John Anthony Dunne: All right. I think we're good.
John Anthony Dunne: Well, Professor Wolf, thanks so much for joining us.
mwolf: It's my true pleasure.
mwolf: I'm going to tell everyone on the podcast that the major reason I said yes, is because of John Dunn's name. I'm an English major, and of course I've loved the poetry of John Dunne. But then I was both a student and a lifelong friend of the theologian, John Dunne.
mwolf: and the shock of seeing his name email whatever he said I was going to say yes, but now it's it's a real. It's a real pleasure to be part of a podcast that Bethel is is sponsoring, and so i'm. I'm delighted to be here.
John Anthony Dunne: Oh, well, well, thanks for that. I have to say they're both the reason part of the reason why I use my full name whenever I do anything publicly, or publish anything just for disambiguation purposes, but really appreciate that connection there.
John Anthony Dunne: But you're you're an expert in reading and dyslexia. And we're doing this series on disability. And we're really excited to talk with you about dyslexia in particular, and wanted to kind of begin by hearing a little bit about what got you interested in this area of research?
mwolf: Well, most people think that I became interested in dyslexia because of my son.
mwolf: and because this is a podcast most people can't see behind me. But all of you who are part of this interview can, and what you see is, I think, a rather extraordinary piece of art, and it's by my son Ben Wolf Noam.
mwolf: who is an artist.
mwolf: and we'll talk about the propensity of many people with dyslexia to have special talents, gifts in in visual perception and in its depiction and expression. We'll talk about that.
mwolf: But that wasn't how I got into dyslexia work at all.
mwolf: There were 2 things that happened.
mwolf: One, I was launched in a career, I thought, to study poetry. I was particularly interested in the work of Reina Maria Rilka, the poet, and I have, you know, a master's degree
that
mwolf: focused on his work.
mwolf: But I thought between my masters and pursuing a Ph. D. I. I've always been a teacher one way or another, and I thought I would be teaching poetry the rest of my life
mwolf: to grown ups, like all of you, and I thought I love children, so I must spend about a year or 2
mwolf: or more before I do the Phd. Really.
mwolf: I almost like
mwolf: a Peace Corps decision to work with children in places that were in most need.
mwolf: And at the time, as you know, John Dunn as a theologian at Notre Dame, and
mwolf: I was one of the the first women to go, both to St. Mary's or Women's School, and to Notre day, but Minsk. It was a unique exchange of of perspectives because of that, but they had a program
mwolf: in which they sent people to places where the schools had fallen apart, or there were other things that were
mwolf: worthy of a peace corps like commitment. So I was to be sent to basically North Dakota
mwolf: and work with native Americans.
mwolf: and I was so excited.
mwolf: and literally the week before they canceled
mwolf: they didn't have enough money, not we never got stipens, but they didn't have enough money
mwolf: at that moment for food and accommodation. So at the very last minute I was sent to rural Hawaii.
mwolf: and I was, you know, so embarrassed to tell my friends I'm going to Hawaii. I mean, what kind of political cachet is that?
mwolf: But when I got there I realized
mwolf: how unbelievably necessary literacy is to the species.
mwolf: and I was confronted with children, whose parents, by and large so many of them
mwolf: had come from the Philippines as semi-indentured servants, and the parents did not were not literate.
mwolf: And then there were many kids in my class who spoke different languages.
mwolf: and we ended up having
mwolf: the the principal at the time
mwolf: thought, and in those days this was was a.
mwolf: It was just a reality that the children wouldn't be allowed to speak pigeon English, Hawaiian pigeon.
mwolf: and
mwolf: that was an eye-opener.
mwolf: We had all these languages and we were forbidden to use the one that was in a way the lingua franca of that little village.
mwolf: So I began to
mwolf: confront 2 things.
mwolf: the importance of language, of words, of communication.
mwolf: and the essential role that literacy plays
mwolf: in developing the potential of each individual.
mwolf: and I
mwolf: I had to learn all of this on the spot.
mwolf: I had to learn how to teach reading, which I did not do well.
mwolf: I, you know, with
mwolf: well versed in literature and children's literature, and my kids loved me, and I loved them, but it was insufficient, and I
mwolf: encountered children who absolutely couldn't learn to read.
mwolf: And there was a teacher there at the time who was working with them.
mwolf: and she seemed to do a lot better than I did, but I didn't know. Why. What did she know that I didn't know?
mwolf: And
mwolf: what really struck me was by the end of the year
mwolf: we'd won the Hawaiian storytelling contest. My little class
mwolf: and I had lost about 20% of the class
mwolf: in terms of their ability ever to read. I was the third fourth grade teacher.
mwolf: and if you don't make it by fourth grade, you're really not going to be fully Literate.
mwolf: So I left Hawaii with
mwolf: love and guilt that I couldn't do something.
mwolf: And so I went back to the mainland.
mwolf: and I began the most intensive study of linguistics at the time.
mwolf: and realized what I had never known.
mwolf: how the structure of the language is part of what you learn when you read, and how some children
mwolf: were unable to read, not because of the method, some were because of methods of teaching.
mwolf: but some because there was something different about them.
mwolf: I didn't understand dyslexia then.
mwolf: but I decided I would go to any school that would accept me.
mwolf: Now you may laugh and say, Well, Harvard's a pretty good place.
mwolf: But it's
mwolf: true. I had no idea. I just chose one of the 3 schools that accepted me.
mwolf: and I chose them because they had a lab
mwolf: a lab that had
mwolf: a special class for the children.
mwolf: the children who couldn't read, and so I I really was the most ignorant student I think they ever accepted.
mwolf: But I began to understand, and this is really a light motif for the rest of our talk
mwolf: that the brain has different forms of organization
mwolf: we call that cerebral diversity or neurodiversity. But
mwolf: in those days there was not what we call cognitive neuroscience.
mwolf: But at that point in time
mwolf: I was absolutely understanding a fundamental insight.
mwolf: We don't come equipped to read. We have to build a circuit in the brain
mwolf: for inventions like literacy and numeracy.
mwolf: and those inventions can be either helped by society and culture through the ways we teach.
mwolf: through the mediums, through the particulars of the language
mwolf: or these children, These individuals will never learn to read whether it's because of dyslexia or
mwolf: multiple other reasons.
mwolf: And I.
mwolf: This is so interesting in the connection to John Dunne
mwolf: I began the study of words, how the brain
mwolf: processes words, whether it's an oral language or written language.
mwolf: And then I discovered aphasia, how the brain can through lesions to, and we had in the Va.
mwolf: The older Vietnam Vets, who'd had shrapnel wounds, causing them to be unable to read. That's called Alexia.
mwolf: and studying Aphasia and Alexia
mwolf: led me to understand. Oh, that may be why some children can't learn. They have
a difference in that organization.
mwolf: and from then on
mwolf: I saw dyslexia
mwolf: as the study of what we all have to know
mwolf: in order to ensure
mwolf: what I will call deep reading, deep literacy for all.
mwolf: So, even though it was. The study of one form of difference in the brain
mwolf: which I came to understand is actually multiple
mwolf: forms.
mwolf: It led me to understand, rich in language.
mwolf: the power of written language
mwolf: to release the potential
mwolf: of an individual.
mwolf: And what happens when that doesn't? And so from that moment on.
mwolf: though my
mwolf: special area is
mwolf: dyslexia. It is part of a huge, if you will study of what rich and language means to the future of humanity, to the future of democracy
mwolf: to the individual futures of of all the children we are neglecting.
mwolf: And
mwolf: Covid has taught us
mwolf: that we have neglected so many more children
mwolf: who could have
mwolf: reached their potential had we had what
mwolf: my area calls the science, our neuroscience of reading.
mwolf: So this is a long story, in a way.
mwolf: but it it. It helps understand
mwolf: for the the listener why my center is called the center for dyslexia.
mwolf: Diverse learners and social justice.
mwolf: Social justice
mwolf: in science and poetry
mwolf: are all interwoven into our
mwolf: our work.
