Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / OneLegUpAlex Adapts With NYS Dyslexia Advocate Russell Van Bracklen Powered By Podmatch (recorded 2-12-26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey Royan, Welcome back to the one leg Up Network.
- 0:02Speaker 1: This podcast is powered by pod Match. We love our
- 0:05Speaker 1: guys at pod Match, Alex and team, and they've connected
- 0:09Speaker 1: me with another great guest for the adaptive feature of Russell.
- 0:13Speaker 1: And let me get your last name right here, Russell
- 0:16Speaker 1: then Brooklyn? Is that correct?
- 0:17Speaker 2: Yes? You got it correct? All right?
- 0:20Speaker 1: Well, Russell, you have an interesting story to tell us
- 0:24Speaker 1: and an interesting project you're working on, and you have
- 0:27Speaker 1: been acknowledged by the New York State Senate. So I'm
- 0:29Speaker 1: like it fits all the boxes what I'm looking to
- 0:31Speaker 1: talk about. So we're gonna know about Alexia today. And
- 0:36Speaker 1: you know, the Naked Gun made fun of it with
- 0:38Speaker 1: with Leslie Niels and holding up that you know, that page,
- 0:43Speaker 1: that front page to the paper. It was like it
- 0:45Speaker 1: was cancer for Cure or something like that. But this
- 0:48Speaker 1: LEXI is a real issue, isn't it, Russell. And that's
- 0:50Speaker 1: where you come in and you teach us about this
- 0:52Speaker 1: and your site State Senate funded for this research.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Yes, So just you know what happened is I I
- 1:00Speaker 2: did the New York State Assembly internship in the late nineties.
- 1:03Speaker 2: They accommodated the living heck out of me. But when
- 1:07Speaker 2: it was my grade, recommendation was sent back to Sunni
- 1:12Speaker 2: Center of Buffalo's political science department. They looked at all
- 1:18Speaker 2: the extraordinary accommodations that the State Centered granted me and
- 1:22Speaker 2: decided to not grant the fifteen credits of A minus.
- 1:26Speaker 2: They flumped me for fifteen credits of F. So at
- 1:31Speaker 2: that point I decided I was done with the discrimination.
- 1:36Speaker 2: I asked my professors where I should go in grad
- 1:38Speaker 2: school to force myself to learn to read and write,
- 1:41Speaker 2: because it was at the first grade reading and writing level,
- 1:43Speaker 2: and they said, well, if you like political science, it's
- 1:45Speaker 2: obvious law school. So I went. I audited a couple
- 1:48Speaker 2: of law classes, and my second day in law school,
- 1:53Speaker 2: I was called on in contracts and what they use
- 1:56Speaker 2: as the Socratic method. If you don't know the answer,
- 1:59Speaker 2: they'll keep asking a few questions to embarrass you until
- 2:02Speaker 2: you adapt. Didn't happen to me. I responded, as the
- 2:06Speaker 2: professor's equal, not a student. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen
- 2:11Speaker 2: minutes were going back and forth. He can't beat me,
- 2:14Speaker 2: I can't beat him. At the end, he said, Russell,
- 2:17Speaker 2: you couldn't be any more correct. I have to move
- 2:19Speaker 2: on to the next case in the interest of time.
- 2:22Speaker 2: I learned to read within a month. I learned to
- 2:24Speaker 2: write within a few years. Then I went back to
- 2:26Speaker 2: the New York State Senate want I said, I want
- 2:29Speaker 2: you to fund my dyslexi research project, which they don't do.
- 2:32Speaker 2: Took years working with them, the very education Apartment, et cetera.
- 2:37Speaker 2: Finally I got funded for a multi year study at
- 2:39Speaker 2: the Apri Park Central School District right outside of Albany,
- 2:43Speaker 2: New York, our state capital. And what we did is
- 2:47Speaker 2: we took I wanted students like me initially, highly intelligent,
- 2:51Speaker 2: highly motivated, So we took the very best juniors and seniors.
- 2:55Speaker 2: They were reading and writing at the middle school level
- 2:58Speaker 2: one class period for the school year. They increase their
- 3:02Speaker 2: writing to the average range of entering graduate school students
- 3:07Speaker 2: as measured by the graduate records exam analytical writing assessments.
- 3:11Speaker 2: They all went out of college, they all graduated great
- 3:14Speaker 2: point averages. A two point five to three point six
- 3:19Speaker 2: cost New York State taxpayers less than nine hundred dollars
- 3:23Speaker 2: a kid. We were two to three times more effective
- 3:27Speaker 2: and the best dyslectic college at the time for less
- 3:30Speaker 2: than one percent of the costs. And that's how I
- 3:32Speaker 2: got started.
- 3:33Speaker 1: Well, let's dive into the research then. I mean, dyslexia
- 3:36Speaker 1: is what are the stats on it? I feel like
- 3:38Speaker 1: it's a pretty prevalent thing, but it doesn't stop people
- 3:42Speaker 1: from living. It doesn't stop you from living. So what
- 3:44Speaker 1: are the misnomers about dyslexia? Let's start there.
- 3:47Speaker 2: Well, basically, dyslexia represents the worst case of reading and writing.
- 3:52Speaker 2: And we're going to includedysgraphia. All right, it's about five
- 3:55Speaker 2: to ten percent of the population. If you include add
- 3:57Speaker 2: and ADHD, you're pushing fifteen to twenty percent of the population.
- 4:01Speaker 2: And here's what it is. This is the top book
- 4:04Speaker 2: on dyslexia. It's called Overcoming Dyslexia by Selah Chewitz. This
- 4:08Speaker 2: is the second edition. She's a medical doctor from Yale.
- 4:13Speaker 2: This is dyslexia. Do you see how the back part
- 4:18Speaker 2: of your brain has this massive neuroactivity and the back
- 4:22Speaker 2: part of mine has next to nothing.
- 4:25Speaker 1: I see that. It's interesting.
- 4:27Speaker 2: Now do you see how the front part of my
- 4:29Speaker 2: brain is about two and a half times overactive.
- 4:32Speaker 1: Now let me ask you this, because I have family
- 4:33Speaker 1: that has dyslexia. Could it be hereditary?
- 4:36Speaker 2: I mean, could I have it's absolutely absolutely hereditary and.
- 4:40Speaker 1: So a Jeff fan, did you have family that had
- 4:42Speaker 1: it or how did you find out at it?
- 4:46Speaker 2: Somewhere in my family past it was there. I didn't
- 4:50Speaker 2: really know the extent until the State Senate said go
- 4:57Speaker 2: to the Education Apartment and they said, we want a
- 4:59Speaker 2: Sunny distinguished Professor in psychology to see what the heck's
- 5:03Speaker 2: going on because they absolutely did not believe a word
- 5:07Speaker 2: I said. It was just too out there. So they
- 5:10Speaker 2: said they need a Soony Distinguished Professor in psychology, which
- 5:13Speaker 2: in Western New York at the time was two. It's
- 5:16Speaker 2: their top ranked up psychologists. Of the doctor Holiska, who
- 5:20Speaker 2: gave me an evaluation before I went to the Assembly internship,
- 5:25Speaker 2: agreed to do it. And what she found is that
- 5:29Speaker 2: my baseline was reading and writing was at the first
- 5:32Speaker 2: grade level like a six year old, and that I
- 5:34Speaker 2: could jump up bring it up just like I turning
- 5:38Speaker 2: on a light switch to above average writing at the
- 5:41Speaker 2: graduate level. And then then she wrote up a five
- 5:44Speaker 2: page report explaining what happened.
