Dyslexic's Diary PAGE_5 - Few resources for parents and teachers

Dyslexia is a lifelong companion, hence my diary has potentially unlimited number of pages. Today, I am going to share a series of short clips. I hope these would help teachers and parents understand it better and spot a child early.

1. Dyslexics Intro https://youtu.be/8-M9uEYzDAQ
2. About Dyslexia https://youtu.be/DgHDQeZ5QuA
3. Dyslexic Strengths https://youtu.be/d4VRjQnBoWM
4. Dyslexic Challenges https://youtu.be/_t9IsQQH7WI
5. Inclusive Classrooms https://youtu.be/NdrBpOV67DY
6. Identification https://youtu.be/xOI78tkN0rQ
7. Richard Branson (Virgin Atlantic) shares his thoughts https://youtu.be/-OZyXZ__5TU

No two Dyslexic children are going to be alike, not all of them will have same strengths or challenges, each of the child will have a different response and coping mechanism.

So while Dyslexia is a "Gift" and the narrative of many greats being Dyslexic, don't expect "your" child, having this condition, to be doing something great. Expecting itself is NOT a good idea in my opinion for any child.

Let the child do what s/he wants, be around, understand and support. Know that there would be obstacles on the way, help him/her climb those.

Dyslexic's Diary PAGE_4 - Language versus subjects those can be visualized

As mentioned in the previous post, language subjects were a problem in school, especially grammar and certain spellings. Currently, I only know a bit of nouns and adjectives, whatever I learned by brute force somehow then have forgotten all.

Spellings like Sweat/Sweet confused me and thought both to be the same, always felt ‘hight’ was the correct one for ‘height’; recieve, percieve, and such were other ones which involved ‘ie’-‘ei’ inversion.

I hated reading aloud when asked to do so in class, I used to be afraid so I adapted to somehow read in a slow monotonous style; that still continues. Some teachers had made negative remark but it didn’t affect me as very few in the class read well. At home Pappa used to say reading aloud helps in remembering, which I never followed.

Like, reading, writing was bad, I mean not just handwriting, but essay writing - I simply couldn’t write page after page of “what if I were PM” and similar things by imagining. When I tried to improvise by writing something funny it was discouraged / non-appreciated by teachers (the writing style that I have today).

Until 5th standard, I before semester exams I used to invariably fall ill and miss a few papers, many times I was made to write those papers, during the holidays. I think I had fear for exams then, though it (falling ill) subsided afterwards. Then I started getting light fever after last paper of important exams.

Later, in my career, I developed my own style of writing, especially professional documents and mails. My (foreign) bosses/clients appreciated that several times, explicitly saying how my mails convey precise message in the least amount of words, or how the documents are crystal clear in explaining things. Computes, word processors have been the best thing in my life - now I don’t have to worry about spelling and handwriting.

I got to know much later that I probably have Dyslexia (reading difficulty), Dysgraphia (writing difficulty) as well as Dyscalculia (maths difficulty) of mild nature though.

While struggling with these subjects, others in which visualization was possible (science, geography, etc.) was bit easy, saying ‘a bit easy’ because our general academic structure is focused towards remembering things (definitions, names, places, etc.) and not ‘doing/trying’ hands-on.

After learning about the basic structure of atoms, as well as knowing about light being comprised of different colours. I clearly remember sitting under a mango tree in our plot, and pondering what might be happening at the level of atoms when light strikes them and is reflected - what exactly is a colour of a material as all the atoms and molecules are comprised of the same particles. Didn’t get an answer though, not a genius ;)

I mentioned about an astronomy book in earlier posts, it had talked about Black Holes and how it bends light. One of the drawings to explain light was similar to what the lens diagrams in 6-7th standard. It showed one star appearing as two due to a black hole in front of it. In the 90s, there was no internet and Hubble Telescope was just launched but had its own lens problems being corrected. I too was focusing on engineering and career/job while still having that diagram in the back of my mind and wondered something different should be visible instead of two stars. So after one such ‘intense’ thought experiment session I scribbled (in my Palm Pilot in 1998 or so) something I thought should be observed.