Madison Pierce: Hey, man, thank you so much. There are so many parts of that that I want to unpack, and I do hope we'll get back to social justice. But one of the things that you said I think we probably need to define, for some of our listeners who are talking about literacy and numeracy. Did I get that one right as inventions? Could you say a little bit more about that?
mwolf: Certainly.
mwolf: I wrote a book
mwolf: almost 15 years ago
mwolf: when I realized that most people okay look at that. So it was called Proust in the Squid. The story and science of the reading brain.
mwolf: The first line of it Madison is.
mwolf: we were never born to read.
mwolf: and the reality is, the species is a.
mwolf: and our particular brain is about 50,000 years old.
mwolf: Now
mwolf: you can just ask yourself, how many years have we read?
mwolf: We've only read 6,000 years, we because and and then we read.
mwolf: and what I would say is a very basic way. We had symbols, for, you know barrels of wine, numbers of sheep. In a way you can say that the first letters were numbers or symbols for numeracy, but
mwolf: it's a deeper reality. The species, only 6,000 years ago discovered that they could record
mwolf: record words, record what was going on record. Transactions
mwolf: record
mwolf: thoughts that that that
mwolf: with the Sumerians and the Egyptians you have this beginning, understanding
mwolf: very much. It at the start
mwolf: that there is something very special about being able to have a symbol stand, represent something.
mwolf: and that it can represent words. It can represent thoughts. That's 6,000 years ago.
mwolf: We had this brain 50,000 years ago, but we didn't have one brain. 50,000 years ago we had this this brain with variations and those variations we call cerebral diversity. Gordon Sherman coined that term
mwolf: to understand that human beings have different
mwolf: areas that are more developed
mwolf: than in other parts of their brain.
mwolf: and that is essential for the survival of the species.
mwolf: Now.
mwolf: I
mwolf: I reckon to use a good old Midwestern word.
mwolf: I reckon that most of you who are
mwolf: You're asking me questions, have what I have, which is a pretty darn linear
mwolf: operating brain. It's linear it doesn't.
mwolf: It has its own pathways of thought, but it's pretty linear.
mwolf: There are brains that are not. Linear Some of you may have read a recent
mwolf: essay by Temple Grandin, who is
mwolf: an amazing example of autism, spectrum disorder, which
mwolf: you know. I wish it weren't called disorder, but
mwolf: she shows the almost
mwolf: amazing power of difference in how that brain is organized.
mwolf: And in dyslexia you have a brain that's organized
mwolf: before reading was ever invented.
mwolf: And that's really important.
mwolf: because most people say, oh, it's a reading disorder. It's a reading disability.
mwolf: It is a different organization of the brain that is advantaged for some areas and disadvantage for others. It is, it was never disadvantaged before reading was invented.
mwolf: but it became disadvantaged after reading was invented, and literacy was
mwolf: a skill that became more and more needed as the species evolved.
mwolf: But the reality is that literacy and numeracy
mwolf: didn't exist in the way vision, language, communication through language existed.
mwolf: We invented symbols. Now we invented symbols well before symbols for words.
mwolf: the cave drawings that are
mwolf: there even
mwolf: sometimes that it looks like there are some symbols that are as old as 70 and 80,000 years old.
mwolf: There's certain ones that have just markings. So we had the symbolic capacity, probably 70 to 80,000 years ago, but only only a blink of the evolutionary
mwolf: clock
mwolf: is is what we have with literacy, and it it became.
mwolf: It moved from a few basic symbols.
mwolf: almost like tokens.
mwolf: The anthropologist Denise Besarett talks a lot about this.
mwolf: but these these little tokens began to become more sophisticated.
mwolf: Now there may be continued debate
mwolf: for still some time
mwolf: over whether the Sumerians are the Egyptians invented
mwolf: the alphabet. Oh, not the alphabet, the writing system.
mwolf: It is
mwolf: probable that there was
mwolf: cross fertilization going on.
mwolf: probably with the Egyptian. First. It looks like there were things there in Wadi out hole
mwolf: that were first for them, and then the Sumerians developed their own system.
mwolf: but there was probably cross fertilization going on. But this
mwolf: this is really not in the brain. This is like knitting. We invented knitting, which requires a very simple circuit, which I can't do. I have no knitting circuit.
mwolf: but we did invent
mwolf: the system
mwolf: for representation of numbers and letters which we
of course, now call literacy numeracy.
mwolf: you might
mwolf: think well worth their precursors. Yes, the precursors were in drawing
mwolf: for letters and symbols, but there were also precursors in
mwolf: hmm
mwolf: in
mwolf: other species for numeracy. If you ask any
mwolf: decent primate.
mwolf: what, how many?
mwolf: Well, what they will choose in the 2 bowls of bananas, one with 5 and one with 7,
mwolf: that primate will choose the one with seventh.
mwolf: So there's a very primitive aspect to numeracy
mwolf: that is different from from literacy.
mwolf: So we. We rather know that in the primate brain some of the same areas that they that the primates use for
mwolf: understanding a kind of concept of numeracy, we use that same one, and we've developed it Not so with reading reading is
mwolf: has a a different organization.
mwolf: Does that answer your question in a very long-winded way every time you open my mouth. I say, make it short, make it short. No, it's wonderful and I just have one we're kind of defining our terms question, and then i'll. I'll let the rest jump in here.
Madison Pierce: I I imagine that most of our listeners have encountered dyslexia to some extent. I know, you know, Dyslex, we have members of our family who have been diagnosed with d dyslexia.
mwolf: But I wonder if you could give us a a little bit of an overview of what that entails, and how it generally is, you know, plays out, or is observed in in early early learners.
mwolf: I'm Madison, you even cued me
mwolf: up because you said members of your family.
mwolf: Well, it's a genetic.
mwolf: if you know for me, I say it's a genetic gift
mwolf: at a genetic challenge, and it is both. But that goes back to the brains. We this is a very long, useful organization of the brain, and
mwolf: I I have to say when I, even before I give you a quote unquote definition.
mwolf: I will say that this brain has been with us because
mwolf: it is a brain that thinks outside the box, probably
mwolf: the builders of of the past, what we would now, the precursors of our architects, the builders.
mwolf: the generals, those people who could see patterns on the battlefield, or, you know, when we had our little villages, our little groups of people
mwolf: who was most attentive to that which would
mwolf: give a cue or clue to danger.
