in specific corners at certain hillclimbs. now i must explain that in
linear terms from the start line to the finish line the turns are numbered 1
through how ever many untill reaching the finish line. i explained that i
had trouble memorising the exact number to be aplied to each corner in their
sucession up the hill unless i started mentally and counted up the hill
each time to figure out where evryone was talikng about when discussing a
handling problen on a course. but i could describe the corner in scenic and
surface detail, yet aplied numbers of a specific turn came all to hard to
me. now this is how road racing and hillclimbing courses are tought to
novice drivers, in a linear pattern. makes sense to 99% of the population
right?
enter the 1% of dyslexic's. at the motorsport expo, in that discussion i
had the most reassuring revalation .
my 2 fellow drivers expressed the same dificulty in learning , processing
and retaining information as was attempted to be tought by resident experts
and instructors was spotty at best but we all agreed and understood our
amusungly thorough descriptions of the scenery and surfaces of specific
turns but remembering the numbers attached to them was very hard.
personally i had trouble in school learning what was being tought in linear
fashion. racing comes to me the same way. this long disertation has a
reason. i am curious how many other individuals out there are finding out
that the accepted method of education (not just for racing course
instruction) is not hitting home in the old cranium?
i am right handed when it comes to writing, but when mechanically working
equally able right or left handed. is this what it is like in a "right
handed " world if you are a left handed person? 4 year old seems to be left
handed, wife and i are rightys. just curious for his sake?
chuck.
sorry about the long post, but extremly curious as i am considering writing
a paper on this with considerations toward the scca's nationally published
magazine. by the way as i am given to fits of wierd humor,, this is not a
joke with a cool punch line soon to follow...............c.
cfchrist@earthlink.net
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