Dyslexic Voices ft. Darius Namdaran, Educator, Advocate, and Entrepreneur

And like that little kid saying, I thought life was about understanding things, not learning things. And there's a big difference between learning and understanding. I noticed a lot of the people around me just learned, and others, many of them just didn't understand. But you don't get graded on your understanding, you get graded on your learning.

Hello, everyone. We are Sonja and Nick, and this is Dyslexia Journey. And today, we are excited to welcome Darius Namdaran. Darius is the host of the Dyslexia Explored podcast, and as well as the CEO of Ivy. So we are excited to talk to Darius today. Welcome. Thanks for having me.

So we have a lot to cover with you today, because, you know, you are yourself one of our dyslexic voices, and you also have adult children who are dyslexic. So we'll get into that as well. But let's just start at the very beginning. So what was it like before you were identified with dyslexia as a child? I don't know what age that was. Well, I actually found out about dyslexia when I was 35. Okay, so the second time I went to university, I thought to myself, right, I know, I used to write apologies at the end of my exam essays. You know, when I was a teenager, I would write an apology, literally at the end, I would say, Dear examiner, I am so sorry about my handwriting. I am so sorry about my spelling. I really do try. I hope you can see through it and appreciate the content that's there. And understand, I have done my best to do this well.

And because I was given that advice by another examiner who said, you know, you got to realize the examiners at the end of the paper looking at it going, what just happened there? You know, and if you put a message at the bottom, they can read that message, you can connect with them. And so that's what I did for every single exam. And I did quite well, I got I was one of the highest percentile in Scottish exams, and ended up going to law school.

But just because I gained the system, I figured out how to gain the system. And I didn't actually figure out how to learn. And so that's when I actually found out I had dyslexia. And I discounted it, because letters don't jump up and down for me. You know, when I read something that everything is static, it's not moving around. And I just assumed I can't be dyslexic, because letters don't jump up and down for me. So and I just got this misconception that everyone with dyslexia, their letters jump up and down. And that's totally not true.

Not true. It's actually now I realize it's only about 3% of those with dyslexia have bouncing letters, everyone else they're fixed. And it's not about letters jumping, it's about how you process the information. as retarded. And it's not a word we use nowadays anymore. But I think that was the official politically correct term at the time, believe it or not. Can you imagine that retard is a politically correct term? Well, that's how they viewed me. And I wasn't getting it. You know, my parents were confused. Then my mum and dad, I can't remember any of them.

Because I just blanked it all out. But what I do remember one day, when we were in the revolution, and the tanks were rolling down the streets, and we were getting ready to come back home to the UK, because I was born in the UK, my mum was from the UK. And I overhead, the teacher said, Darius, you're going to find it really hard in the UK schools, because they're really good schools. And you're not clever enough for those schools. And the biggest irony is now, when I'm 35, I probably got a higher IQ than any teacher who's ever taught me.

And do you know what I mean? And that includes university. And like, when you get the dyslexia assessment, and there's like IQ, she's like, I had to break out a new pack of cards that I've never used before. Because you just kept going through them. And, and isn't it fascinating that, you know, you can actually be a deeply intelligent person and just not be able to get it the way that the people around about you get it.

So I came to school, my mum said to me, when I was about nine years old, I was going to a local primary school, my mum said to me, Darius, how are you doing at school? How are you finding it? And now I know it was a loaded question. She, you know, but I was just like, Oh, yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit easy. You know, it's just too easy. You know? And then she says to me, Oh, because I've spoken to the school, and they say that you're finding it really hard. And I'm like, I don't understand, you know, and, and then they say, you find it hard to remember these words, you're finding it hard to do your spelling, you're finding it hard to do this, and you're finding it hard to do that. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, so? Because I thought school was for learning. I thought school was for understanding things.

And so when I understood how a built, a building was built, you know, I was like, or how farming worked or whatever. I was like, Yeah, I got it. This is great. Yeah, got it. I've learned that, you know, but the teacher's understanding was learn of learning was, can you spell agriculture correctly 10 times in a row? Is that relevant? You know? And so there was this kind of, I realized at that moment, that, gosh, I wasn't viewing school the same way as my teachers were.