mwolf: This brain is an amazing brain for thinking, as I said, nonlinearly thinking outside the box, having a visual sense and being able to use that visual sense to build. So whether it's, art, or architecture, sculpture.
mwolf: the nineteenth twentieth century is so interesting in terms of who were the artists that had a history of of of dyslexia, or
mwolf: who had a history of not being able to learn to read. Some of you may have been in Barcelona and seeing Gaudies extra
buildings.
mwolf: and I saw that I was with my family at the time. It was a vacation in the summer.
mwolf: and I looked at these buildings, and I looked at the colors, and I looked at the shapes that they, you know this one cathedral, as I thought. Oh, My God, gouty was dyslexic. Now the my son, who painted that at the time, said Mom.
mwolf: Everywhere you go you find dyslexics. You're just trying to help me. I said, No, I'm going to prove it. So I went to all this biographies, and
mwolf: and of course they don't have a diagnosis of dyslexia. But they said it was so unusual for this very intelligent person not to be able to do well in school especially. And remember, this is Spanish, you know. So this is a more regular language, but he had such a hard time. So I said, he's mine.
mwolf: He's mine.
mwolf: but that brings us back to who is mine who who belongs to the if you will.
mwolf: the unique
mwolf: group of people who have
mwolf: it suffered
mwolf: in this last century
mwolf: in schools because people did not understand that dyslexia is not a malady. It's not something to overcome, and one of the most popular books was a a wonderful give to people to understand dyslexia, but it used in the title overcoming.
mwolf: and I I feel that.
mwolf: especially as a mother and researcher, I was a researcher first, and then a mother.
mwolf: It's not about overcoming its understanding. Dyslexia and dyslexia requires our society to understand that we have different brain organizations. This particular one has different manifestations.
mwolf: and Madison, you talked about your family. Well, I i'll bet there are both diagnosed and undiagnosed members of your family, and
mwolf: only after my own son
mwolf: had dyslexia, and this is after I was a researcher for some years.
mwolf: Did I understand that my father.
mwolf: who graduated from Notre Dame.
mwolf: was sort of like what we would call an engineer at the time.
mwolf: We didn't have that term, but I mean they had term engineer, but that's really what he was.
mwolf: I always wondered. He always read the newspaper, but he never read a book.
mwolf: and
mwolf: only later did I realize. Not only did my father not read a book.
mwolf: My grandfather, who was one of the most successful entrepreneurs, which is another light light motif entrepreneurs. There I don't even want I I nobody's going to give me money to study Silicon Valley
mwolf: genetically, but if they did.
mwolf: I will bet there is a preponderance of Ceos there. There was even a Forbes magazine article on this on how entrepreneurs
mwolf: in Silicon Valley have so often a history of dyslexia. Now this is all.
mwolf: if you will, preparatory for people who are listening to understand
mwolf: why i'm saying, this is not a malady. This is not a disability in the sense that most people use it. It is a difference in learning, because that brain is different now. My grandfather, the entrepreneur.
mwolf: was kicked out of, You know the family doesn't call it that. But we would say he was kicked out of high school as a freshman.
mwolf: Why? Because he threw a book out of window.
mwolf: Why did he throw a book out of a window? Because he was probably asked to read it publicly. Now I can can't prove that nobody can tell me. But the idea that he threw a book out a window as a freshmen in high school.
mwolf: and then went on to, You know, have
mwolf: multiple farms, Oil Company, coca-cola company, you know. I mean, give me a break.
mwolf: This is a dyslexic brain, but I never
mwolf: ever knew that until I started
mwolf: understanding my own son in a different way from the research, and by that I mean, there are
mwolf: differences within dyslexia.
mwolf: It's not just one entity.
mwolf: It is now here will come to the standard definition.
mwolf: It is an inability to easily acquire
mwolf: the correspondence rules between letters
mwolf: and sounds of the language.
mwolf: often because of a difference in how that brain represents those sounds. Now those sounds in
mwolf: common linguistic parlance and are in my area are called phonemes.
mwolf: and the Alphabetic Principle, or the principle in any writing system is that the person who is learning to read must learn to represent the visual symbol
mwolf: and connect it in alphabets to phonies in Chinese or Japanese, depending on Kanji or Kana. You will you will not go straight to the phoning, but to the concept, and then the phony.
mwolf: But in dyslexia what is happening is that the connection
mwolf: between that representation
mwolf: of a visual symbol, and the connection to the phonemes is not working in the same way.
mwolf: Now it can be because of the phonemes
mwolf: are not represented in the same way, and that's in standard definitions.
mwolf: You will hear or read that the person with dyslexia has
mwolf: the great difficulty in representing the sounds
mwolf: research by my colleagues and myself, shows that some children have perfectly fine phoning representation. But it's how fast the brain can connect
mwolf: the visual symbol with those phonies that that
mwolf: connectivity is
mwolf: too slow.
mwolf: Now, in dyslexia
mwolf: you will have in a school any
mwolf: any child who's having difficulty. People will think Well, it's developmental. They'll they're a boy. They're going to develop out of it.
mwolf: The the reality is that that is true for some. But between 10 around 10%
mwolf: in any classroom
mwolf: anywhere.
mwolf: We'll have a different brain organization now, 10%, if you take it around the world is a lot.
mwolf: Now, the reality is that some writing systems are easier than English.
mwolf: Italian, Spanish, German, all these more regular languages.
mwolf: The phoning plays less of a role
mwolf: because it's very easily.
mwolf: Let's say German. Okay, you're you're
mwolf: a
mwolf: is going to be pronounced one way by and large, unless it has a gum loud.
mwolf: That's not true
mwolf: in English. Think of E. A. In English.
mwolf: There are 7
mwolf: popular
mwolf: popular pronunciations for it in reading.
mwolf: but I've counted I've you know these are the sorts of so ridiculous things that my brain does at night. I have up to 13 different pronunciation, because I count beautiful and creation and stuff like that. But the reality is English
mwolf: puts a heavy, heavy role on both
mwolf: the connections that are pretty regular between letters, but also learning other possible pronunciations.
mwolf: So we have in English a more difficult
mwolf: alphabet then, and the fridge due to the French is somewhat more difficult. But in dyslexia
mwolf: that plays a big role.
mwolf: their inability to really learn those correspondence rules on the alphabetic principle
mwolf: in a a fairly straightforward way is is not available now. Recent research and very old research used to emphasize visual processing
mwolf: for the last 40 years visual processing has not been emphasized
mwolf: as one of the major factors.
mwolf: The reality is that in a few children that may be why it would seem
mwolf: that they are seeing a crowding of letters rather than a serial presentation.
mwolf: But there are 2 major predictors of dyslexia.
mwolf: Madison that we know
mwolf: will help us define dyslexia.
mwolf: one for a large group of children. They don't represent those phonemes
mwolf: for a similarly large percentage.
mwolf: The speed with which those visual and language areas is not functioning at the in the same way.
mwolf: Now, then, you get into brain imaging research, and that's not necessarily your question. But I want you to know that when you examine
mwolf: a simple what seems like a very simple task, it's called a ran rapid, automatized naming. They're just supposed to read across a line, the 50 stimulus, always the same stimuli, repeated over and over again.
