Description:

I have Phonological (hearing) and Orthographic (reading) Dyslexia (difficulty with language), Dysgraphia (difficulty with writing), Dyspraxia (difficulty with physical coordination) and ADHD (difficulty with acute focus). Although my journey through education was difficult due to these perceived handicaps, it wasn’t the ‘disorders’ that hurt me the most but the words themselves. These labels place upon me from an early age by my teachers, classmates and even my own family; instead of connecting me to a history or culture have caused far more trauma than anything these ‘processing disorders’ could do to me.
In New Zealand and most of the Westernised world, there is this notion to accentuate the positive, but this leads to an ableist attempt to dismiss disability. Although physical disability is often disregarded, I believe because it is easier to understand what blindness or a missing limb might feel like it is easier to sympathise with. And because processing disorders are invisible (until they aren’t), I have always felt an aversion towards them that isn’t present when dealing with a physical disability.
Being pushed through an education system that was ill-equipped to deal with me was not the nicest experience and unfortunately, is shared by a lot of neuro-divergent people. And felt like being pushed out of a wheelchair, then being told to climb 13 flights of stairs and that at the top was someone who could help you (the reader-writer in the exam).
I felt I needed to give this a voice; one that I could never find before. This is the true purpose of this project, to provide a narrative and intense visual metaphor to create a deeper understanding of what it is like for people with processing disorders to stumble their way through early education; contrary to the warm and welcoming space that primary school is often presented as.

The animation is riddled with mistakes and inconsistencies that naturally come with the medium, but these mishaps are akin to my journey through education which has been one hell of a mess. The process is the inverse (the negative) of the outcome (the positive) and how blatant the process is in Claymation (fingerprints and nail marks) makes it harder for a viewer to disregard it. I even deliberately let my nails grow so that deeper nail marks would occur to accentuate this negative.
This project was not intended to demonise my teachers or classmates but rather to highlight the failure of the educational system which warped my already distorted perspective of my educators and fellow students. If this project could be expanded, I would make a longer narrative that would explore how this issue affects all aspects of childhood framing as a call to action targeted at educators and parents. Although neuro-divergent peoples’ positive attributes are celebrated, when it comes to the perceivably negative attributes (hyposensitivity, difficulty with specific learning and hyperactivity etc…) they are dismissed when they should be celebrated just as much.