I wasn't that self aware, but it was a bit of a jar. I remember that moment really clearly, you're struggling. So my mom took me out of school, and put me in jail, boarding school. And it was horrible. It was like being in jail. We called it called it. All the children called it called it. Called it is a very famous prison movie.

And I broke out of school. And I broke out of school. And I broke out in eczema because I was so stressed. And, you know, then all my challenges and problems were attributed to my eczema because I would just sit in the corner with cracked hands and arms and be withdrawn and moody and not perform well in sports or anything like that. And I was bullied, picked on things like that. It was just, you know, it was a, but they thought, my mom and dad said to me, just pull your socks up, you know, more, very public school, very British, pull your socks up, try harder, you know. And, I tried, I really did. And, there really wasn't very much mercy at school, or understanding at the school.

and my only breath of fresh air was my maths teacher who was called Mr. Roland and Mr. Roland, he would, he taught the older boys, but we would all do homework. Homework. I mean, you're in a boarding school, so, you know, you do homework in the school. So you go to another class at six o'clock after dinner, you have to do homework till seven o'clock, seven 30. Then you got half an hour to play table tennis, and then you got to go to bed and then get punched through the night by the other boys in the, in the, in the dorm. but what Mr. Roland did was he would stop at my math, maths in the UK. That's the proper way of saying it. math is so much better. Actually, it's just more efficient.

So he would stop at my work, look at it. And one day, and I was scared because this is a big teacher, big boy teacher. And he was paying attention to me. And if someone pays attention to you, it's normally because something's going wrong.

And you don't want to be a center of attention. You don't want to catch anyone's attention. Especially if you've got dyslexia, you're like, just, just hide, hide, hide, you know? he looked at my work, lifted up the book, went through it. And he said, you know what? I'm looking forward to you being in my class. I was like, wow. And he said, I think you're going to be good at maths. I was like, Oh, I wasn't good at anything, you know, but he believed in me. And he said, do you know why I think you're going to be good at maths, Nomderon? I said, no, sir. And, he said, because you're lazy.

I was like, Oh, okay. And he said, well, lazy people make the best mathematicians because they're always trying to find the quickest way to the answer. And that's exactly what I was doing with all my maths. I wasn't far following the rules of the maths. I was trying to figure out what is another workaround, another way to the answer. And he could see that I was mathematically thinking at an advanced level. I was puzzling this out and basically creating math solutions on the fly. I didn't realize it, you know, I was just getting the solution and moving on. So that was kind of my early years.

And did anyone, I mean, you may not remember this, but you know, talking to your parents later, did anyone ever even mention the idea of dyslexia to you or to them? No, it wasn't on the radar. I just tried as hard as possible, you know, in classes, with brute force effort to get by.

Yeah. Yeah. So do you, do you look back now and see any particular thing as a compensation? It sounds like the, the thing you were talking about with math, that's more just, you know, different, different ways of approaching problems, you know, with, with your own, you know, brain. But, but I'm wondering, do you, do you look back now and see anything as a compensation? Well, I look back and I think I saw maths and chess as a compensation because you kind of, everybody needs to feel like they're good at something, you know? And so it was like, yeah, I'm rubbish at all of that, but I'm really good at maths and I'm really good at chess, you know?

Play me at chess. I can beat you. Play me, do, do maths with me. I can beat you, you know? And so I always had that kind of stronghold disappear into and say, well, at least I'm good at maths, you know? and so there was that going on inside. At least I'm good at something. Yeah. And then there was an interesting incident. So I think it's really important that everyone feels that they're really good at something, you know, whatever it is, because it becomes like a lifeline or something to, to grip onto. And I remember I was terrible at sports. I absolutely hated it. Like if I would lift, open up my arm, my, my skin would all rip and, you know, any kind of move movement, there was a cost to it.

It was hugely effortful. And so going for a long distance run or playing rugby or cricket or whatever was costly for me in, in terms of pain. And, and so I would withdraw from it and I would be not very good because I wouldn't do it very much until one day I'm standing outside and the big boys turned to this bunch of little boys saying, we're going to go and play rugby for lunch. Do you want to come with us? Because they needed some cannon fodder. They didn't have enough numbers.

