A few days ago I received the following brief
email: “Subject: Nicholas Negroponte: Beyond Digital - FORA.tv. Check out
minute 46:00. Nicholas Negroponte is dyslexic.
I thanked the sender, Tom Massey, and noted that this video included two of my
favorite people from years ago, Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, introduced by
Steward Brand of the Whole Earth Catalog
and CoEvolution Quarterly. I noted
that Negroponte did talk of his own dyslexia on his radio book tour programs
long ago when Being Digital first
came out (in 1995, a compilation of articles he had written for Wired magazine).
Since then I have often
quoted Negroponte on this in my own talks -- especially his observation that
“dyslexia was so common on the MIT campus that locally it was called the MIT disease.” I have loved to make
this point to primary school teachers (and parents) who think math is
arithmetic and science is a bunch of facts to be memorized -- whereas, in fact,
nothing could be further from the truth -- as I learned in preparing chapter 9,
“Images, Computers and Mathematics,” of In
the Mind’s Eye.
Indeed, the main point is that many dyslexics are extremely
poor at the low level skills required in primary school but may be extremely
well suited to the high level thinking and skills required in math and science
in graduate school and professional work. Few understand this. This should
change -- as soon as possible. Thanks again, Tom Massey – and Nicholas
Negroponte.