- 5:46Speaker 1: This is interesting and I have to say, what are
- 5:50Speaker 1: the adaptations? Because I have noticed in my emails and
- 5:53Speaker 1: sometimes in my blog writing or even texting, I can
- 5:57Speaker 1: switch things around and I don't even realize it. I'm
- 6:00Speaker 1: just slow down. Do you find yourself I don't know
- 6:02Speaker 1: if I have it, but I do find myself having
- 6:04Speaker 1: to slow down rewrite things. Do you find that for yourself?
- 6:08Speaker 2: Well, well, what I found is I think in orders
- 6:11Speaker 2: of magnitude faster than most people. That's how I did
- 6:14Speaker 2: so well in law school. But let's see if you're dyslectic.
- 6:18Speaker 2: Are you ready for a few questions?
- 6:20Speaker 1: I'm very interested right now?
- 6:21Speaker 2: Yes, Okay. First thing I needs you to do is
- 6:24Speaker 2: tell me your speciality. What's your area of extreme interest
- 6:27Speaker 2: in ability?
- 6:28Speaker 1: I talk about podcasting. I'm an engineer in radio and
- 6:32Speaker 1: I do some on air stuff as well.
- 6:36Speaker 2: Okay, so when you're thinking about podcasting, really thinking, do
- 6:40Speaker 2: you have ideas flying around your head at light speed?
- 6:43Speaker 2: Key question, but with little to gree day.
- 6:45Speaker 1: In fact, I turn on my microphone and the minute
- 6:47Speaker 1: they hit my brain.
- 6:48Speaker 2: So okay, Now, next question, you want to write something
- 6:53Speaker 2: for your podcast, something you're going to get out there
- 6:56Speaker 2: written on the eternel.
- 6:57Speaker 1: I write on my blog a lot, too, so I
- 6:59Speaker 1: do have that.
- 7:01Speaker 2: So the ideas in your head fingers keyboard fingers keyboard,
- 7:05Speaker 2: the ideas in your head when you take your fingers
- 7:08Speaker 2: put them on the keyboard, does the idea ever fly
- 7:10Speaker 2: out of your head? Leaving you with an empty brain?
- 7:12Speaker 2: Is that you? Or not? Really?
- 7:14Speaker 1: I don't know if it's empty, but I do realize
- 7:16Speaker 1: when I put it on paper it does sort of
- 7:18Speaker 1: look jarboled and gumble, you know, jumboled or whatever.
- 7:21Speaker 2: Not that when your fingers hit the keyboard, does the
- 7:23Speaker 2: idea fly out of your head, leaving you with an
- 7:25Speaker 2: empty brain? Or is that that's not you?
- 7:28Speaker 1: That's not really me? No? I always okay, stuff going on?
- 7:31Speaker 2: Okay, So when you were in elementary school, will you
- 7:35Speaker 2: ever threatened to be held back because you couldn't do
- 7:38Speaker 2: an academic task?
- 7:39Speaker 1: I believe even this. It's back in kindergarten. I heard
- 7:42Speaker 1: something like that they're going to hold me back for
- 7:44Speaker 1: another year or something. And that might've been just for logistics,
- 7:47Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I had a lot of speech
- 7:49Speaker 1: and I had a lot of reading writing stuff going on.
- 7:52Speaker 1: I don't know if I was ever whebook after that,
- 7:54Speaker 1: but there was talk about it.
- 7:56Speaker 2: I always say later on like third, fourth, fifth grade,
- 8:00Speaker 2: will you ever threatened? Okay? So based on what you
- 8:04Speaker 2: told me this is again not sign this is just
- 8:07Speaker 2: for treatment purposes. You probably have add ADHD or a
- 8:12Speaker 2: mild case of dyslexia.
- 8:16Speaker 1: I mean, yes, my mom has it. She's been public
- 8:18Speaker 1: about it, but my mom has it. So I'm wondering
- 8:20Speaker 1: if I got that too. I'm both writers, so that's
- 8:22Speaker 1: very interesting to me.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Well, if you, if you were to get tested, you
- 8:28Speaker 2: would come down with something that would probably be on
- 8:30Speaker 2: the minor side.
- 8:31Speaker 1: So you knew if expanded beyond DYSLEXAI, you have actually
- 8:34Speaker 1: help about people to add and ADHD or.
- 8:38Speaker 2: Oh, we do far more than that. When I presented
- 8:42Speaker 2: in New York City in two thousand and six at
- 8:45Speaker 2: the effort at the New York City branch of the
- 8:48Speaker 2: International Dyslexic Association, and I presented and said, we had
- 8:52Speaker 2: you know, we had these massive improvements. I had two
- 8:55Speaker 2: general responses. The professors came back to me and said,
- 9:00Speaker 2: we don't care that couple of your high school kids
- 9:03Speaker 2: writing at the middle school level scored above average on
- 9:06Speaker 2: the g in the seventieth percentile. We don't care. We
- 9:09Speaker 2: want the craft of research. And I was like, what's
- 9:12Speaker 2: the craft of research. It's a book that came out
- 9:15Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five by the University of Chicago to
- 9:17Speaker 2: teach their PhD students how to write doctoral dissertations. And
- 9:21Speaker 2: they want me to take those skill sets context, getting
- 9:25Speaker 2: everybody on the same page, coming up with a problem statement,
- 9:29Speaker 2: that's something you can do, and that it answers the
- 9:33Speaker 2: question that needs to be answered. Come up with something right.
- 9:38Speaker 2: But no, let me finish, because this is important. They
- 9:41Speaker 2: want me to teach PhD level stuff through high school kids. Okay, no,
- 9:48Speaker 2: that is absolutely what they want, and that's absolutely what
- 9:51Speaker 2: I did. The second thing that came back was the
- 9:54Speaker 2: teachers asked me, does this work for normal kids? And
- 9:57Speaker 2: I said absolutely not, to come back when you can
- 10:01Speaker 2: fix that. Eight years later I came back. So what
- 10:05Speaker 2: we currently do is the first thing that we do
- 10:09Speaker 2: is we developed a model number one for an intervention period.