mwolf: You want to see how the brain names letters in a serial fashion over and over and over again, or objects, or numbers or colors.
mwolf: And what you see
mwolf: is that the brain of a dyslexic child? 70. About 70% of them
mwolf: can't do that at the same rate
mwolf: that other kids can't.
mwolf: So both phoning awareness and the ability to reach a rate of automaticity.
mwolf: of identifying and being able to say this word is cast.
mwolf: Now that requires 3 phonemes.
mwolf: It requires also
mwolf: what is very often.
mwolf: you know, neglected. It requires seeing those those in a systematically serial fashion. So it's not atka
mwolf: or or Tech, which is a
mwolf: common misconception
mwolf: that reversals are the best definition. This is not true. Everybody has reversals, but there are some children who have reversals longer, but that's not defining it's what's defining is how those that identification takes place in time or the brain
mwolf: which is Here's where the brain imaging comes, where it's all supposed to get connected here in the left hemisphere. It has to get the remember your eye as sending information to both hemispheres. It has to collect the information. The right hemisphere. Take it over to the left hemisphere, and connect it all.
mwolf: and for
mwolf: many a child with dyslexia they are clinging to processing it in the right hemisphere, and not sending it over in the same speed to get connected in the left hemisphere. So that's why, when we talk about dyslexia, we're talking about an inability to learn to acquire
mwolf: the rules of the alphabet. Those correspondence rules between letters and sounds at the same developmental pace and at the same rate of processing. So phonemes are involved. And then I will say to make things just a tiny bit
mwolf: more complicated. We are discovering that really dyslexia is quite
mwolf: a bit more heterogeneous than we knew that there are some kids who only have those phoneme issues, some kids who only have those fluency issues. Those are smaller groups, and the largest group
mwolf: study to date has both of those.
mwolf: and then there are others that are. We are only beginning to understand
mwolf: this basket of others. Some might be what we call orthographic, you know they aren't, they aren't, processing the the patterns of the letters. In the same way. Some may be the vestiges of developmental language disorder.
mwolf: so that this is just part of the evolution of that
mwolf: developmental language issue.
mwolf: So you have these differences in dyslexia.
mwolf: and that's why, when your family and my family, if we would ever look. I'm sure there are differences in my son
mwolf: and my father
mwolf: and my grandfather, and even because I went way back to the nineteenth century.
mwolf: My great-great-grandfather
mwolf: was an entrepreneur.
mwolf: who began with a Penny cart
mwolf: and he in the History, of Indiana. It is said
mwolf: that Mr. Beckman was most unusual.
mwolf: and that he'd acquired all this wealth without being able to read a single cipher.
mwolf: Okay.
mwolf: genetics is everywhere.
mwolf: But but the point is, there are differences in dyslexia.
and
mwolf: and and it is not by any means
mwolf: over for that child, because they can't learn to read in the beginning.
mwolf: They can't learn to read, because we Haven't learned how to teach them.
mwolf: And now our job for the last 20 years especially, has emphasized, what do we do to teach children with those different organizations to reach their potential, so that they are artists and architects and entrepreneurs, and
mwolf: make more, even though money is never going to be the reason why anybody on this screen or I'm probably anybody listening. This that is not our goal. But
mwolf: I will just say that.
mwolf: Hmm. Many of the reasons why I have been asked to study entrepreneurs is because they make so much money.
mwolf: and people want to know. Well, what is it that makes an entrepreneur?
mwolf: Who who is dyslexic. But anyway, i'm being facetious when this when the the reality and i'll come back to Madison, your question about defining the reality is that most of our kids
mwolf: are only diagnosed
mwolf: too late
mwolf: at second grade, third grade, and so they spend their first 2 years.
mwolf: 3 years in school, believing they're a failure.
mwolf: and that
mwolf: is one of the great sins. I consider it mortal sin
mwolf: of the educational system that our teachers were never
mwolf: really given. The 20 years ago, 10 years ago. Now we're doing much better job. They were never given an understanding of the reading brain. They were never given an understanding of dyslexia, and it was always pushed off to special education, which often
mwolf: also didn't necessarily include dyslexia.
mwolf: So we have a real issue when I say it's a gift and a challenge.
mwolf: We have a real issue in turning a challenge into a gift
for our kids.
mwolf: and we know how to do that. But
mwolf: it is, it is not the case across the country
mwolf: that we have
mwolf: only, and only in recent years, thanks to parents.
mwolf: have we had this huge shift
mwolf: to understanding how science can help us learn how to teach better
mwolf: and save those kids from feeling.
mwolf: They're a failure and then becoming after fourth grade, a drop out basically intellectually, and then by eighth grade, sometimes in a gang
mwolf: are in the juvenile justice system.
mwolf: And you don't want anybody who is that smart
becoming a thug.
Amber Bowen: I'm going to jump in really fast, because speaking of teaching, I actually have to in a question before I do. And then, John, I might have to record my intra bit with you later. If that's okay.
Amber Bowen: One of the things that I am really curious about is the decline in in literacy in general, particularly in the digital context, and I know that you have written quite extensively about this.
Amber Bowen: I've really felt it a lot with my students. In fact, this semester I made a change, and I every for their weekly reading. For my first years
Amber Bowen: I assigned a 500 word article before each class as opposed to a book with chapters. Because I I have seen it. They're much more likely to actually do the reading if I assign that. But just in general, though the literacy rate I is pretty shocking.
Amber Bowen: shockingly low. But i'm really curious how
Amber Bowen: and dyslexia
mwolf: works on a digital platform, or what digitization! Ha! What? What are those effects on someone with dyslexia in particular? So I love your question, Amber, as you know, I have written a book about this
mwolf: and, reader come home, which John is showing is that book reader come home the reading brain in a digital world. There are
mwolf: important implications for all of society about how we have become because of the medium.
mwolf: A
mwolf: more skimmers scrollers, people who are weren't spotting their way through an
mwolf: an argument, and so they are missing details or fiction. They're missing beauty, or, you know, very important contracts. They're missing very important points.
mwolf: But by and large
mwolf: the dyslexic population
mwolf: is really can be helped by digital technology. Now, I I want I I there is no binary part of my perspective here.
mwolf: You can arrange
mwolf: by purposeful intentional reading, to read on a screen in a deep reading fashion.
mwolf: But the reality is that the screen as a medium hastens us to finish, and so board bombarded work with information and so amber. You're not the only one English professors are writing me and saying they can't teach Henry James
mwolf: that they have to give short stories. Now, because the attentional and distraction-driven students are not capable of sustained reading it's not that they aren't reading as much, because if you look at just how much they're reading. They're bombarded by print.
mwolf: But that's part of the problem. The bombardment means they're only going to familiar so sources or they're reading. And you may laugh. I, My editor, wanted to kill my sons.
mwolf: They wanted to title my book
mwolf: T. L. D. R.
mwolf: Too long didn't read
mwolf: they wanted. That's what the title they wanted my book to be called My Sons, one of whom worked at Google at the time, and i'm like, and my editor wanted just to she she's Marianne, I will never allow. Well, of course I didn't want it either, but it was an example. My own children.
mwolf: would it read my long book.
mwolf: Now
mwolf: one of them is dyslexic, and had a good reason not to. So he did an audio.
