I used to think for someone to reach the highest level of education, they needed to be good at the early years of education. If you're going to be great at advanced math or astrophysics, then surely you need to start by being good at the times tables and spelling.
And then I came across these words of Thomas West: "If a truly original method is needed, the conventionally successful student may be the last one to find it, sometimes only among those who have repeatedly failed is there a high likelihood of success”.
Thomas West has written three books. As early as 1991, In the Mind's eye explored the cognitive advantages of the dyslexic mind - a good 20 years before the rest of the world imagined anything other than learning disability.
His most most recent book, “Seeing what others cannot see", explores the stories and contributions of talented dyslexic and autistic visual thinkers in the history of medicine, math and sciences and discusses how such visual thinking is of increasing importance in the modern world.