- 10:15Speaker 2: We work with a student's specialty, their area of extreme
- 10:18Speaker 2: interest in ability, because if you step outside of that,
- 10:21Speaker 2: their motivation drops seventy five to ninety percent. So during
- 10:25Speaker 2: the intervention period until they're at grade level, we focus
- 10:28Speaker 2: on a book and an audiobook that they're really interested in. Secondly,
- 10:33Speaker 2: we teach them not from a general to the specific,
- 10:37Speaker 2: but from the specific to the general. Because when I
- 10:40Speaker 2: asked you, do you have ideas flying around your head
- 10:42Speaker 2: at light speed but with little to non organization, you
- 10:46Speaker 2: said yes. So what we have to do is the
- 10:49Speaker 2: force the brain to organize itself by using writing as
- 10:52Speaker 2: a measurable output. If we start with a big picture
- 10:55Speaker 2: with nothing we can grab onto, there's just there's nothing
- 10:59Speaker 2: that we can connect with. But if we start from
- 11:01Speaker 2: a very specific point and we move out, we can
- 11:05Speaker 2: do that. And lastly, according to Yale, going again back
- 11:10Speaker 2: to this science, the front part of the brain being
- 11:12Speaker 2: two and a half times overactive. That's word analysis followed
- 11:16Speaker 2: by articulation. So we do that, but we also do
- 11:20Speaker 2: on the craft of research. We focus on showing students
- 11:24Speaker 2: how to go from sentences they can't even write, you know,
- 11:26Speaker 2: basic sentences, all the way through high school college level
- 11:30Speaker 2: body paragraphs. Then we come up with a with a
- 11:35Speaker 2: with a problem statement that makes sense for something that
- 11:38Speaker 2: they can do that's original, and then we come up
- 11:40Speaker 2: with an original solution. One of my most advanced kids
- 11:43Speaker 2: I'm working with now, his name is Grayson. He's ten
- 11:46Speaker 2: years old. He's not dyslectic in the least. He's in
- 11:50Speaker 2: the ninety ninth percentile in math and science. He's flying
- 11:52Speaker 2: through this. He wants to get his PhD and work
- 11:56Speaker 2: for NASA to terraform Mars. And we're working with him
- 12:01Speaker 2: on doing a publication where we will be submitting for
- 12:04Speaker 2: a peer review journal. It will be rejected. Once it's rejected,
- 12:08Speaker 2: we were going to set him up with a senior
- 12:10Speaker 2: scientist in that area, and he's going to say, Professor,
- 12:14Speaker 2: I want to get this published. Here's what I need
- 12:16Speaker 2: to work on. Can you work on this with me?
- 12:18Speaker 2: Probably when he's fourteen? And watch the professor's jawge rop.
- 12:23Speaker 1: So many things. I mean, we don't we look at
- 12:25Speaker 1: these kids that are fourteen years old and they already
- 12:27Speaker 1: have their Yale degree. It's like, how does that happen?
- 12:29Speaker 1: I mean, that's where I want to go.
- 12:30Speaker 2: Now. No, now have that well, no, very specifically what
- 12:35Speaker 2: we're working on with Grace. Remember he's not dyslectic at all,
- 12:39Speaker 2: all right, he's just been top one percent in math
- 12:41Speaker 2: and science. We are working with him to show him
- 12:45Speaker 2: this that process I describe to you, and we're going
- 12:49Speaker 2: we already found the journal we want to submit to,
- 12:51Speaker 2: and there's a need for what he needs to do.
- 12:54Speaker 2: So we're going to work on him to submit that journal.
- 12:57Speaker 2: When it's rejected, because they almost always are for some reason,
- 13:01Speaker 2: We're then introducing him to a professor to take it
- 13:04Speaker 2: the rest of the way. If you do not know
- 13:07Speaker 2: the craft of research, these kids are not going to
- 13:11Speaker 2: be employable as knowledge workers. Let me be very clear
- 13:15Speaker 2: on that. The AI is advancing so quickly, especially with
- 13:19Speaker 2: the recent development of Opus four point six from A
- 13:23Speaker 2: Claude is if we're now in a place where kids
- 13:27Speaker 2: are managing agents. If you know the craft of research,
- 13:30Speaker 2: if you know how to do context, problem, statement solution,
- 13:33Speaker 2: you can then talk with it, work with it, whatever
- 13:35Speaker 2: it is, and figure it out, and you can use it.
- 13:38Speaker 2: You can guide it, you can train others even if
- 13:40Speaker 2: you know nothing about it. If you can't do the
- 13:44Speaker 2: craft of research, I don't know how you're going to
- 13:46Speaker 2: be employable.
- 13:48Speaker 1: All right. I gotta ask you this. If you take
- 13:51Speaker 1: this doctoral research, all these studies, and you put into
- 13:54Speaker 1: the high school brain, how do these kids react to that?
- 13:57Speaker 1: I mean, those kids' brains are still mold at that point,
- 14:01Speaker 1: so how do they handle the PhD level research that's
- 14:04Speaker 1: got to be intense for them?
- 14:06Speaker 2: Actually we start doing it at nine years old.
- 14:09Speaker 1: My word, jaws dropping now and he just told me that.
- 14:13Speaker 2: How is it doing? Okay, let me explain to you
- 14:16Speaker 2: the results. I finally had a parent that said we
- 14:18Speaker 2: can use her results. Her name is Kimberly. Her son
- 14:22Speaker 2: was read at ten years old. Okay. We met in
- 14:24Speaker 2: December twenty seventh of twenty twenty four. The state of
- 14:27Speaker 2: Ohio just tested him less than two weeks before. He
- 14:31Speaker 2: was reading at the eleventh percentile writing at the fourth percentile.
- 14:37Speaker 2: We showed him in that process. We gave him something
- 14:41Speaker 2: he was very interested in. We taught him from the
- 14:43Speaker 2: specific to the general word analysis followed by articulation. Kimberly did.
- 14:47Speaker 2: She's a homeschooling mom with some college who properly taught
- 14:51Speaker 2: her other four children to read and write properly using
- 14:54Speaker 2: traditional methods. So she worked with read for an hour
- 14:58Speaker 2: and a half a week half an hour, three sessions
- 15:01Speaker 2: a week. Most parents do ten to fifteen minutes a
- 15:04Speaker 2: couple times a week for the next five and a
- 15:06Speaker 2: half months to the end of the school year. I'm
- 15:10Speaker 2: not going to tell you those results because in August,
- 15:15Speaker 2: about eight and a half months after I worked with Reid.
- 15:17Speaker 2: His friends wanted him back in public school for social reasons,
- 15:21Speaker 2: so he goes back in. He was tested. If he
- 15:23Speaker 2: was scoring like he did in December eleventh percent tile
- 15:27Speaker 2: and reading, fourth percent tile and writing, he would have
- 15:29Speaker 2: been placed in special ed away from his friends on
- 15:31Speaker 2: Happy Kid. But he had an increase, Yeah, he had
- 15:36Speaker 2: an increase. He jumped up from the eleventh percentile and
- 15:40Speaker 2: write as our eleventh percentile and reading to the sixty
- 15:43Speaker 2: fourth percentile. His writing went from the fourth percentile to
- 15:47Speaker 2: the sixty fifth all right, his grammar went to the
- 15:50Speaker 2: ninety seventh percentile. I asked Kimberly how he was doing
- 15:54Speaker 2: in school a couple of months in. He's getting a's
- 15:56Speaker 2: and b's. She did this at home by her. That's
- 16:00Speaker 2: how powerful this is, all right?
- 16:02Speaker 1: They give it in talented schools, the charter schools. I
- 16:06Speaker 1: feel like they serve a purpose for people that you
- 16:09Speaker 1: know and for kids that have those different I guess
- 16:13Speaker 1: different abilities as you will. But I also like they
- 16:16Speaker 1: of them being integrated to the public school system. So
- 16:18Speaker 1: where do you land all these different things?