mwolf: and the other one did it audio, too, because they are so
mwolf: unable to have this sustained long reading that all of us grew up with as the requirements
mwolf: for a real educated brain.
mwolf: So now we have to think, what do we do? Well, your question about dyslexia is so interesting to me because
mwolf: the dyslexic brain
mwolf: can have these differences which can be helped by larger font, by by font. That shows the syntax more readily. Syntax is really important. We Haven't talked about it at all, but the understanding how words work in sentences and stories can be actually
mwolf: made more visible. On, on, with the use of certain it's not font, but certain styles of
mwolf: making the print available. The other thing is practice my own intervention program, which is called Revo. We are now making a hybrid use of it, so that it is going to have both print and digital practice
mwolf: for the dyslexic kids, the kids with dyslexia, because you can make these games that enhance the practice. They need
mwolf: one of the biggest heirs in all of education, and i'm so glad you're a teacher, was to call practice drill and kill. This is so wrong in terms of the brain. The brain needs multiple exposures. To learn to represent a word of letter of anything.
mwolf: The dyslexic brain needs 10 times more representations or exposures so digital can help us with practice. It can help us with giving audio information, while the brain of that child is learning to read
mwolf: at a slower pace, but still getting information that can be supplement. So the the digital technology can be a great aid. But but by the same token, if we are only using digital, which is.
mwolf: I think, really wrong. In early development.
mwolf: they are learning how to skim and skip and scroll like everybody else, and not developing critical analysis and empathy inside the circuit, and we can come back to that after you're gone, Amber. But I want you to know, and I hope you read letter 3 and 4 in my book, because it's all about
mwolf: how deep reading
takes
mwolf: time.
mwolf: and the medium is causing us not to give at that time, and it causes us to short-circuit our most time consuming. But most important sophisticated processes.
Amber Bowen: Hope that answers your question. It does thank you. I. We actually have a a faculty development cluster where where I teach. And the book for this past semester was. Reader come home, and the humanities area kind of sat there, and we read letters 3 and 4, and we're just like oh, my gosh! You know this explains our students so well, and also started conversations in terms of what can we actually do? Because this is the world that they live in, and the teacher feels
Amber Bowen: like it's too big for for them, you know. And in terms of how how can we work within this in a positive direction? So so yeah.
mwolf: thank you for your work, and I'm going to go run and start my class. Okay, thank you so much. And good good luck with you working for so glad you're one of our teachers. Yay. Thanks for your work, Bye.
bye.
mwolf: So, John, back to you, or whomever though there's staff from Australia. Step one time. What time is it? It is nearly 7 in the morning, Marianne.
mwolf: Oh, you are so wonderful to be on line. That's 7. I'm Such a at that hour, and you're so beautiful, being in full of life. Oh, i'm very slate to 5. But that's okay. Very interesting. I think that as you're speaking about
Steph Judd: the the of
Steph Judd: a digital age on our ability to to read well. It reminded us of a conversation we had last year with Karen Swallow Prior about
Steph Judd: the ways in which
Steph Judd: you know I I was I I I was trained, I i'm a lawyer. I was often trying to digest huge swathes of information and kind of skimming, and it not actually
Steph Judd: the the impact of
Steph Judd: reading poly
Steph Judd: on our character and and the missed opportunity that that that correlates with in terms of you know, when you read Well, when you really inhabit
Steph Judd: the literary environment, or you know of a novel, for example, it did. I just was wanted to pick up on that the impact that reading probably happened on our characters.
mwolf: The reality is that
mwolf: fiction
mwolf: is our vehicle to understanding the consciousness and feelings of other. It helps develop what the philosopher Martha Newspel, called the compassionate imagination.
mwolf: It helps form
mwolf: 2 kinds of empathy. One is the cognitive empathy to understand the thoughts of others.
mwolf: but the other is an affective empathy, understanding the feelings of others. And in my book, and in a lot of presentations I refer people to Marilyn Robinson, the great novelist who who who wrote Gilead and home, and
mwolf: also Lyla and Jack. I prefer Gilead and home and housekeeping. But but she was asked by former president, Barack Obama for an interview.
mwolf: And if did you read that interview, Steph?
mwolf: Because that interview in it is what he's calling her, you know, and saying it was fiction that taught me everything is in black and white. It's full of gray.
mwolf: and she said the trend. Oh, and he said, this is what taught me about others who others are having empathy for others, and he kind of I don't think he uses the term Empathy Ambassador, but something like that with her.
mwolf: And then she said
mwolf: the trend towards seeing other
mwolf: as evil or pernicious. Whatever word she used
mwolf: is the greatest threat to our democracy.
mwolf: and that is really about how reading.
mwolf: whether it's fiction or alternative viewpoints.
mwolf: is expanding our viewpoint, our character, our ability to take on the perspective of other, so that we make wise decisions.
mwolf: Marilyn Robinson went on to say something that whatever God created in us.
mwolf: his design was for us to
mwolf: discover within ourselves what is good, what is true, what is beautiful, and that's what reading
mwolf: it propels in us to discover what is good, what is true, what is just, what is beautiful, all of those you know. It's social justice, but it's also beauty and language.
mwolf: Language releases our capacity to perceive beauty and to produce it, and to live it out with others, so I I can't. I I couldn't agree with you more, and i'm going to borrow your term character stuff
mwolf: because I've been. I haven't been using that word I've been using. You know, the reading sanctuary. I've been using Proust, that the heart of reading is to go beyond the wisdom of the author to discover our own. But really it is all about
mwolf: the the building of who we are, the character who we are, and
mwolf: What I worry about
mwolf: every day
mwolf: is that when we diminish
mwolf: that
mwolf: daily refreshing of our character, if you will.
mwolf: we are becoming a
mwolf: a group of people
mwolf: who are narrower in our perspective.
mwolf: harder to have empathy with others.
mwolf: and ultimately
mwolf: less democratic. And I always come back to democracy because democracy requires
mwolf: the ability for all voices to be heard. And what's happening with so much of the digital culture is the bombardment of information
mwolf: forces people to think. Oh.
mwolf: let me just go to the familiar.
mwolf: The familiar is not expanding character. The familiar is simply what people so often call confirmatory bias. And so you stick like mud
mwolf: in your whatever you thought before. And then that mud gets hardened over time, and the rigidification of people is what I see as so
mwolf: worrisome about American democracy.
mwolf: How in the world could these
mwolf: otherwise intelligent people
mwolf: storm a capital in Washington, DC. Are now in Brazil.
mwolf: They are being
mwolf: unable to think critically and empathically.
mwolf: they are losing their capacity to think. What is it
mwolf: the other perspective?
mwolf: So?
mwolf: And it's saying it's same.
Steph Judd: I think that that's such an interesting like he.
Steph Judd: when we see difference as a threat to us rather than an opportunity. For, as you say, I I remember reading Malcolm Gladwell's work about that that that that that must be that Forbes study about the correlation between creativity and dyslexia. I'm just saying.
Steph Judd: You know the survival of our species, as you say, requires us to think outside the box, but so often we see.