Attached is the screen-shot of that note I have in Computer-Outlook synced to Phone, it says ‘the star should look like a ring or with a dim center’ - I was a bit wrong, such perfect alignments or Star - Black Hole - Earth’ are difficult/near impossible, but they actually happen on a larger scale - my understanding was limited then.


The effect is called as Einstein's Ring - first was observed only in 1988. I was very excited when I came across the photos over the internet after I revived my cosmology/astro-physics interest. (PS: That date in the note of 7 Feb 2011 was due to a data migration error when I switch to a new phone!)

Gravitationally lensed galaxy SDP.81

taken by ALMA By ALMA, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39499557

The dark center is due to a foreground massive galaxy which is NOT visible in this wavelength.

Similarly, the images below show other such rings with central foreground galaxies (having same gravitational effect as black holes).

Some observed Einstein rings by SLACS:
By NASA - https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2005/news-2005-32.html, 
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34045368

Solutions used to (even now do) play like a video in my mind, it is sometimes difficult to understand except for people who have such learning/thinking styles. Another instance I remember was from my Sr. Kg/1st std time (I remember the age because I know where I lived then, hence can deduce the approx years). Pappa had brought a salt shaker (probably novelty then), the salt was not used to be refined then, and during monsoon lumps used to form inside. Parents used to open and break them. I suggested them to empty half of the shaker and put a marble inside, so whenever it is shaken the marble would break the lumps and it worked.

To be continued...

Viru

Dyslexic's Diary PAGE_3 - Being “Different / वेगळा” continued

[For people who don’t know me - I did my engineering (Computer Science) from MIT Pune, was in the US for a few years, returned home by choice and started business, running the company for 20 years now, have worked in extremely complex systems, have few patents. And I believe I am fortunate to get here]

In Sixth standard, I failed in Math in the first unit test of the year, got 6 / 20. Aai was pretty angry and scolded me a lot. She then found a teacher to give me private tuition, I hated those i) kids usually don’t like teachers coming home ii) it reduced my play time. Anyway, it did not change anything, I continued to struggle, mostly in Arithmetic/Algebra.

• As mentioned in previous post, memorizing tables was difficult so I found a trick, started doing additions in the background while saying the tables aloud.
• Multiplications, started doing approximations, or some other shortcuts - say, for 16x12 = 160+32 or 17x9 = 170 - 17, etc.
• Subtractions and Divisions were horror then and are even now

In Ninth standard, Raju (Rajiv Binwade) moved to Shrirampur and became my best friend for life. Once he saw me struggling with fraction multiplication, that 6/7 * 8/3, I thought it was done like (7*8)/(6*3), I still vividly remember surprise on Raju’s face. He took me aside and taught me how to do that - remember that was 9th std.

While working on squares, I saw a pattern and came up with pretty easy way of finding square of 2 digit numbers. See the image on right.
I didn’t share this with math teacher though, didn’t have confidence, probably didn't even share with friends, instead talked to Makwana sir who had been supporting me since 8th, he appreciated and told me to come and talk to him for any such things. 

There’s nothing great in this method, it’s just (a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2 + 2ab, which I realized later while showing this to my kids when they were doing squares.

Glad that calculators are handy these days!

***Note: Govt has many provisions for children with SpLDs and allowing the use of calculators in exams is one of them***

I did not study well, rather did not know how to study in a structured manner. Don’t remember what I did but do remember watching the complete test match against Pakistan just a few days prior to board exams, we lost by a tiny margin, Sunil Gavaskar played great and got out on 96 in last innings chasing.

I have included my SSC mark-list in the pictures, check the marks. I would like to parents to look at their own mark-lists and see what they are doing now in 40s and how much of it is due to those high/low marks, and/or are they doing what they planned/dreamed they would be doing in the future. I do not want to preach about the marks, but would like to suggest to the parents, who feel their child is not like others and are expecting/pushing her/him to do-better/excel by working ‘harder’, to exercise caution, reduce expectations and listen to the child. All the child wants/needs is appreciation and acceptance from parents. Just try to read the faces of children when they are telling the exam results.