- 16:21Speaker 2: Well, the thing is read was in a normal public school,
- 16:24Speaker 2: not one of these other ones. Now, as far as
- 16:28Speaker 2: these gifted and talented, these chartered schools. What I generally
- 16:32Speaker 2: get when I speak to these kids is a lot
- 16:36Speaker 2: of times they're in an urban setting where they just
- 16:40Speaker 2: keep telling me, listen, it's not safe for me to
- 16:42Speaker 2: go to the typical school. In the charter school, they
- 16:46Speaker 2: feel like the kids there are serious, it's a lot safer,
- 16:51Speaker 2: the teachers can take a lot more of a you know,
- 16:55Speaker 2: try different things. They generally really like it. So it
- 17:00Speaker 2: depends on if it's right for the individual kid, the
- 17:02Speaker 2: individual family, and only the parents can really make that decision.
- 17:07Speaker 1: Pardon me, wishes I had some of this but back
- 17:09Speaker 1: when I was a kid, because you know, all my
- 17:11Speaker 1: progress reports were he's doing good, but the number one
- 17:14Speaker 1: issue was he wasn't focused. And it's still the case
- 17:18Speaker 1: at thirty four years old.
- 17:19Speaker 2: So oh no, not the case. If you do this,
- 17:23Speaker 2: if you're in your speciality, you are focused like a laser.
- 17:27Speaker 2: If you're working on podcasting, you are absolutely.
- 17:30Speaker 1: Focused, like right now, I'm zoned in on you because
- 17:33Speaker 1: that's what we're doing. And then you know it is
- 17:36Speaker 1: you're right. When I'm behind the board in radio or something,
- 17:38Speaker 1: I'm always focused on that. But then the daily organization skills.
- 17:43Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to say, is that's where it's
- 17:45Speaker 1: not focused.
- 17:45Speaker 2: Yet, right so, and that's exactly what we focus on
- 17:50Speaker 2: helping students Switzland. Just you know what the science is,
- 17:52Speaker 2: the front part of your brain is massively overactive. There's
- 17:55Speaker 2: little to the organization. We force the brain to organize
- 17:59Speaker 2: itself by using writing as a measurable output.
- 18:04Speaker 1: This is fascinating because the daily tasks and the daily organization,
- 18:08Speaker 1: that's the thing I'm trying to figure out every day.
- 18:10Speaker 1: And also what about the thing about do you find
- 18:14Speaker 1: kids you work with like to move on to the
- 18:17Speaker 1: next thing? You know, like, Okay, one task is done,
- 18:19Speaker 1: I got to move on quickly instead of getting that
- 18:21Speaker 1: one task thoroughly done.
- 18:22Speaker 2: Do you notice that when we're in their speciality, there
- 18:26Speaker 2: is no problem. They are very thorough The moment we
- 18:30Speaker 2: step out, it's just out the window. That's why in
- 18:34Speaker 2: my initial study I focused on the massively motivated kids
- 18:38Speaker 2: because I absolutely stepped outside their motivation completely, all right,
- 18:43Speaker 2: And then I had to figure out how do we
- 18:46Speaker 2: keep them inside of to make it work? Because when
- 18:49Speaker 2: I started this, after I gave that presentation, I couldn't
- 18:52Speaker 2: work with normal kids. And then I realized, like what
- 18:55Speaker 2: I did in law school, I just dominated from day one,
- 18:58Speaker 2: absolutely dominant. And I talked to other successful dyslectic professors
- 19:02Speaker 2: and there was a pattern. They were no good kindergarten
- 19:05Speaker 2: through college, and then they walk into grad school day
- 19:08Speaker 2: one they owned the place, very narrow focused area. And
- 19:13Speaker 2: then I realized for employment, we are very normally narrowly focused.
- 19:18Speaker 2: Do you think your your podcast listeners could care at
- 19:22Speaker 2: all if you can do calculus?
- 19:24Speaker 1: No? I don't think they would, but no exactly.
- 19:27Speaker 2: So our system is designed to make us well rounded
- 19:31Speaker 2: before we can specialize. Work's great when we're dealing with
- 19:34Speaker 2: the back part of the brain, but for dyslectics add ADHD,
- 19:38Speaker 2: we just want to specialize. Our brains are completely opposite.
- 19:43Speaker 2: It's not that the schools are trying to make it
- 19:45Speaker 2: hard for the neuro diverse. We are literally just the
- 19:48Speaker 2: exact opposite.
- 19:50Speaker 1: Growing up, did you find this ADHD the stuff you
- 19:53Speaker 1: know that you had major more sociable, less sociable, Like,
- 19:58Speaker 1: how was your social life, how was your support from
- 20:00Speaker 1: your parents going through all of this, and did it
- 20:03Speaker 1: feel like a challenger? Did you feel like, Okay, I'm
- 20:05Speaker 1: going to adapt and embrace it.
- 20:06Speaker 2: Oh no, I was. It was World War three between
- 20:09Speaker 2: me and the school. I finally forced my way out
- 20:13Speaker 2: of UH for classes for eighth grade, I got the
- 20:17Speaker 2: highest I became the top history student. Went on to
- 20:20Speaker 2: high school, all mainstream. I was elected class president. I
- 20:24Speaker 2: was an eagle scout. I found out that my peers
- 20:27Speaker 2: thought of me. I had a few good friends, but
- 20:30Speaker 2: not a lot. They just looked at me. Was the guy.
- 20:32Speaker 2: Was the guy who got things done and could work
- 20:35Speaker 2: with a wide variety. Is one of them why I
- 20:39Speaker 2: got elected president. They said, there are so many different cliques,
- 20:43Speaker 2: so many different people. You can work with the nerds,
- 20:46Speaker 2: you can work with the jocks, you can work with
- 20:49Speaker 2: the spaced out kids, and just get things done. I
- 20:52Speaker 2: was like, yo, yeah, because I've been treated like craud
- 20:55Speaker 2: my entire life, and I'm not doing that to other people.
- 20:58Speaker 2: That's a key thing you finds.
- 21:00Speaker 1: When I was in college, I found I can make it.
- 21:03Speaker 1: Hang out with the athletes, I can hang out with
- 21:05Speaker 1: the music kids. I can hang out with the theater
- 21:06Speaker 1: kid like. I feel like we're similar in that way.
- 21:09Speaker 1: We just found out different clicks.
- 21:11Speaker 2: Yes, So the main thing that you want to think
- 21:16Speaker 2: about when you're neuro diverse, is that there are huge
- 21:21Speaker 2: advantages to it. So what we need to focus on is,
- 21:25Speaker 2: remember why I told you the craft of research. I
- 21:28Speaker 2: take people through the context, the problem, statement, the solution
- 21:32Speaker 2: in high school. Okay. Then you take those skills and
- 21:36Speaker 2: apply it to your favorite AI model, and then you're
- 21:39Speaker 2: going to find you're outrageously productive. Okay, all right, and
- 21:46Speaker 2: that's what it's going to require to get employment going forward.
- 21:50Speaker 2: I mean, ever since Opus four point six drop last
- 21:53Speaker 2: week from Claude, literally I had to redesign my entire
- 21:58Speaker 2: workflow again, and I cannot imagine I'm doing more work
- 22:03Speaker 2: now in a day than I used to do in
- 22:05Speaker 2: a year. And I'm not joking because I had to
- 22:07Speaker 2: send everything out to an assistant to get rewritten. To
- 22:10Speaker 2: get it was a pain every email I had to
- 22:12Speaker 2: send out to get rewritten, all right. So what I'm
- 22:15Speaker 2: just saying is this is so powerful now that I
- 22:19Speaker 2: understand the process I fly through, and now I'm teaching
- 22:22Speaker 2: others to do the same thing, and it's just critical
- 22:25Speaker 2: for them to get a job in the future.