Steph Judd: and particular disabilities study space. See this abnormality to be fixed rather than
Steph Judd: a a diversity, as you say, cerebral diversity to be embraced and actually
mwolf: learned from, because we need with so many problems. And we need more people with creative solutions. We we we really, you know. I will just say one quick thing. I know we're running out of time, but I will never forget my son when he was oh, maybe 7 or 8.
mwolf: He he heard something
mwolf: in the news
mwolf: about
mwolf: a lack of supplies.
mwolf: I maybe if chickens in Vietnam I don't know something absolutely bizarre.
mwolf: and he said, Well, if I were the country next door, I sure would be, you know, buying chickens, and i'm thinking a 7 year old is thinking about another country buying chickens, because in Vietnam I was like.
mwolf: How does he
mwolf: like that? And
mwolf: I can give you just the good examples and bad examples.
mwolf: but it's like this: Mind
mwolf: is not content
mwolf: in a way to just look at the one lens.
mwolf: and I will also say
mwolf: perceptually, there are
mwolf: fascinating differences. One of my dearest friends who recently died. He was the head of the dyslexia foundation, and he was
mwolf: he. He was a football player, and he was so good because he saw the whole field, and he was always
mwolf: ahead of people because he could see the whole, and that was the same one with my son, who was a soccer player, and people were scared because you know he it wasn't that he was fast. He wasn't fast, but he could figure out
mwolf: where that ball was going and prevent it, and like
mwolf: perceptually, there are such differences that we still Don't understand, and i'll give you one last perceptual difference. I can't, and we haven't studied this. But, my, my! I lived in Cambridge before I'm in L. A.
mwolf: In a three-story Victorian house
mwolf: and we were on the top story, and he said, Mommy, mommy, I can't handle that noise. I don't hear a thing. I'm the third floor, and I go through the house. There's nothing wrong. There's no you know.
mwolf: And finally I go outside the house with him. He says, oh, now you can hear it.
mwolf: There was a rusty lawn, Moore
mwolf: at the end of our block.
mwolf: What in the world we do not there's so much that we have yet to discover about some of the differences.
mwolf: and how useful they can be in ways that we just Haven't discovered ourselves. But I know about the creativity of thought
mwolf: in so many of our of our.
mwolf: and I said I studied entrepreneurs Well, the coffin foundation asked me to bring a bunch of them together.
mwolf: and the
mwolf: things they said, where we see problems like visual models, You know, we see the problem.
mwolf: and then we work on it, or we see what people see. And then we see outside it.
mwolf: And that's
mwolf: how
mwolf: dare we call that child lazy.
mwolf: dumb, not working to potential the 3 most used terms for dyslexics in the first or second grade before they're diagnosed
mwolf: the pernicious effects on the ego of a child who thinks this is me. This is who I am.
mwolf: I am dumb.
mwolf: And then.
mwolf: when you have fourth grade and they can't any longer handle all the materials we lose them
mwolf: if they haven't been diagnosed and given it enough help.
mwolf: So I look at
mwolf: 0 to 5. Let's make every parent aware of everything they can read to your child to talk to your child, Screen your child by 5
mwolf: and 5 screen like heck, so that we understand the strengths and the weaknesses, and we give interventions at year, one grade, one
mwolf: grade, 2, and and okay. So some of them are dyslexic
mwolf: what they've learned to read. So who cares?
mwolf: And the ones who are dyslexic will take longer
mwolf: anyway from character to never losing the potential. And that's really the point of this entire time with you.
mwolf: Let us use every opportunity, every vehicle, to ensure that each child has the benefit.
mwolf: has the opportunity to learn to their fullest potential in whatever means that we can bring to bear.
mwolf: So thank you all for your attention to this. I I I guess, John, you we we've reached our hour, but if you have one last summative.
mwolf: I think Daniel does. Yes, I think i'm becoming known as the 2 Cities closer. Oh, good!
Daniel Parham: What I do, so i'll. I'll frame a question for you that i'm going to mention the name just to give you contact. I'm going to mention the name of, you know, neuroplasticity, but not necessarily in the the technical sense. I'm going to kind of ask you a little bit more of a an ethical question in regards step. I'm going to use that word.
Daniel Parham: so Dr. Will thank you so much first and foremost for your advocacy and your ability to actually represent the lived experiences that you you see it in your home and in your own family, and to be able to not only just do research, but actually provide
Daniel Parham: in an avenue for social justice to in in the ways that sometimes we fail to recognize in terms of ability or disability when it comes to that realm.
Daniel Parham: I I've recently, over the past couple of years have been
Daniel Parham: studying the effects of obsessive, compulsive disorder which elements of that I struggle with in the work. The word that arose in some of my research was neuroplasticity. The building the brain to kind of create new neural pathways, and so I've seen like it Doesn't take me 6 times to check to make sure the door is locked.
Daniel Parham: I can train in some ways my brain get to 3, and now it's 2, and now it's too much. But but it's there, but 2 is good, right so even through all the the complexities of our brain and the differences of our brain which we recognize.
Daniel Parham: You know that there is abilities in certain stages right to to create new pathways. I say all that to say like in this closer like when you, when you talk about the ability of like us in a age where we almost short circuit our brains, or we we have a very limited view of
Daniel Parham: difference in disability, in in an uplifting way versus kind of an integrating way. What are the new, like ethical, neural pathways you think we should be creating? To say, like our mind can see something much greater than ability and disability.
Daniel Parham: or able to read and dyslexic, and what we associate with that. And so for you like. What? What will be your kind of closing thought, if like, if we can create in this episode like.
Daniel Parham: what's that? One new neural pathway, an ethical neural pathway that we can change
mwolf: in in society. So I guess what I would suggest to everyone is that we take on the perspective
mwolf: of others
mwolf: in general.
mwolf: and in particular, so in general that we have a stance, just as, Daniel, you're rightly, wonderfully expressing how we can change from 6 times to check the door to 2. Well, I suggest that we make an effort
mwolf: to really go after perspective, taking
mwolf: with with as much vigor and rigor across our disciplines. And it begins in early childhood. You know, how do we teach our our children compassion and Empathy, that we we call it the
mwolf: Moral Laboratory for children? Well, it begins with stories of animals, frog and toad, Matilda Charlotte's web. We use stories with with early childhood.
mwolf: and we and and staff and Amber and Madison. We all were talking a little bit in in burst about the power of fiction
mwolf: to immerse ourselves in in the thoughts of others. I I You gift gifts Jen's work. She's a Chinese American novelist just wrote a set of short stories. Mr. Nixon goes to China, but she wrote a book called the Resistors, and a book called World in town. How can we get
mwolf: fiction into the lies of of people to understand that there are such differences in who we are, and as we, as we celebrate those differences and understand they are not all easy differences.
mwolf: How do we understand what it feels like to be called dumb and lazy? How do we teach each
mwolf: each classroom. How do we teach our teachers? And so
mwolf: I I want parent campaigns.
mwolf: I want teacher campaigns. I want what's called pre-service training to understand dyslexia as a way of understanding all kinds of other differences in our children. And I want, if only we could make just in general in our work, and everybody
mwolf: here is in a, in a someone
mwolf: related discipline. How can we make our own disciplines be more open to the perspective? Taking with other viewpoints.
mwolf: If we are really after understanding others, we will understand dyslexia. We will understand autism. We will understand the
mwolf: the ups and downs, the Dallas
mwolf: of having these kinds of challenges.
mwolf: and if
mwolf: only Daniel and John and Madison, and and staff and Amber, if only we could clone you to help in your environments.
mwolf: and that's partly John, back to you. Why.
mwolf: I said yes to this
mwolf: we each have
mwolf: multiple occasions to influence. We may not be influencers. I, you know that our social media is its own.
mwolf: that I won't even touch.
mwolf: But we can. We can exert
mwolf: what Tolstoy said when asked, what do we do?
mwolf: He said.
mwolf: We do what's in front of us.
mwolf: And when we have that attitude, Daniel.
mwolf: to do what's in front of us.
mwolf: We don't even know what will be asked, but
mwolf: I I will use a
mwolf: an UN theological term. That sounds theological.
mwolf: I think we're sometimes asked to be minute angels.
mwolf: you know, giving whatever environment we're in whatever opportunity we have
mwolf: to
mwolf: underscore what is good.
mwolf: what is just what is true and what is beautiful.
