Is 1 better than 0? And 2? is 2 better than 1?

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Those who know me well, know that I don´t have a good relationship with numbers. I have never had, end even this so-called relationship has smoothed up after a diagnosed math disability, numbers terrify me tremendously and my approach is full of skepticism. I do, however, have a weird comprehension about them. I somehow make sense of it all my head, in a strange way, and somehow I manage.

For example, I comprehend numbers that increase as a good meaning: is better to have 3 oranges instead of 1; or 5 pair of shoes instead of 2… There are some exceptions, of course, where numbers that reduce are actually a good thing, as when Cipralex is reduced from 10 to 5 mg, or when the days until the next vacation reduce by 1 every day until it arrives.

I am in day 1, which according to my mother is better than day 0, and she says that 2 is even better than day 1, and that it will get easier as the days go by. I hear my mom with the same skepticism as I approach numbers. Her theory states that as the days go by into a higher number, the heartache diminishes in intensity. That one thing goes up as another goes down at the same time, takes some time in my head to process.

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Celia Stone, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia Pioneer

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Celia Stone is one of the most inspiring, yet unassuming women I’ve ever met. She has changed the lives of both my husband and my daughter, along with thousands of other young people.

She has tackles every challenge that life has throws at her with pragmatism and the question, ‘how can we make a plan?’: From fleeing the threat of violence and unrest in her native Zimbabwe in the 70’s, with her husband, 3 small children, £500 and whatever they could carry; to setting up a specialist dyslexia unit at the Yorkshire school where her husband taught.

She now has more than 35 years’ experience of working with children with special educational needs – including my husband who was thrown out of his local primary school aged 7, because they ‘couldn’t teach him’. With Celia’s help, his dyslexia hasn’t held him back and he has gone on to become a successful entrepreneur, speaker and local businessman. At 18, she screened him for Irlen lenses – coloured glasses which helped him read for the first time. 25 years later she did the same for our daughter.

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No writers for dyscalculia students

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Math is not the only problem affecting students with learning disabilities appear to be in a fix this exam season. Students suffering from dyscalculia are having difficulty obtaining writers for their Arithmetic paper.

Dyscalculia is a math disorder where candidates have difficulty with spatial orientation as well as the concepts involved in mathematics. The state board conducts a special exam for them where their math paper is simplified and of a lower class 7 level. Hence students are only allowed writers from class 6 to write this paper.

Parents and students of this learning disability have been calling the board helpline stating their inability to find writers for their exam on March 15. Ashwini Sethi, a parent whose child was diagnosed with dyscalculia at 12 years of age said, “We had earlier found plenty of writers, most of them my daughter’s friends, who were studying in class 9 and helped her write her other papers. But now we are in a soup,” she said adding that even if she found a student willing to write her daughter’s papers, he/ she might not be able to understand the concepts and make mistakes.

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Why I don’t like pie

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This morning, as I was fumbling with the three digit number lock for my bike and as I later read some tweets about Valentine cancelling itself out this year (14-2-12=0), I was reminded how much numbers matter in our lives.

For me, however, this has always been the source of much frustration. Indeed, if it had been invented back then, I’m sure I would have been diagnosed as a child with at least a mild form of dyscalculia. I remember having to sit through hours and hours of extra math lessons just to be able to do basic sums and even today I struggle. Honestly, I cannot do something like 15+7 immediately. I have to split it up in 15+5 and 20+2. I’m also notoriously bad at mixing up stuff like 97 and 79, thanks partly to the confusing Dutch system of saying zevenennegentig and negenenzeventig. (Even as I wrote this down I noticed that I had confused them).

Later on my dyscalculia developed into a very apathetic relationship to numbers in general. For instance, for someone who likes history it didn’t help, I’m profoundly uninterested in dates. I always needed a little trick just to remember them, like 1798 for the French Revolution. But the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) or the one at Actium (31 BC), two of the most iconic dates of Ancient History – a subject I took at university –, will be forgotten almost as I’m writing this down.

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Poem

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When the numbers start to swim
shimmy inside excel cells
I firmly put them in their place:
make them what I think they are
should be
Then like puddles in the sun they change shape
Inexplicably
7’s now a 4, the 3’s where the 2 should be, 8’s gone astray
an extra nought has sidled in
and I just don’t understand how this can be
yet again
Sweating cold anxiety                                                   
 
It’s like a dance, a game, when the numbers swim:
me against them
Check..check…check again
Done. Happy. Accuracy reached.
Next day: rising horror that the numbers
have broke free
like spies in the night, their appearance now changed
Why don’t they work, like they did yesterday? 
What happened? Was it me? Again?!
Simple Simon strikes three
Another cold sweat

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