- 22:30Speaker 1: Oh, I'm right here. No, I've got my colleagues here
- 22:33Speaker 1: because they're all listening to saying, yeah, this is pretty
- 22:36Speaker 1: much alex to a t, not organized enough, moving on
- 22:39Speaker 1: from one thing to the next. And my colleague, my
- 22:42Speaker 1: boss said he's gonna pay for something like this if
- 22:44Speaker 1: I could get fixed on the spot. So maybe we're
- 22:46Speaker 1: tapping into something.
- 22:47Speaker 2: Well, actually, you can get corrected. That's what I do
- 22:50Speaker 2: with adults. Is that exact same New York State Senate
- 22:54Speaker 2: funded program?
- 22:56Speaker 1: All right, is this for anybody adults? Kids?
- 22:59Speaker 2: Oh? No, no, no, that is a specific program for rapid
- 23:03Speaker 2: improvements for sixteen and above, highly motivated, highly intelligent people.
- 23:09Speaker 1: Now you said I went how far above? So I
- 23:11Speaker 1: might have to look into this, But well.
- 23:12Speaker 2: How how far did you go in college? Oh?
- 23:15Speaker 1: I graduated. I got my bachelor's and that was it.
- 23:17Speaker 1: I didn't go into a graduate program.
- 23:20Speaker 2: But but do you remember all those GeneralIG classes that
- 23:24Speaker 2: you hated and you still got decent grades? Do you
- 23:27Speaker 2: remember that?
- 23:28Speaker 1: Of course? And I just passed computer science because they
- 23:31Speaker 1: got here's the thing about that, right, there were some
- 23:34Speaker 1: classes that only had slides. You only had to go
- 23:37Speaker 1: to class and have you look at a PowerPoint. I
- 23:39Speaker 1: don't function well that way, so I barely passed those classes.
- 23:42Speaker 1: It wasn't interactive, and maybe that was because it wasn't
- 23:45Speaker 1: hitting my brain. I don't know exactly, but it was.
- 23:49Speaker 2: But you passed.
- 23:50Speaker 1: I passed, Yes, I passed, okay.
- 23:52Speaker 2: So what the original program is. It's really simple. We
- 23:56Speaker 2: give you gr e prompts okay, and we have you.
- 24:02Speaker 2: We show you how to do the thesis statement until
- 24:05Speaker 2: you master it. Then thesis statement, first body paragraph until
- 24:08Speaker 2: you're really good at it. And then then we just
- 24:10Speaker 2: keep going about the paragraph by paragraph until you have
- 24:13Speaker 2: it down. And what you find is it helps out
- 24:17Speaker 2: tremendously with organizing your brain. That's exactly what it's designed
- 24:22Speaker 2: for the most advanced person. I brought it through. You know,
- 24:25Speaker 2: Colombia is the top business school in New York City.
- 24:28Speaker 2: He went. He was dyslectic when I asked him what
- 24:32Speaker 2: was what was the argument from this gerry prompt? Took
- 24:37Speaker 2: him almost a minute. Any fourteen year old ap English
- 24:40Speaker 2: high school kid in the country would tell it to
- 24:43Speaker 2: me in less than two seconds. He took almost a minute.
- 24:46Speaker 2: After he practiced it fifty times, he got real fast.
- 24:51Speaker 2: All right, But it's just it's a you just go
- 24:54Speaker 2: through the process and it just organizes things and then
- 24:57Speaker 2: it becomes unfair, like, for example, for shore, how many
- 25:01Speaker 2: of the six sharks do you think are dyslectic?
- 25:10Speaker 1: You're quizzing me, all right, about three or four of them,
- 25:13Speaker 1: because they're all high functioning ADHD folks.
- 25:17Speaker 2: Three three are specifically dyslectic, mister wonderful Damian and BARBERA
- 25:23Speaker 2: half the selectics make up less than ten percent of
- 25:27Speaker 2: the population, yet half the sharks are dyslectic. It is
- 25:31Speaker 2: a brutally unfair advantage. Once you get out of a
- 25:36Speaker 2: grad program and you get into real work, it is
- 25:40Speaker 2: brutally unfair, even in the trades we're giving example. My
- 25:45Speaker 2: second student we went through. His name was Adam. He
- 25:49Speaker 2: was a nineteen year old high school seniors help back
- 25:51Speaker 2: a couple of times. Teachers said he was a genius.
- 25:56Speaker 2: He scored his writing was so horrifically on the pretest.
- 26:01Speaker 2: Doctor Militia wanted him banned from college. She said nobody
- 26:04Speaker 2: should have to deal with it. She was very upset.
- 26:06Speaker 2: Never saw her upset before. Goes through the program. Scores
- 26:09Speaker 2: in the seventieth percent tile approximately at the end of it,
- 26:12Speaker 2: composition one oh one and one o two in college
- 26:15Speaker 2: were bees. He ended up joining the Boiler making union,
- 26:19Speaker 2: you know the ones in schools that have that big
- 26:20Speaker 2: boiler to keep everything going. They were under contract to
- 26:24Speaker 2: fix the darn thing. They call him in off vacation.
- 26:27Speaker 2: He's there for a day and a half. Said, sorry,
- 26:30Speaker 2: it took me so long. They responded, We've been trying
- 26:34Speaker 2: to figure this out for a month. Okay, it's incredibly unfair.
- 26:41Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's unbelievable. So you're trying to make it
- 26:45Speaker 1: fair and element Let me ask you this as well,
- 26:48Speaker 1: because I also go into these interviews without preparing any notes.
- 26:51Speaker 1: And maybe that's a brain thing too. But all this
- 26:53Speaker 1: we're talking about right now, natural conversation. I don't prep
- 26:56Speaker 1: work or all that. Where does that come from?
- 27:00Speaker 2: That is let's look at the front part of the brain.
- 27:03Speaker 2: This is where we have that two and a half
- 27:04Speaker 2: times the neuroactivity. It deals with word analysis followed by articulating.
- 27:09Speaker 2: You're articulating, you have two and a half times the neuroactivity.
- 27:14Speaker 2: It's freaking on fair. It's like imagine a sixteen ourselves
- 27:21Speaker 2: for people like that are neurodiverse. It's extremely unfair, but
- 27:26Speaker 2: is an advantage also, it's extraordinary advantage. Okay, extraordinary, Let
- 27:33Speaker 2: me give you an example, everyone reading, Okay, that's the
- 27:38Speaker 2: Dyslexia Conference in New York City. Then I'm going to
- 27:41Speaker 2: be presenting at in March. Third. I've been doing it
- 27:45Speaker 2: for twelve years. When it comes every year, it come
- 27:49Speaker 2: up with something that advances the field significantly. Other people
- 27:53Speaker 2: do that if they're lucky, once or twice in a career.