John Anthony Dunne: Professor Wolf. Thank you so much for your time. This has been exceptional. I just love how informative this has been, but also how how challenging and and exciting and and encouraging that this is to not only treat
John Anthony Dunne: those who have disability with empathy as you're as you're saying, but just this broader vision of accepting difference and not, and and not mo obviously maligning people, but but really, seeing that the the issue is is with us, and our inability to to accommodate in particular, as you said, that that that mortal sin of of not knowing how to teach children with dyslexia, how to read, Just really appreciate that that that challenge, and thank you
mwolf: you. So much for your time, for your research and for being with us today. Wonderful! Well
mwolf: to all of you. God speed! We're all together. We're warriors, warriors for humanity.
mwolf: Okay, just to meet you. Thank you so much.
John Anthony Dunne: So this will be out in just a like a month, I think a couple of weeks, so really really excited to to get this out there. This was fantastic.
mwolf: and John, send it to my coordinator. He kept trying. She takes care of all that, and we'll put it on our website. And oh, wonderful! Oh, great! Well, we'll we'll we'll we'll! We'll plug you to. Oh, well, thank you so much. This is fantastic. Okay, Goodbye.
mwolf: Thank you. Cheers. Cheers.
John Anthony Dunne: Okay.
Daniel Parham: That was so great.
John Anthony Dunne: That was so great. I I mean, man, I wish we had more time with her, and I wish we could ask more questions. Obviously, you know, she went, she went along with with pretty much everything which is great, because I love listening to her. I know we're a little bit over. Are you guys happy with doing it real quick doing the intro stuff? Should we call this, like dyslexia and diverse learning, or like what should we call this episode?
Daniel Parham: I'm wondering
Daniel Parham: I was thinking like the beauty of difference in dyslexia, because she she sizes difference quite often.
Daniel Parham: Yeah.
Steph Judd: I listen.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah, I was trying to think what is the name of her organization. So she this is a Her center at Ucla is called dyslexia, diverse learners and social justice.
Madison Pierce: which I mean in a lot of ways kind of sums up what we but we might want to check with her. Yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well.
Steph Judd: I think just like to into this learning that's fine. That's great. Yeah, okay, yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: All right. Well, let's go ahead and do it. Oh, sorry! Let me just make sure what the episode number is. Super duper quick.
Steph Judd: So I get that right.
John Anthony Dunne: Really, really good. And you know what's really great about this conversation. I'm gonna i'm gonna. I? I think it really ought to be the episode that leads right into either Grant Mccaskill on Autism, or
John Anthony Dunne: Naomi and Mike Bird on parenting children on the spectrum, because so much of what she said just flows quite
John Anthony Dunne: quite naturally, I think into either of those or or actually really, that that could be like 3 in a row from Marion Wolf to Grant Mccaskill. If if he's gonna respond to our emails because he still Hasn't and and then certainly
John Anthony Dunne: into Naomi and Mike Bird. So i'm gonna i'm just gonna call it episode 160, and if I have to re-record it. That's fine. Okay.
John Anthony Dunne: ready.
John Anthony Dunne: And this is episode 160
John Anthony Dunne: in this episode we're talking about dyslexia and diverse learning. With Professor Marianne Wolf.
John Anthony Dunne: Professor Marianne Wolf is the director for
John Anthony Dunne: Professor Marianne Wolfe is the director of the Center for Dyslexia Diverse learners and Social justice at the Ucla Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She's also the author of a number of books on Reading and Dyslexia, including Proust and the Squid. The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, published by Harper Collins
John Anthony Dunne: and Reader come home. The Reading Brain in a Digital World, also published by Harper Collins
John Anthony Dunne: team members on the episode from the 2 cities include Dr. Amber Bowen.
John Anthony Dunne: Step, Stephanie, Kate Judd.
John Anthony Dunne: Reverend Daniel Parham.
John Anthony Dunne: Dr. Madison, Pierce.
John Anthony Dunne: and myself, Dr. John Anthony Dunn.
John Anthony Dunne: So this conversation with Professor Wolf was so engaging, so interesting, so enlightening in so many ways. It was such a delight to have her on the podcast when we had Dr. Karen swallow Prior on earlier in in our
John Anthony Dunne: when we had Dr. Karen swallow prior on in the past, she made reference to Dr.
John Anthony Dunne: She made reference to Professor Wolf's work, and that's how I first heard about her work, and and just
John Anthony Dunne: absolutely found it so.
John Anthony Dunne: So, so, so. So it so interesting and fascinating and just love, that she was able to join us today. Steph Madison, Daniel Amber, what were some of the takeaways that you had from this conversation with Professor Wolf.
Steph Judd: I mean what an absolute delight to speak with her, and learn from her, and
Steph Judd: to see a glimpse of the passion that she has for
Steph Judd: this work, and it it's worthy of that passion, I think I think
Steph Judd: I mean so many take home from this conversation. I think
Steph Judd: one of the things that i'll be reflecting on is
Steph Judd: the way in which, in her work she's convinced that
Steph Judd: the cerebral diversity of the different wiring that we have in our brain processes. The ways that our brains organize themselves differently
Steph Judd: is essential. If we're going to be able to face the complex problems that face our common life.
Steph Judd: because you know often
Steph Judd: what's short-handedly referred to as dyslexia
Steph Judd: involves people thinking outside the box creatively.
Steph Judd: and
Steph Judd: we really need that there's really difficult problems that we're facing, particularly
Steph Judd: in in our democracies now. And if we don't, if if we just this has been a theme in our series to date
Steph Judd: often what's called as disability is conceived of as a problem to be solved.
Steph Judd: something to be cured, a malady to be remedied.
Steph Judd: and when you flip the script and actually say Yes, of course there are challenges associated that. But there's also gifts on offer.
and those gifts
Steph Judd: a a ones that we really need. We all really need each other. We need each other's different ways of seeing the world, and
Steph Judd: I think that her invitation
Steph Judd: to pay attention to one another, more to exercise those ethical muscles, more to imagine what's like to think and to see the world differently.
Steph Judd: I, rather than this, now linear going to coordinate on highways.
Steph Judd: Yeah, some of the Take home. It was an amazing conversation.