Well, after getting to 11th, something inside me changed, I started liking the subjects, may be because History, and language grammar wasn’t there. More importantly the subjects started coming closer to my abilities of visualizing, may be not all - inorganic chemistry was still not so easy. Calculus, Physics, Biology, Organic Chemistry were extremely simple and I started spending some time daily (not more than 2-3 hours) after college solving problems.

To be continued...

Dyslexics Diary PAGE_2 - Being Different / वेगळा

(Writing to create awareness about Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia) and a bit of ADD / ADHD, hope it helps if you see someone with similar traits)

Over the last few years, when I meet old friends one thing that I hear often  is some saying “वीरू वेगळा होता”, Raju, Sujit, Atul, Harsha, Makawana Sir, Shrenik, Kamy, Gautya, and many others have said so. Though it feels good to hear that now, growing with the feeling of being different was not so pleasant/comfortable. I have said a few times that I don’t have many good memories of school days and it's probably the reason.

I had a pretty normal childhood, was all fun and play like most privileged kids. Till 7th - 8th I used to play with other children of similar age, games like marbles (गोट्या), टिक्के, गज-गज, hide and seek, chess and other board games, etc. No cricket though for some reason (which I love).

Since early years I had preferred playing alone more, in mud, doing stuff like baking miniature bricks, building mud homes, dams, rivers, making furnace, playing with fire - boiling/burning various items, experimenting with cement concrete, learning the mixture of water, sand, planing electricity distribution but poles made from खराटा sticks and wires from strings. Made a circus tent with movable characters (by strings), a work in progress, but was destroyed by neighboring kid.

In around 1st std, I had designed a railway that could run using steam, also had designed people (robots) who could walk. Had a notebook maintained with wheel diameter, rail track width (that notebook got thrown away:(). All to be made from metal sheet (पत्रा), I was after Pappa to get me a mini-welding machine. Had tickets made, routes and stations decided - and drawn on शहाबाद floor with Pop’s ink pen. Also had decided to get it inaugurated by Indira Gandhi and dreamt of a photo in the newspaper. Of course most of it was childish, and my Pop always said he will get the welding machine ‘next time’.

The fact was I could visualize all these ideas, designs, movements of parts, forces, and a lot in my mind but didn't or couldn’t express/speak to others. I could/can see solutions, in motion, manipulate objects/processes in mind (AND I AM NOT CRAZY!).

I also liked opening things to see how they worked, the toy camera in the attached photo was probably one of the first that I remember, I didn’t want to break it open myself so once when Pappa was taking a nap, I placed it near his hand, so that when it moved the camera would fall and break. Had to repeat that a few times and then blamed Pop for breaking but was happy to see how the film was and how it moved and enlarged via the lenses.

I enjoyed reading a lot (I am not ‘dyslexic’ per se or could be on milder side), I had a liking of science, more of Physics and Astronomy. Being in a small town had its own problems - availability of books. There was this one book on astro-physics in town library which was only read by me. The library folks then made an exception and let me keep it for a long time and issued other books as well.

In mid-late teens I became a fan of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar and ANS (अंधश्रद्धा निर्मूलन समिती) - so his followers know what one faces in society. I was fortunate that my parents didn’t oppose me about my thoughts.

But there was a problem when it came to certain academics aspects, I couldn’t do math quickly, couldn’t memorize tables after 6/7, rote/learning by heart was nearly impossible, remembering dates and relations in history was terrifying - I used to get taunted sometimes for these and sometimes totally ignored. In 6th std, I had failed a math unit test and had attempted to cheat by taking a piece of paper with a 3 line definition of some geography lesson (didn't use it for another reason).

There were a few teachers who liked me and for many I was non-existent. In 10th (HSC) I had severe doubts about being able to pass in History and English.

All this had started making me an introvert; I used to get frustrated/irritated when others didn’t get such a simple thing I was telling/talking about.

To be continued...