- 27:56Speaker 2: I do it every year, all right. Now I'm doing
- 27:59Speaker 2: it multiple times a year. Okay, sometimes I'm doing it
- 28:04Speaker 2: every couple of weeks. It's an extraordinarily unfair advantage. Now
- 28:10Speaker 2: I use Opus four point six and I spent two
- 28:13Speaker 2: hundred bucks a month on it, and I'm getting so
- 28:15Speaker 2: much work done, sending real product out, real reports out
- 28:19Speaker 2: for the first time in my life without anybody else
- 28:22Speaker 2: looking at it. Okay, it's so incredibly unfair.
- 28:28Speaker 1: It's about calming the brain. I think that's the other
- 28:30Speaker 1: part of this is, Yeah, the overactive brain. Then something
- 28:34Speaker 1: calms it. Some might turn to doom scrolling to that
- 28:37Speaker 1: activates me even more so. I like to read or
- 28:40Speaker 1: even just close my eyes for a bit. How do
- 28:42Speaker 1: you calm your brain?
- 28:43Speaker 2: I don't. I try to make it go more crazy
- 28:46Speaker 2: when I have more ideas. Yes, but there are times
- 28:51Speaker 2: when I just my brain just okay. Then what I
- 28:56Speaker 2: do is I make a trip to the ocean and
- 28:59Speaker 2: I literally bring out a two hundred dollars on foldable
- 29:03Speaker 2: chair because I want something comfortable, and I stare at
- 29:05Speaker 2: the ocean for a couple of days.
- 29:07Speaker 1: I was raised by the water on the East River
- 29:09Speaker 1: on these forty fourth and that water is very calmon,
- 29:11Speaker 1: I have to say, and I do like, especially when
- 29:14Speaker 1: it's warmer out you just sit.
- 29:15Speaker 2: There and right, but not the river water, the ocean water.
- 29:19Speaker 2: The ways, the more active, the better. That's what I
- 29:22Speaker 2: find gives me the recharge. And I do that at
- 29:27Speaker 2: least twice a year.
- 29:28Speaker 1: I'm so glad Pop Match connected us because I feel
- 29:30Speaker 1: like we're gonna stay in touch and and maybe work
- 29:33Speaker 1: on on my brain a little bit here. That would
- 29:35Speaker 1: be very interesting.
- 29:37Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Just you know, if you're interested in doing that,
- 29:41Speaker 2: can I can bring you through the exact same thing
- 29:43Speaker 2: we brought the high school kids through that.
- 29:45Speaker 1: I am so now that I'm very interested because just
- 29:48Speaker 1: last week, okay, I lost my phone and this has
- 29:51Speaker 1: been a perennial thing, like I always lose something a wallet,
- 29:54Speaker 1: key's phone, and my colleague here had to pick it
- 29:57Speaker 1: up for me in Midtown. But it which is one
- 30:00Speaker 1: of those lack of focused things, and maybe it's because
- 30:04Speaker 1: of my add I don't want to know. I don't
- 30:06Speaker 1: blame it on anything.
- 30:07Speaker 2: But there's your solution.
- 30:09Speaker 1: I got that put.
- 30:13Speaker 2: I have just so you know, because it's fist in
- 30:16Speaker 2: my pocket. I use Apple for everything. This is the earbuds,
- 30:21Speaker 2: the barrow threes. I put it right in there. If
- 30:24Speaker 2: I lose it, I either go to my iPhone or
- 30:29Speaker 2: I go to my watch and it tells me where
- 30:33Speaker 2: it is, like literally where it is.
- 30:38Speaker 1: Well, okay, so this is more very similar than in
- 30:40Speaker 1: a lot of ways because I got my patch, you
- 30:42Speaker 1: got your pouch. Now when you got the Senate funding, though,
- 30:46Speaker 1: I mean, this had to be quite an accomplishment and
- 30:49Speaker 1: you had to feel really like good. And what was
- 30:53Speaker 1: that feeling like when you first got a wad.
- 30:54Speaker 2: Well, it was fantastic because the Senate doesn't fund stuff
- 30:57Speaker 2: like this, and just so everybody knows what it required.
- 31:01Speaker 2: They sent me over to the Education Department, which wanted
- 31:04Speaker 2: to get rid of me. So they required a sony
- 31:06Speaker 2: distinguished Professor in psychology, which there were two in Western
- 31:10Speaker 2: New York. Then once I got that, then I had
- 31:13Speaker 2: to connect it up with current research that was supposed
- 31:16Speaker 2: to take me years. I did in less than a week.
- 31:19Speaker 2: Then I got funding from the university for fifteen grand
- 31:22Speaker 2: ran a couple of studies with a school district outside.
- 31:25Speaker 2: Because then this was back when Republicans were Republicans. What
- 31:29Speaker 2: they wanted was the school system to say they wanted it,
- 31:33Speaker 2: and they got the money. I didn't get a dime
- 31:35Speaker 2: of that money. It went right to the school district. Okay,
- 31:40Speaker 2: they ran it. Republicans want the school districts to say
- 31:44Speaker 2: this worked. Democrats want to start off with the bill
- 31:46Speaker 2: at the high end and move down. Republicans want to
- 31:49Speaker 2: work from the schools on up.
- 31:52Speaker 1: Three schools. I'd love to connect it with the Viscardi Center,
- 31:54Speaker 1: if you know who they are.
- 31:55Speaker 2: But yes, so that's that's something that's an organization you
- 32:00Speaker 2: work with for disabled students.
- 32:02Speaker 1: Yeah, there from kindergarten. You know, I graduated there from
- 32:07Speaker 1: kindergarten all the way through the twelfth grade. So I'd
- 32:10Speaker 1: love to connect you guys, because I feel like you're
- 32:12Speaker 1: putting out this incredible service for people and I think
- 32:17Speaker 1: they can benefit also. Center Independence Labor of New york
- 32:20Speaker 1: Er Sydney. Are you familiar with them?
- 32:23Speaker 2: Yes? And just you know, I just got hired to
- 32:26Speaker 2: train forty plus tutors in San Francisco how to take
- 32:32Speaker 2: kids from can't writing a sentence to writing the most
- 32:35Speaker 2: part of a high school level body paragraph. And I
- 32:38Speaker 2: did the whole thing in ninety minutes.
- 32:41Speaker 1: I want to go back though, to sentence structuring, because
- 32:44Speaker 1: that's the one thing where if I write an email,
- 32:47Speaker 1: I then send it out without looking first, and that's
- 32:49Speaker 1: really my downfall sometimes. So it can't just be a
- 32:54Speaker 1: classic teacher. This is sort of a mindset you have
- 32:56Speaker 1: to have, right. It's not just.
- 32:57Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, it's so easy to think it
- 33:01Speaker 2: takes ten minutes to want me to show you. Sure, okay,
- 33:05Speaker 2: so I want you to Uh, I'm gonna imagine you're
- 33:09Speaker 2: teaching this. Okay, do you know what dyslectic kid really well?
- 33:14Speaker 2: In elementary school?
- 33:17Speaker 1: Hipothetically, you mean I don't know anybody really well.
- 33:19Speaker 2: But no, I mean any time in your life did
- 33:21Speaker 2: you know another dyslectic kid?
- 33:23Speaker 1: I did not really know?
