My name is Kai and I was born with Dyslexia. I have been laughed at, ridiculed and even scolded for my inability to communicate in my Mother-tongue. It’s funny to me how everyone is so focused these days on building a more inclusive society but we fail to tackle the root of the problem. Inclusion or exclusion, for that matter, is learned behavior. Moving towards a society of acceptance starts with teaching the young how to appreciate our differences between one another. Yet, the kind of discrimination I have faced is easily overlooked and comes more casually than one might expect. I am much more than my inability to speak fluent Mandarin or the label that has been placed onto me since I was a kid. I am more because of the equitable opportunities and support that I have received. But I am privileged.

It was a rough start. “Mummy, I’m just a boy who cannot read” was what I said as I gave up trying to read my book. Shortly, I would be placed in a learning support programme and attend sessions with a specialist reading remediation teacher who patiently taught me what everyone else seemed to already know at that age. I struggled. Every time I compared myself with the other kids, I wondered if I would ever catch up to them.

I was exempted from Mother-tongue in Primary 3 after having gone through the appropriate assessments and seeking professional advice. Since then, these are some of the comments/remarks I have encountered: “teach me how to fake also le” ,”how can you not learn Chinese, you are Chinese what”, “slacker la you, can have more break time – shiok!”. But it was not shiok. For the most part, this extra ‘break time’ was spent in the library trying to catch up with my other subjects that I struggled heavily with. In school, a teacher once told me that his kid had dyslexia but he did not want to seek psychological help because he did not want his kid to grow up knowing he was dyslexic. For his son, poor results were met with the cane instead of actual help. The logic behind this is ridiculously flawed, your son will not get better results through punishment if he is not given the right support that he needs.

Now we go back to the quote at the top. It’s JC2 and I am sitting in front of a psychiatrist who is reviewing my conditions. I am stunned, a mixture of confusion and disbelief as he proclaims those words to me. He even accuses me of using Ritalin as a ‘cheat drug’ when I struggled with my diagnosed ADD. Can you imagine there are these professionals who have such a warped understanding of learning disabilities? I was at a loss for words. Let us examine the alternative to this ignorant remark: am I only considered to have learning disabilities if I do poorly in my examinations and am ultimately unsuccessful in life? Another comment I then received was that my future job prospects would be affected upon the revelation of my learning disabilities. This is the stereotype that we need to break if we want to move towards a more inclusive society. If we predetermine that all those who learn slower at the start are destined for failure then we would just be crippling them even more.

MOE’s new PSLE policy is blatantly discriminating. Whilst it may be argued that ‘positive’ discrimination is being applied for the benefit of those taking four subjects who apparently have the “heavier learning and assessment load”. They have seemingly forgotten those that are already marginalized, falling through the cracks in our education system. Those that are born with the “heavier learning and assessment load”. Learning disabilities are not a myth and can be overcome with an inclusive policy.  

Most people think that Dyslexia means you see words jumbled up, this is uncannily inaccurate. Dyslexia is a neurobiological deficit that affects language learning and cognition. The level of severity between children who have dyslexia exists on a continuum rather than at a fixed level.

Growing up, my mother gave me role models to help me realize that dyslexia can be overcome. It is widely-known and accurate that Einstein himself, is a dyslexic. I thought if the smartest man to ever exist had learning disabilities, I too could be smart. One of my favourite actors, Tom Cruise had to listen to taped recordings of his lines in order to memorize them for Mission Impossible. It was not easy, there were times in Secondary 4 and JC 2 when I told myself if I were meant to do well in school, I would not have these learning disabilities. However,with the help and support I received from my parents and teachers (who so willingly accepted me for numerous consultations after class), I found my inner drive and determination to prove this stereotype wrong. I even topped my cohort for H2 Linguistics in my preliminary examinations – a dyslexic excelling in linguistics. Who would’ve thought? But with the right support and effort, it is clearly not impossible.

So if you are reading this now and still thinking to yourself – ‘How does this dyslexic manage to string sentences properly and write consistently? Maybe he is not dyslexic’. Know that this was the product of a lot of extra time, effort and resources spent into enabling myself to be fluent in the English language and score in my other subjects. Then, consider where we got this mindset that those born less will always be less. I am proud and grateful of the education I have received. But we must always strive to be better. If we want to dream Singapore to be more than an elite education system, but one that looks out for every Singaporean child then we need to do away with policies that compromise children for being born with special needs. Our bilingualism policy is important – but at what cost if the policy does not look out for each and every one of us? We do not need policies that further inhibit children with special needs from achieving academic success in the already elitist darwinistic environment that we all live in. If you want to support inclusion in our society today as Singaporeans, you will know that this is a huge step backwards.

I was lucky to be born with parents who supported me in my learning disabilities and meeting teachers/professionals who enabled me to overcome them. But others may not be so lucky. Therefore, I am writing to appeal for a society that looks out for those who may struggle more at the start but are equally as capable as the rest of us. I am appealing for the virtue of meritocracy to every Singaporean, the equitability and fairness of opportunities. In essence, for a more inclusive Singapore.