-------

Some of the crazy things I did:

1. Making electromagnet by winding copper wire around core extracted from Tube light choke and inserting the terminals directly into socket - was lucky to have not died, the home main fuse burnt. I was saved as the copper wire had enamel which I knew nothing about then
2. Trying to make “neon” light by trapping kerosene ‘gas’ in a glass bottle and trying to pass A/C current through it. (could have exploded if there had been a spark)
3. Being curious about a plastic cap behind TV’s voltage stabilizer and opened it to find a springy shiny thing - which I pressed - and later realized I was 3-4 feet away from the TV, don’t remember how! (It was actually a live fuse)
4. Made a pinhole camera in 7th (first image below), and followed up by a pretty neat, compact B/W film camera which had shutter (rubber band powered), viewfinder, roll forwarding mechanism, a tiny window to see the number on the negative (yes, negatives had numbers printed on them), had a dark room, photo developing solutions and all - it was all hands on learning - so the initial efforts failed and then I moved on to other things, like Electronics

Dyslexics Diary PAGE_1 - Precursor

I have been meaning to write about this since long but wasn’t able to decide on the form of the series. Finally decided to start without much planning.

The trigger was a visit to my home at Shrirampur a couple of days ago.

While trying to find bits and pieces of childhood memories I found my Xth standard English notebook, it survived because I used it for writing cricket scores.

I studied in an English Medium school which a couple of friends confirmed messed both our English and Marathi. Anyway that’s not the topic, I have attached a couple of photos with the remarks by the teacher. “Very poor handwriting”, spelling was bad too and (essay) writing skills worse.

That just brought back memories which I had buried down in dark corners of my mind; such remarks were not uncommon for me in certain subjects (Marathi/Hindi/English/History and even Maths). I was traumatized by English then and lived the year in constant fear of failing in a English and History), and anything that needed rote memorization of definitions.

Parents, few teachers used to say I am clever/intelligent which I knew but that didn’t show up in normally acceptable ways (marks) which used to make me feel lost, insulted, confused. But one thing for sure was that I knew I was different, way different than everyone else around.

I struggled in school in certain ways, sailed 11th and 12th easily, and did pretty well in Engineering (with certain hurdles still).

That continued all the way in my following career, the feeling of being “different” bothered me until I was able to convert that in to my strengths. Much later in life I was able to identify what it was, again accidentally.

Dyslexia, as it is commonly known, is actually one of several Specific Learning Difficulties/Disabilities (SpLD) that about 10% (or even more) children have. I had Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and Dysgraphia all with mild severity, I suffered a bit but didn’t break down as there was no social/academic pressure as in today’s times, but also saw a loved one severely affected by it.

I am sure you must have seen many such people (school friends, relatives) who are like this, many are labeled lazy, dumb, or even worse. Usually they drop out of schools around 8/9th standards. Some get into bad company / develop bad habits.

I would be sharing such experiences, in an attempt to create awareness in my limited friend list - hoping this could result in helping even a single child - would be good.

Milky Way Galaxy

Milky Way Galaxy

Till now, we read about two beautiful galaxies, Andromeda and Whirlpool; now let’s know some interesting things about our home galaxy - Milky Way (MW).

One funny aspect is that the thing got named long before knowing what it was. As you may already know, during a dark night, mostly away from urban lights, a white band is seen across the sky. Earlier, till end of 19th century, even scientists used to think all that we see is universe and every things (stars/clusters) is contained within our structure, later to be proven otherwise.

That milky band is actually part of the disk of our galaxy, it is mostly obscured by dust. We can NOT see our own galaxy completely for obvious reasons, though we know that it is a “Barred Spiral Galaxy”.

Apart from being our home, there is nothing special about MW, in terms of size, it has about ‘just’ 100 to 400 billion stars (compared to about 1 Trillion in Andromeda) and a diameter of only of about 1,00,000 (1 Lakh) light years (ly) compared to about 2.2 ly of Andromeda. I have given a comparison picture to show where MW actually stands and how tiny we are in the whole scheme of things.

MW will be merging with Andromeda in about 4 billion years to form a much larger elliptical galaxy.

While most of our galaxy is invisible to us, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission for detected a beautiful, awe inspiring phenomenon. It discovered two extremely large Gamma ray emission bulges/bubbles ‘above’ and ‘below’ the galactic center. These are formed due the super-massive black hole at the MW center that is devouring nearby stars at a high rate; while mass is eaten by the black hole, some radiation escapes to form these structures.