And I was included because I was roughly near these other boys. I was this, this loner and left alone and ignored. And, and they looked at me and said, so are you coming? And I'm this tiny little kid. Yeah. All right. Great. I'm included. Fantastic. So we went to this field. Everyone got chosen. You know, the big boys would choose and I would be last. All right. No, I'm the wrong. Come over here.

And I get put in the back of the field. Okay. Now rugby is a blood sport. You know, it's not like you Americans where you've got padding and all of that jazz. You know, you can have full contact and no padding. You know, you, you break stuff when you actually play rugby in the UK. So what happened was I was standing there at the bottom of the field. All the kids were in front. One big boy gets the ball and run straight down. Okay. And he decides he's not going to run past me because he's got the whole football pitch. He's got everything. It's just a straight run to the line. He decided he would run through me. Okay.

And so I'm standing there going, what do I do? Because I've got to pretend that I even tried, you know, I've got to pretend because that's what you're doing with dyslexia. Most of the time, you're just pretending until hopefully something works, you know, and you're going through the motions pretending. And this guy's running at me, knees pumping up and down like pistons. And I know they're going to hit me. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. And all of a sudden, this flash comes into my mind of me at a dinner table. And someone says, the right way to tackle someone is to grab them around the waist and then slide down and not worry about their legs. And I was like, something inside of me was like, I'm going to do this.

And I went straight for the guy, grabbed him around the waist. He dragged me for about 10 yards. And I was sliding down gradually while he's pumping away. And then bang, he hits the ground like a giant. And the ground shook. And the ball bounced away. And we're on the ground. Everyone's looking, going, what just happened? You know, like he's 13 years old and I'm seven or eight, you know.

And after that moment of shock, everyone kind of runs for the ball and him and I get up and I thought he was going to hit me like he was going to be angry. But he put out his hands and he was like, well done, Nandaron. I'm picking you first next time. And from then on, I got picked first every single time because they said he's a good tackler. And I think that's something to do with dyslexia because strategically, I'd figured out the fundamental principle of tackling any person in any situation because I understood the fundamental principles.

I wasn't just going through, oh, this is how you should do it in this angle. You know, I understood the principles and I could tackle anyone. And I basically became a quarterback equivalent scrum half because I found one place I was good at something finally.

Wow, that's a really, really good analogy. That's really interesting. You know, and really brings to light, I think, what we often talk about, which is, is that there, you know, it is this whole different way of thinking. It's not just about reading and writing. Dyslexia is also just about a different way of approaching information and, you know, processing it and all of that. And so that's, that's a really good example of that.

I think, like you said, the fundamental principle. So, so, so does that, was that true in general? Would you say like growing up, but also now as an adult that you learn best and interact with information best if you can, can connect with those fundamental principles? Absolutely. I think that's my major hack for dyslexia. It's like, so there's kind of three layers of knowledge, you know, there's fundamental principles, there's processes, and then there's facts.

The way I look at it, you know, you can chop up different ways, but let's just simplify. There's the external facts, there's the underlying processes, and then there's principles. Okay. And so someone could talk you through the processes of tackling someone. But then if they, like they did at this dinner table, one of the bigger teachers was talking about the principles, and my mind's connected to that. You know, this principle of capture someone around the waist, which is unmoving and predictable and in one place, and you just concentrate on that, and then just slide until you trap them.

And, you know, I could understand, you know, the mechanics of that, the physics of that, and the universality of that. Because I could never remember processes or facts, you know, I just don't remember them. I'm not actually that interested in process and facts. I'm more interested in, like that little kid saying, I thought life was about understanding things, not learning things. And there's a big difference between learning and understanding. I noticed a lot of the people around me just learned, and others, many of them just didn't understand.

But you don't get graded on your understanding. You get graded on your learning. Right, right. And so, you know, the next big story for me was when I was about 14 years old, I was really failing badly at school. I was at the bottom of every set. You know, what they did was in the, my mom and dad spent a fortune on me on private education. Constantly, like, Darius, could you do a bit better?