- 33:25Speaker 2: Just okay, then let's use you at age ten. Okay, Okay,
- 33:29Speaker 2: you're gonna teach yourself. Imagine yourself at ten is sitting
- 33:33Speaker 2: right next to you. I'm gonna show you how easy
- 33:35Speaker 2: this is, all right, the latinability to spell, the inability
- 33:40Speaker 2: to do grammar, it's so easy to fix, all right?
- 33:44Speaker 2: So what so again, just you know what we're going
- 33:46Speaker 2: to do. We're going to the science overcoming dyslexia front
- 33:50Speaker 2: part of the brain. We're gonna use the front part
- 33:53Speaker 2: of the brain, which is two and a half times overactive.
- 33:56Speaker 2: That's word analysis followed by articulation. So what we're going
- 34:00Speaker 2: to do is the first thing is you're going to
- 34:02Speaker 2: teach the dyslected kid. You're gonna type out on a
- 34:06Speaker 2: laptop computer with a real keyboard, not an iPad, not
- 34:10Speaker 2: an iPhone, and certainly not handwriting. You're gonna type out
- 34:15Speaker 2: hero plus sign, what are you? I'm sorry? Hero plus sign?
- 34:19Speaker 2: What are we talking about? Then we're gonna swap out
- 34:22Speaker 2: hero for your name? So what's your name? Als Alex.
- 34:27Speaker 2: We're gonna sweah it off for a hero plus sign?
- 34:29Speaker 2: What are we talking about? To Alex plus sign? What
- 34:32Speaker 2: are we talking about? Then we're gonna take a list
- 34:35Speaker 2: of ten things you really really like, and then ten
- 34:38Speaker 2: things you really really dislike. So the first thing you like,
- 34:42Speaker 2: I'm just gonna put up there podcasting. Okay, okay, so
- 34:45Speaker 2: we got Hero Plus signed. What are we talking about?
- 34:49Speaker 2: We're gonna swap out what are we talking about? For podcasting?
- 34:52Speaker 2: So we got Hero Plus signed podcasting. See how I
- 34:55Speaker 2: got there?
- 34:56Speaker 1: Yes? Uh, not really but.
- 34:58Speaker 2: I okay, No, Just so we start off with Hero
- 35:02Speaker 2: Plus signed. What are we talking about? We switched out
- 35:05Speaker 2: Hero for Alex Alex Plus signed. What are we talking about?
- 35:09Speaker 2: The first thing on your list of ten things you
- 35:11Speaker 2: really like? Podcasting? We're switching out for what are we
- 35:14Speaker 2: talking about? So we've got Alex plus signed podcasting?
- 35:17Speaker 1: Okay?
- 35:18Speaker 2: See how I got there?
- 35:18Speaker 1: Podcasting? Got it?
- 35:19Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, Sorry I was a little excusing before. Now
- 35:23Speaker 2: I'm going to try to fool you with two of
- 35:25Speaker 2: the simplest questions you've ever been asked. Okay, if you
- 35:30Speaker 2: answer them correctly, this will work. If it doesn't, you're
- 35:33Speaker 2: going to really understand you have an epiphany on what
- 35:36Speaker 2: this lexia really is. Do you think I can fool
- 35:38Speaker 2: you with two of the simplest questions now?
- 35:40Speaker 1: Because what you did just there, maybe realize, oh, I
- 35:44Speaker 1: don't think about the little details I think about the
- 35:46Speaker 1: bigger picture like I have to. Yes, little details kill
- 35:51Speaker 1: me every time.
- 35:52Speaker 2: Well, this is how we fix those. Do you think
- 35:54Speaker 2: I can fool you with two of the simplest questions. Okay,
- 35:58Speaker 2: so we got a plus sign podcasting. We need to
- 36:02Speaker 2: replace the the plus sign with a word. Here's my question.
- 36:07Speaker 2: Does Alex like or dislike podcasting? Like podcasting? You got
- 36:14Speaker 2: it exactly. You're one of the few people that did.
- 36:17Speaker 2: Now for the really hard question, are you ready? Okay,
- 36:21Speaker 2: replace the plus sign with that word and give me
- 36:25Speaker 2: the three word sentence.
- 36:27Speaker 1: Alex likes podcasting.
- 36:29Speaker 2: But that's not what I asked.
- 36:31Speaker 1: Oh, Alex like podcasting.
- 36:35Speaker 2: There you go. All right, you are one of the few.
- 36:39Speaker 2: You are one of the super few people that get it.
- 36:42Speaker 2: What happened that God that made you add the S
- 36:45Speaker 2: the first time? What caused that?
- 36:47Speaker 1: Because of my brain? Alex like podcasting doesn't make sense?
- 36:50Speaker 1: So Alex likes podcasting? Makes sense?
- 36:53Speaker 2: Right? You're an educated you're you went to college. You're educated,
- 36:57Speaker 2: so you did with almost every educated person. Does you
- 37:01Speaker 2: added the S to make it proper? But a dyslectic
- 37:04Speaker 2: kid doesn't know how to add the s? All right?
- 37:08Speaker 2: Now you're down in New York City. Let me tell
- 37:10Speaker 2: you how the rich do this. There's a school called
- 37:13Speaker 2: the Windward School. It's phenomenal then around for decades. They
- 37:18Speaker 2: have a ninety eight percent success rate. You give them
- 37:21Speaker 2: a kid in fourth grade who's way behind, and they
- 37:25Speaker 2: will send them back to their original school and they
- 37:28Speaker 2: will be as educated as the best private schools anywhere
- 37:32Speaker 2: in the world. Well, we cost seventy five thousand dollars
- 37:36Speaker 2: for four to five years. Do you happen to have
- 37:39Speaker 2: that money sitting around somewhere?
- 37:43Speaker 1: Not that I know of.
- 37:44Speaker 2: Actually, Okay, so here's how we fix Well, here's here's
- 37:49Speaker 2: how we fix that. What we do is we have Alex.
- 37:53Speaker 2: We have alex like podcasting. Here's how we get you
- 37:57Speaker 2: to add the s. We asked you to read it
- 37:59Speaker 2: out loud. Does that sound generally correct? You're gonna say no.
- 38:04Speaker 2: Then we say fix it. Alex likes podcasting. We do
- 38:07Speaker 2: that with ten likes and ten dislikes. Do you see
- 38:10Speaker 2: how that's a simple form of word analysis.
- 38:13Speaker 1: But also what you just tapped into is something like
- 38:16Speaker 1: I could be asked a question and then say a
- 38:18Speaker 1: totally different answer than what I was asked because the
- 38:21Speaker 1: answer that I'm supposed to give. Either is gonna get
- 38:25Speaker 1: me in trouble or it just doesn't feel right in
- 38:28Speaker 1: my brain. So like what you just did there? What
- 38:31Speaker 1: do what I do on a daily basis? Like they'll
- 38:32Speaker 1: ask me something and my colleague Ryan will say, I'll
- 38:35Speaker 1: go off on a completely different tangent.
- 38:37Speaker 2: Right, and notice what I'm doing now, I'm forcing you
- 38:40Speaker 2: to stay very step by step, very linear. Okay, because
- 38:46Speaker 2: remember what I said before. We have to force the
- 38:48Speaker 2: brain to organize itself by using writing as a measurable output.
- 38:51Speaker 2: So here's my question again. Do you see how this
- 38:56Speaker 2: is a very simple form of word analysis? Yeah?