A Barred Spiral Galaxy (NGC 1300)

Artist's impression of Milky Way

Barred Spiral Galaxy (UGC 12158) that looks similar to Milky Way

Gamma ray emission bulges/bubbles formed by super-massive black hole at the center of Milky Way

MW compared to larger and largest galaxies

Photo Credits (Wikipedia/Wikimedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Cluster…

https://en.wikipedia.org/…/File:800_nasa_structure_renderin…

https://en.wikipedia.org/…/File:Artist%27s_impression_of_th…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UGC_12158.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_spiral_galaxy…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_262

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy

Couple of weeks back we got an introduction of how a galaxy looks like, with an extremely high resolution image (most detailed so far), of our nearest neighbor Andromeda galaxy - M31 (link to post in comments)

Today, I will write about some awe inspiring facts and share links of one of the most magnificent galaxy, Whirlpool Galaxy (aka Messier 51 or just M51); the picture tells the reason behind the naming.

M51 is the First galaxy to be classified as a ‘Spiral Galaxy’, at a distance of about 25 million light years and with the axis or rotation directly pointing towards us, giving a  ‘full face view’, is a well known and studied astronomical object. M51 has a companion, a small galaxy named 51b and is gravitationally interacting with and will merge in future.

One can look at the picture(s) for hours and appreciate the beauty, the colours, spiral arms, ‘dust lanes’; it is hypnotic and after a while creates illusion of inward spiralling movement.

Now zoom into the image, you will see bright Red and Blue specks/dots/patches. Based on experience with the Andromeda post/picture, one would be tempted to appreciate these innumerable ‘apparent stars’, but no, Universe always has some surprise in its bag, and in this case, would you believe if I tell you that each of those specs is NOT a star, but it is a ‘Cluster of few LAKH stars’, yes you read that correctly.

Take a gasp and look at the picture again. I am sure you are looking at M51 much differently now :)

Links

1. Image Tour http://hubblesite.org/video/881/image_tours

Photos:

• M51 and M51b - Optical spectrum picture by Hubble Space Telescope

• M51 - Optical image with overlay of Hydrogen gas distribution (in blue)

• M51 in Infrared on the right, visible spectrum on Left.

The Infrared light passes through dust, visible light gets blocked. The dark spirals in the Left image are called dust lanes, those show up bright in the infrared as that dust is getting heated by the background light/radiation and emits (heat ) in infrared spectrum.

• M51 - composite with X-Ray radiation

• M51 and M51b sketch from 1850

  

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy (Read the complete post and then visit the first comment)

गॅलक्सी कशी असते ते कितीतरी सुंदर फोटोतून आपण पाहिलेच असेल, पण ती काय असते हे बघायचे असेल तर अँड्रोमेडाचा आतापर्यंत काढलेला सर्वात डिटेल फोटो बघाच (लिंक पहिल्या कंमेंट मध्ये).

झूम करून शेवट पर्यंत पहा, शक्यतो मोठ्या/ कॉम्पुटर स्क्रीनवर. प्रत्येक ठिपका एक तारा आहे, जवळ-जवळ प्रत्येकाला कमी जास्त ग्रह असतील, अगणित ग्रहांवर जीवसृष्टी असेल आणि आपण त्याच्याशी बोलू शकणार नाही, कदाचित कधीच!

Here is another breathtaking picture of the Andromeda galaxy, highest ever resolution till date. This picture uploaded with the post is just a low resolution version. The actual image is jaw dropping, you really appreciate what a galaxy is. Make sure to use the Zoom Tool image viewer (Link in first comment) .

The blinding bright left corner is the galactic center. Go far right and those are the outskirts, zoom there too. Just click to zoom in, go to max possible magnification - each dot you see is a star.

So many stars, most of them would have their own planetary system and many uncountable ones with life with which we may never establish contact ever!

Comments/Links:

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable

Website Thiefs

About 3-4 years back, we had come across a web-site which had copied the entire content of QualEx's web-site. We were very concerned, not knowing the motive of these fraudster(s), so we initiated a full fledged forensics. We were able to pinpoint the location(s) from where the copy and upload activity was done, but were unable to get more information. So we approached Police (IT), initially that was not taken seriously and no complaint was registered. So we had to move the Court who ordered the Police to lodge formal FIR.