You know, we're spending so much money. And I felt so guilty because they were really trying, and I was trying to live up to their expectations, etc. It was the fifth set, bottom of the geography tip. My geography teacher pulls me up, and I'm like, oh, no, I'm in trouble again. And then he goes, and I was thinking in that lesson, I'm with all the bad boys. How am I always with the bad boys, you know?

And then, like, I'm in the cabin, the port-a-cabin outside with the lovely, special teacher. But I'm with all the bad boys and the ones that look a bit, act a bit strange. And I'm kind of like, ah, what's going on here? I don't understand this, you know? Anyway, I just felt a fish out of water even when I was put in the cabin. So he brought me up. All the pupils went out, and I was expecting to be, you know, told off.

Maybe even given the belt or a cane or something like that, because that was happening in school regularly then, too. It wasn't as bad as that, but it was like, oh, I'm in trouble. And he said, Nomzoran, I think you're smart, and I don't understand why you're in this set. I said, well, I am trying, sir. And he said, you know, I ask you these questions in geography, and then, you know, your answers don't kind of match what you say in the class.

And I'm like, well, I try and answer the question. And he was like, let me just teach you some rules. And this is the principles, okay? This is, he said, let me teach you some rules of how school works. This is how it works in my class. If you tell me in the lesson, in the test, exactly what I said the week before, I'll give you a C. If you tell me more of what I said before, I'll give you a B.

If you tell me what I said before and connect to something else I said to do with that topic, I'll give you an A. And I'm like, so I just tell you what you told me? And he's like, yeah, that's how it works. Like, really? I tell you what you told me? I thought I meant to understand it, say my own way, bring my own ideas in, you know, create some new solutions and stuff like that.

You know, like in physics, I'm really struggling about what the substance of gravity is. And he's like, hold on a minute. You know, nobody knows what the substance of gravity is. And they don't even start asking that question until you're in university. Just, just slow down a little bit and just tell me what I told you. Would you do that for me, please? Like, well, okay. If I get a B for that, I'll do it.

Now I'm getting D's and E's. I'm off, down the bottom.

Failure. And then he said, while you're at it, get this book called Use Your Head by Tony Buzan, which teaches you how to learn and teaches you all the techniques for studying. So I go home, speak to my mom. I said, mom, geography teacher said, I've got to get this book called Use Your Head by Tony Buzan. And then my mom says, I've been trying to get you to read that book for three months.

No, you haven't. No, you haven't, mom. No, no, no, no, no. Yes, I have. There it is on the shelf, sitting there waiting for you. Oh, really? I'm like, well, obviously you didn't say it in the right way because my geography teacher did say it in the right way. So I learned the rules. One year later, I'm at the top of all the classes. Because all I did was tell them what they said to me.

Two years later, I got into law school. The only reason I passed exams then was someone explained to me, look, when they do exams, they teach you 100% of a subject, but they can't test you on 100%. So they test you on about 20% of the subject, right? So, because they've only got so much time. So if you can predict what 20% they're going to ask you on, then you don't need to do the other 80%, do you?

I'm like, brilliant. Okay, let's do that. So I would do a statistical analysis of all the past papers. I would go, right, they asked about this, they asked about that. I do a little calculation on the back of a bit paper. I go, I don't think they'll be asking this. They asked this three times already. They probably won't ask that again, because they'll, you know, be scrolling it. And I'd narrow it down to about 40% of the subject.

And I'd basically gamble on it and study on that. And, you know, I threw the dice and I got my grade. So I didn't actually understand the subjects very well. But that stopped working in law school big time in the second year, third year of Edinburgh Law School. They knew how to stop that. Interesting. I think what's so interesting about that is that, you know, maybe for our longing for learning to actually be understanding and focused on that, sometimes we maybe don't enough teach those gaming the system skills, you know?

But, I mean, sometimes that can be okay to add in even now. I mean, of course, we prefer to have the understanding there. But, you know, I'm just thinking of, like, you know, with our dyslexic kids, like, and really with anybody, right? Because that is how the system works. I think that is okay to sort of, like, help people understand those fundamental principles of how the system works. I mean, sometimes it's necessary, right?

