Post Date: 21st Feb, 2011 - 4:59pm / Post ID:
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Trinidad Government & Special Needs Citizens
You don't have to be a genius to know that by the lack of programs and facilities for special needs children in this country you can know what is the perception this government has on special needs people. They are not priority maybe because in the future lots of them won't be able to vote. :
Look at one of our Ministers. Trying to "insult" another person by calling them "dyslexic". What a lack of taste!
QUOTE Like most educators in Trinidad and Tobago, I was horrified and enraged by Minister Colm Imbert's insulting and destructive likening of dyslexic people to quacks.
In his budget presentation he criticised Mrs Persad-Bissessar's speech for among other things, as being "replete with factual errors", "inane", "puerile", "nonsensical and written by a quack who was dyslexic".
I was also sorely disappointed that neither the present Minister of Education, Esther Le Gendre, former minister of education, Hazel Manning, nor Karen Nunez-Tesheira, whose speech Mr Imbert was defending, did not come to the defence of these bright and differently abled people who make up a significant portion of our society. Dyslexics are visual, multi-dimensional thinkers who excel at hands-on learning. Dyslexia does not affect intelligence.
What good is the $7 billion allocated to education in the 2008-2009 Budget if at Cabinet level there is no understanding or respect for the educational needs of the differently abled?
Of interest to Mr Imbert might be a short list of some dyslexic people: Albert Einstien, Thomas Edison, Agatha Christie, and Woodrow Wilson, who was extremely successful in US politics.
Intelligent and creative dyslexic people have no problem understanding the difference between ignorance and arrogance, though the spelling might be similar.
Mr Imbert, shame on you!
Suzette Cadiz
Maraval