- 38:59Speaker 1: I can see it.
- 39:00Speaker 2: Yeah, so you asked, does it sound correct? No? Fix it, Alex,
- 39:05Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Alex likes podcasting, okay, yeah, okay, Now that
- 39:12Speaker 2: is the first part. Then we go because we go
- 39:15Speaker 2: into reason one. Give me a simple reason why you
- 39:18Speaker 2: like podcasting.
- 39:21Speaker 1: I like podcasting because it gives me a voice in
- 39:24Speaker 1: the space.
- 39:26Speaker 2: Alex likes podcasting because it gives him a voice in
- 39:29Speaker 2: the space. Now, imagine when you were in elementary school.
- 39:32Speaker 2: Do we have a whole mess of misspelled words?
- 39:36Speaker 1: Uh? Actually, spelling was okay for me, but I'm pretty
- 39:38Speaker 1: sure I misspelled a few of those along the way.
- 39:40Speaker 2: Okay, Well, a lot of dyslectics is a lot of
- 39:43Speaker 2: misspelled words.
- 39:45Speaker 1: By the way, I think the phone has also increased
- 39:47Speaker 1: my inability to think critically. And when it comes to
- 39:51Speaker 1: forming something, it's all I got to type on the
- 39:53Speaker 1: damn keyboard and just send it out and whatever the rights.
- 39:57Speaker 2: You know.
- 39:57Speaker 1: Then that's why I said out. So it's kind of.
- 40:00Speaker 2: Ah. But again, do you see how you just went
- 40:03Speaker 2: off on another tangent? Yes, okay, Okay, now I'm bringing
- 40:07Speaker 2: you back. Okay. Do you see how for a lot
- 40:10Speaker 2: of dyslectics it's randomly placed misspelled words. So how we
- 40:15Speaker 2: fix that? So here's how we fix that. It's so simple.
- 40:20Speaker 2: What we do is for what we do is we
- 40:25Speaker 2: tell the dyslectic kid to first read what they wrote
- 40:27Speaker 2: out loud okay, and then we ask them does it
- 40:30Speaker 2: sound generally correct? Fix it until it does. We don't
- 40:32Speaker 2: care about spelling. Once we do that. That's important because
- 40:36Speaker 2: the Jedi teachers have a really hard time with horrific grammar.
- 40:40Speaker 2: That's now gone. A lot of the medium problems are
- 40:43Speaker 2: going to your left with the little ones, and some
- 40:44Speaker 2: medium ones, and they're good at that. Now the spelling,
- 40:47Speaker 2: we tell them to put a period down every time
- 40:49Speaker 2: they misspell one word. In that sense, they got to
- 40:51Speaker 2: retype the entire thing, the entire thing, and they're gonna say,
- 40:55Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna make that mistake,
- 40:58Speaker 2: and they keep making it until it's corrected, somewhere between
- 41:01Speaker 2: three and thirteen times. The more they make the mistake,
- 41:04Speaker 2: the more they concentrate, I'm not going to make that mistake,
- 41:06Speaker 2: and they keep making it. What happens is eventually they
- 41:10Speaker 2: get it right, and until then they're concentrating harder and harder.
- 41:13Speaker 2: That's where the magic happens. So we do that with
- 41:16Speaker 2: ten likes and ten dislikes until everything is spelled correctly,
- 41:19Speaker 2: reason one and reason two, ten likes and ten dislikes
- 41:22Speaker 2: until spell correctly reason one, reason two, and reason three.
- 41:25Speaker 2: Same thing. Now we're going from randomly place misspelled words
- 41:29Speaker 2: to a correct, decent grammar, correct spelling, three reason sentence.
- 41:34Speaker 2: And here's the other most important thing. If you can
- 41:38Speaker 2: write it, you can read it. If you can write it,
- 41:42Speaker 2: you can read it. That is how you basically do
- 41:45Speaker 2: the sentences. It's that simple and parents can do it
- 41:52Speaker 2: at home.
- 41:53Speaker 1: Well, there's been so enlightening and I often think my
- 41:57Speaker 1: answer is to real questions like you would ask me
- 42:00Speaker 1: about Alex like podcasting, like instead of saying that about it,
- 42:04Speaker 1: it's because of my brain. I say what I feel
- 42:07Speaker 1: like is supposed to happen. Is that what's really happening.
- 42:10Speaker 1: So it's kind of been an interesting breakthrough. You're just
- 42:13Speaker 1: you brought me to a realization today. So thank you
- 42:15Speaker 1: for that second. I'll have you on again as we
- 42:19Speaker 1: move forward into this, you know, second half of the
- 42:22Speaker 1: year and whatever else. And when you see your kids
- 42:25Speaker 1: graduate from these schools, it must make you feel pretty proud.
- 42:28Speaker 2: Oh yeah, But I know what I'm sending them off to.
- 42:33Speaker 2: I when I when I finished them up with a
- 42:35Speaker 2: craft of research. I know they're ready. I know that
- 42:38Speaker 2: when they go to college they will absolutely be outperforming
- 42:42Speaker 2: their val Victorian. So give you a little hint you
- 42:46Speaker 2: walk into I'll leave you with this. I'm sitting with
- 42:51Speaker 2: doctor Barnett. This was back in the nineties. He was
- 42:55Speaker 2: the chair of the communications department. I drove up to
- 42:59Speaker 2: see him. He has a number of PEC students waiting
- 43:01Speaker 2: for them outside. I was funded they're not. We're talking
- 43:06Speaker 2: for half an hour forty five minutes about nothing. Okay,
- 43:11Speaker 2: they're waiting, he said, Oh, they can wait. You have
- 43:15Speaker 2: an original idea. You're funded, they're not, and I.
- 43:21Speaker 1: Stop funding for this podcast. I'm doing something wrong. So
- 43:24Speaker 1: let me let me fix that course and do something
- 43:27Speaker 1: with that. So thank you for your inspiration today. For sure,
- 43:32Speaker 1: when we I want to want I want to have
- 43:33Speaker 1: you back on for another episode to talk about the
- 43:36Speaker 1: digital age dyslexia, because I feel like, as I say,
- 43:39Speaker 1: the phones make it even easier to make mistakes and
- 43:41Speaker 1: we don't catch them.
- 43:43Speaker 2: Oh no, I set up I have set up a
- 43:46Speaker 2: literally a workflow with UH with Claude Opus four point six.
- 43:51Speaker 2: I don't make mistakes like that anymore. Literally, I walked through.
- 43:56Speaker 2: I worked through a predefined workflow. And by the way,
- 43:59Speaker 2: what worked in the beginning of November didn't work in January.
- 44:03Speaker 2: What worked in January doesn't work now. That's how it
- 44:05Speaker 2: fasts moving, all right, And there's ways of cleaning it up.
- 44:10Speaker 2: People love the reports that I send them. They're professionally
- 44:14Speaker 2: tight set. They're exactly what they're looking for. Because I've
- 44:18Speaker 2: learned how to work through the context problem solution with
- 44:21Speaker 2: artificial intelligence.
- 44:23Speaker 1: Well, Russell, this has been a very special episode and
- 44:25Speaker 1: I'm going to have you back on for sure on
- 44:27Speaker 1: the Lord I Got Network