Like, we are in this world with systems. And I guess to get through, I guess that's what you discovered. It's like to get through the system, to do what you wanted to do, you had to understand the fundamentals of the system in order to get through it. Well, it's kind of like, you know, when I teach, when I used to teach dyslexic teenagers how to get through college, school with mind mapping, I used to do that about three, four years ago.

That's where it all began.

The biggest challenge with dyslexia is often figuring out what question the person's actually asking. You know, it's like, it's called comprehension of the question. You know, it's like, what are you actually asking? Because if you're a very big picture thinker, like, if someone gives you a picture of a person at the bottom of a road with a dog and trees, and then you say, describe this picture in a creative writing story.

And you're like, oh, hold on a minute. Should I be in the mode of an architect or a civil engineer and talk about the structural elements here? Or, you know, it's just so many possibilities here and you get paralyzed with the possibility. And a typical thinker is like, well, no, there's a man with a dog and he's looking a bit sad because it's a bit gloomy. And, you know, he's got away from his family because they're arguing or whatever, you know.

And, oh, is that what you're looking for? So sometimes we need explicit instructions on what the pitches of the activity, you know, like if you take a football pitch and you've got a goal, soccer pitch for you guys, and you've got a goal and you've got the pitch. You know, a child could be oblivious of the lines on the pitch and they're just running over here and running over there and showing how good they are at dribbling and then they kick the ball and they get it.

And, look, I managed to hold on to the ball for 15 minutes and run circles around everyone. You're like, Darius, you went out of the pitch five times and you didn't score a goal. What the hell are you doing? And, oh, really? What is that? Oh, you're meant to stay in the lines. You're meant to get in the goal. Oh, right. Well, why didn't you tell me? I thought it was obvious, you know, but that's an extreme example.

But sometimes we need to be explicitly told what the boundaries of the activity are. Yeah, this is fascinating because are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking? So our daughter often uses one of her accommodations, which, you know, other kids get to do it too, but they know she might do it a lot on a test of having the teacher, you know, talking about the question basically with the teacher. And we've often thought of that as reading the question and sometimes the language being difficult to parse, which perhaps sometimes that's true.

But as you're saying this, I wonder, actually, if most of the time it isn't that. It's a scoping. She's just like, can you just tell me what you want here? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a scoping exercise because her brain and I guess dyslexic brains are, you're thinking of so much, there's so much possibility. You're thinking of everything, right? And really, a lot of the work in school, I think, for people with dyslexia is to like, that's just so right on when you said it's like, it's like a scoping.

It's like, okay, there's all this. That's the perfect word. And all we want you to do is just this little part of it. Yeah. And most people with dyslexia, it's like you said, it's like, oh, okay, that's easy. Yeah, and if you look at dyslexia in adults and children, one of the biggest challenges they've got, they've learned how to read, they've learned how to write, they've learned how to spell decently, reasonably decently, et cetera, or got tools in place for that, et cetera, but they're always expanding the scope.

Yeah. Give them a brief, you give them a question, they're always expanding the scope. And you're kind of like, no, no, no, no, hold on a minute, stop, stop. You know, like, oh, no, no, I've got to include this and I've got to include that. Do you really, you know, let's look at the criteria and we get the question out and it's like, describe in three sentences that picture. Oh, I just wrote, I thought they meant three pages.

Now I'm being exaggerating, but you know, like sometimes that's how it feels. You just totally expand the scope unnecessarily. And in doing so, you expand the stress, the uncertainty, the confusion, and it's all about expanding the scope. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so often people will take off points for something they feel like is outside of the scope of the question, right? That's right. Yeah. So like, if you look at the grading systems for America and the UK, you look at an English writing exercise.

One third of the grade goes towards organization. Okay. One third of the grade roughly goes to content and one third of the grade goes to technique. Okay. So if you're writing an essay could be really creative content, could be really creative technique, but poorly organized. Okay. Or vice versa with dyslexia. When you ramble and you go off and expand the scope, they regard that as poor structure. And so you get marked down.

Absolutely. Absolutely.