Madison Pierce: Yeah, for me, you know, one as a parent of a of a small little human who's learning to read. It was just really fun to think through, You know. I think sometimes I fall into the trap of wondering or worry. Worrying is a better word, you know. Is my child different or diverse, and and I quickly, you know, try to tamp that down. But it was a reminder that whatever she is or how virtual
Madison Pierce: she learns is going to be amazing, and you know to be able to celebrate some of that I also really love to think about literacy and numerous as an invention.
Madison Pierce: It's so fascinating, and it's a helpful reminder. You know, I've had some conversations about what constitutes technology and the reminder that books are an important part of of technology. It's something that we so take for granted now and that we feel like we've moved beyond.
Madison Pierce: But there's still something that our
Madison Pierce: foreign that there is something that that's produced. So anyways, those are some interesting things for me that I learned today and that were reiterated.
Daniel Parham: Yeah, I think I think Dr. Wolfe points out the fact that
Daniel Parham: difference is beauty right? I I think, to
Daniel Parham: there's challenges in every every aspect of that. But I think it's even more compounded when we label disability in a way that lacks beauty. And and so she paints that
Daniel Parham: in a way that actually helps us to be a better society right to to recognize that it's actually be a better society, because once we recognize the beauty we advocate. For in ways that is just and equitable. And so I think she just primed that for the minds of people to say that. Oh.
Daniel Parham: yeah, I never thought about disability in a way that's actually redemptive.
Daniel Parham: right? And and if I can advocate in that way, you know, then I actually bring greater redemption, not to the disabled one, but to society as a whole. And so I think she she paints that so well in a way that I think I hope our listeners will walk away.
Daniel Parham: filling a sense of advocacy. But then, also, before that sense of advocacy, understanding the beauty that still comes within individuals who have intellectual challenges or reading challenges, or whatever the nature
Daniel Parham: that we deem as a disability to be.
John Anthony Dunne: And with that here's our conversation with Professor Marianne Wolf.
John Anthony Dunne: Boom.
Madison Pierce: Awesome, fantastic, fantastic.
John Anthony Dunne: That was great. That was really great.
John Anthony Dunne: Thanks for landing it for us, John. Well, goodness is only my name like she, I mean. I think she was pretty clear because she was just on the Ezra Klein show that's like one of the biggest podcasts in the world like literally the world she was on like, literally just on on his podcast.
John Anthony Dunne: And I
just look.
John Anthony Dunne: I think she really means it like if I was. If I had any other name, I think she was just been like No.
Daniel Parham: hey? Look, i'm gonna I mean on Monday i'm going to be mar with the King for him, so I can get good. I'm going to change a few days to let you know James Madison Pierce. I mean. I open the same doors that I want, though. No, she she she even even responded while she was on vacation in Hawaii
John Anthony Dunne: like celebrating her 70 fifth birthday. She was like she was like, I don't normally, you know, respond to emails, and i'm on vacation and then compounding that probably I don't normally go on podcast that I haven't heard of, you know.
John Anthony Dunne: And we you ever do an episode on like optical differences or perceptions of age. She's 75. Yeah, yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah.
Daniel Parham: She's she's still a powerhouse. It's amazing. Right. Yeah, Exactly. Exactly. I'm sitting here in the vitality she had, like the moment we were on. It was like you get my life together.
Steph Judd: What are you taking? What's the dot?
John Anthony Dunne: Oh, good times, good times.
John Anthony Dunne: so I can't remember what our next one is. We'll figure it out. But I think we have
John Anthony Dunne: Megan Henning at at least next Friday. This is brand new actually, I haven't put it in the calendar yet, because she, she! She and I have gone back and forth like we've had tentative times, and then she's like, oh, something just came up sorry. And then
John Anthony Dunne: I think now we're we're kind of set, she she said. She has availability on next Friday the twentieth
John Anthony Dunne: Is that the 20, I think? Yeah, from 2 like basically 2, 15 Pm: Central time to 4 central time. So should we say 3, or what do you or 2 30 central time? What do you guys think?
Daniel Parham: Oh, okay, okay, yeah to the 2, 30 is fine for me, because that actually will be right in the lunch hour. All right.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah. And I can totally make that work.
John Anthony Dunne: you know. Able is, you know it's gonna it's gonna be like one of the tough for episodes. Probably. So just you know, Fyi.
John Anthony Dunne: but i'm sure it will be fascinating. Yeah. So
John Anthony Dunne: it seems like I got a pretty full weight next to it, because I got Kylie: oh, yeah, Yup, Yup, yup! I've got Amy Kenny in my Dari. Oh, that's right. The eighteenth, I think. Isn't it? Yeah, okay, yeah. So we do have a few. Next week. Okay.
John Anthony Dunne: I need to read that book. Haven't finished. Yeah. My my body is not a prayer request. Yeah, that'll be. That'll be very, very good. Yeah. And I haven't. I haven't heard that from Brian John. Oh, okay, okay.
Steph Judd: So I am
I.
Steph Judd: But Brian Brook has gone on research leave, and I Haven't heard that from what I last 2 emails that's all right. I mean he's he's, you know. If he gets back to us he would be towards the end of the series. Anyways, like a
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah, at least he'd be the pen ultimate, if not the final. I think, in terms of the way it's currently set. So if you can't make it, it's it's it's all right, but we have time. We don't have to squeeze them in, you know, like next week, for example, and
John Anthony Dunne: so just hoping that Grant gets back to us, because if he doesn't that'll be a bummer.
John Anthony Dunne: he said he said, didn't he say when he told Sydney. That's why I was like Sydney. Can you follow up, please? And
John Anthony Dunne: yeah, like, if it's Sydney, if you say Sydney's, he he told he told Sydney in person that he he was like, oh, yeah, I really want to
Steph Judd: do it. I just
John Anthony Dunne: Umhm.
John Anthony Dunne: So I followed up. I followed up with him. But yeah, no response.
John Anthony Dunne: He he was notorious at St. Andrews, at least for not responding to email. So we'll see. We'll see.
Yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: You might somehow secretly got the link or something. Yeah, I I get to send in the link to send them a time. Yeah, I Logan, show up at the end, you know, like the dial that was so funny with Tupamahoo. Oh, yeah, Were you guys there for that one? Okay, Literally, he he gets the he gets the time wrong by an hour. So like i'm like saying my thanks for joining us, and Logan pops on. He. He does one of these, like.
John Anthony Dunne: you know.
John Anthony Dunne: like
John Anthony Dunne: like i'm literally landing the plane. I'm literally landing the place and and and he's like he's just like freaks out, and he's like he because he was. He was the one who read the book. Remember. Like he he, he! He! He got the Pdf and read it and everything. And so he was. He came like, and so and so we were like we're like. Just ask the questions now. So it's funny if you listen to that episode. Logan's up. He's the first person that talks during the like introduction
John Anthony Dunne: part of the episode.
John Anthony Dunne: and then and then this is you never hear from him until like 55 min later, and then he asked the last 2 questions.
Daniel Parham: Amazing! Oh, my goodness.
John Anthony Dunne: it was so good!
Madison Pierce: That's amazing. I got a trial. Yeah, me 2 friends.
Daniel Parham: Bye bye.