Albert Einstein once said: “It is easier to break an atom than a prejudice.” It’s unbelievable that even in 2018, we still have to fight against the negative stigma of dyslexia, stressing that it’s not a learning disability but a neurological difference that should be respected and celebrated. Dyslexia is a human variation that brings unique gifts to the world. As a result of the “one size fits all” mechanistic education system, my students, especially the adults, often face severe social-emotional difficulties.

My school, I Love Dyslexia, in Athens, Greece, was founded in 2009 and is the first highly specialised school globally for teaching English as a foreign or second language to students with dyslexia and learning differences. Our young students are between 8 and 17 years old, but we also teach adults of all ages.

As there’s very limited practices in this highly specialised field, I’ve developed our tools, programme of studies and curriculum myself, as well as spending months training teachers - again, specialised educators are a rare breed - before they can start teaching. Teaching children who need extra support, attention and time can be quite challenging and constantly requires a lot of time and effort from both us and the children.

The programme of studies we teach is futuristic, ecological, holistic and inclusive, and scales up to all students and curriculum areas, based on transformative instruction and “cosmic education”. Our “mindful” curriculum has been profoundly influenced by heart-brain harmonious activation, inclusive technology, art and drama-based education, neuroscience, quantum physics and the “quantum worldview” principles, proposed by cutting-edge physicists such as Niels Bohr, Fritjof Capra and Zohar Komargodski, such as interdependence and dynamic, multi-directional energy flow. This transformative approach of teaching English as an additional language motivates and empowers all students and teachers with deep self-awareness, uplifts our spirit and life skills while building language skills in an unconventional, fun way.

I drive to school at 1.30pm and lessons take place from 2.30pm to 9pm, as students come for lessons after daytime mainstream school. I teach one-to-one sessions and group workshops, monitor individual education programmes, assess new students, meet with parents and contact specialists for collaboration. Together with the other teachers, we design our authentic, innovative curriculum, empowering students with fun, experiential, holistic group activities, connecting the curriculum with life skills and self-awareness.

Most of our students need to sit official exams to acquire EFL certificates to prove their level of English. The accommodations for these exams are often not appropriate for all different types or levels of dyslexia and SEND, leading to a lot of frustration for both teachers and students. And because of the formal exam-oriented EAL system, we can’t completely avoid teaching the “mechanical” EAL activities that students must be familiarised with to gain their certificate.

If we avoided all standardised testing from education and replaced them with alternative, non-standardised testing like portfolios, interviews, exhibitions of work, projects and performance exams, it would celebrate the uniqueness of every student separately, and work wonders for my students.

In Greece, public education is free at all levels from kindergarten to university. But the pedagogy provided doesn’t focus on thinking, emotional intelligence or life skills. Public education teachers don’t need to be continually learning, and this means that a lot of students lack the ability and skills needed to adjust with today’s complex global demands. Our school is private, and therefore requires fees, but what we offer our children and our staff, supports, prepares and guides them into the world in way that Greek state-school education doesn’t.

Aggeliki Pappa is the founder and head director of studies at I Love Dyslexia in Athens, Greece.

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