Things moved swiftly then and the Police were able to nab the suspect who admitted to doing the activity.


The matter is sub-judice so can't talk more about it.


The matter ended there, so we thought! A few weeks back, I came across two more websites who have done the same thing. Nirmala and I are now Founders of two more companies! One in Hyderabad and other in Bangalore.


Copying layout is one thing, but copying content and information that clearly does not belong to you is a shameless thing to do. These guys go to the extent of showing me as their CEO, list QualEx's customers as theirs, etc.


Do not know if they are serving at-least their customers ethically after attracting them by such means.


Two pages listed below:

Just hope that such people will, one day or the other, pay for their actions and such incidents reduce in future.

My Rupee Symbol Entry in the design contest

As some of you may know our Finance Ministry had announced a contest for designing a symbol for Rupee. This is to replace the current way of writing 'Rs' by symbols like dollar, pound, euro, etc. currencies have.

Since long, I also had wished that our government changes the symbol and was enthused with this announcement. Hence decided to participate and submitted following symbol. Though I had high hopes, it did not get selected for the final five. Felt a bit sad, am human too. Anyway, I wish all the best the finalists.

Here is the Symbol:

And here is the description as per the contest guidelines:

Motivation	Due to my work profile, I have to make extensive use of financial and mathematical software programs spreadsheets (MS-Excel and others). I always wished there was a symbol for Indian Rupee, just like US$ or Euro - €, etc., but had to settle with the not-so-intuitive ‘INR’ or just avoid selecting currency symbol all-together.
Trigger	The Contest announced by Finance Ministry was the perfect trigger and thought about submitting at-least one design
Design Thoughts	Following were the guidelines I set to myself before starting the design, the symbol: Should adhere to the Contest Guidelines Should not be complex Should be easy to draw in daily use Should avoid use of ‘Dash’ or ‘Strike-Out’ lines which can imply a cutting or a slashing action and I personally felt it should not be used on our currency!
Explanation of the Submitted Symbol:
Indian History and Culture	The Outer Circle signifies a two fold meaning: It implies the World, in which our Rupee has to make a mark It also implies 0 (Zero or Shunya), one of the most important invention that India has given to the world along with the decimal system; without which the financial, mathematical and all other scientific computations would have been highly difficult to do and incomprehensible to most.
Visual Representation in Indian or English Script	The Inner Curve uses both, Devnagari as well as Roman (English) Script for visual depiction of the Rupee word, i.e.: Part of English Alphabet ‘R’ – which is the start of our currency’s name (Rupee), and, ‘Devnagari’ letter for ‘ra’ ‘र’– again part of and start of the name ‘rupaya’
Advantages of this symbol	Some advantages of this symbol are: Very Simple design Can be easily accommodated in to computer systems Can be easily drawn by people in daily use Can be drawn in one single stroke, i.e. without lifting the Pen/Pencil. Other currency symbols ($, €, £, ¥, etc.) need the pen to be lifted two or more times

I wish all the finalist the very best.

On occasion of Shivjayanti - Feb 19

How many of you know there are temples of Shivaji Maharaj? Frankly, I didn't know. In-fact there are two (in the whole world!). I got a chance to visit both of them in a short span of time and thought to share this on the occassion of Shivjayanti.

One of them is at Panhala Fort (Near Kolhapur) and is privately owned and is open just a day or so in a week.

While the second is on Sindhudurg Fort on Konkan coast. There is a sword used by Shivaji and also some jiretopes (crown?)

Though the actual idol is now covered with a metal mask, this is how it looks like. Shivaji Raje stayed at Sindhudurg, in disguise as a local, to oversee the construction of the fort building the navy.

The fort also has Shivaji's hand and foot imprints, the experience and feeling of seeing them from close is difficult to explain.

While celeberating his Birthday I wish and hope that people read and understand the great vision he had. Just check his instructions for the wood to be used for building armada (fleet, did the word 'aarmaar' get derived from armada?) - it applies even more today.