DM's Beatles forums
Solo forums => John Lennon => Topic started by: Beatle Ed on July 19, 2005, 08:22:44 AM
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I heard on the radio today in a "Fact you may not have known" Type of thing, that John Lennon was told he had a learning disability. Is that true? Or was is more than likely the fact that he didn't give a crap about School cus he liked music more?
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Did they say what learning disability it was?
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Dyslexic I heard.
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Hmm. Well, it might explain why he couldn't read music.
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My brother-in-law and sister went to the rock-n-roll hall of fame in Cleveland when they were up from North Carolina (of course, I had to work) and there was a John Lennon display with a report card from his school days that read something in the lines of, 'John is lacking in imagination and creativity'. Something like that, but I thought that was a laugher.
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Dyslexic I heard.
Yeah I heard that too - but I think it was only a mild form.
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Dyslexic I heard.
I think I read that in Anthology somewhere...or something.
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Probably any kid back in the 40s in a strict British school that favoured wordplay and the abstract and didn't play by the rules was labeled as having a 'learning disability'. Its like all of our diagnoses du jour these days--A kid daydreams or might not listen to an authority figure as children are wont to do, automatically has Attention Deficit Disorder. You have a day where you're in a great mood, then you have a crappy day and are a bit sullen, and voila, you're Bipolar.
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Very true.
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i had thought was was dickelectric but you guys maybe right.but if i am right it eplains why he was such a dick.....
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A lot of kids are misdiagnosed. I can't tell you how many kids got put in my special day class because they were behavior problems. Most general ed. teachers are to freaking lazy to deal with the real problem and want to label them right away. There has to be a lot of testing in order to qualify a kid as having a learning disability. I wonder if John was ever tested for one or if they just came to that conclusion because he didn't perform to his potential and was defiant.
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yeah, hes dyslexic.
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John said himself he suffered from a mild dyslexia and that was one of the reasons he spelt and wrote things the way he did in his books because it was how it sounded.
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Could be that he was mildly dyslexic...or just smarter and more creative than the average kid.
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Being dyslexic doesn't mean you are stupid though. Most people with dyslexia are a lot more perceptive just like those with A.D.D. apparently are very intelligent people. So it doesn't matter to me.
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^Yeah that's true. My close friend has dyslexia and he is one of the smartest people I know.
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People who qualify as having a learning disability are always of average to above average intelligence. In schools, if they are below average intelligence, they wouldn't be labeled learning disabled. People with learning disabilities have the potential to achieve if they are given strategies and accommodations that help them compensate for their learning disability. People who are below average intelligence do not have a discrepancy between what they are achieving and what they are capable of. If that makes sense. BTW, ADD/ADHD is not a learning disability. But about half the people with ADD/ADHD are also LD. Okay, I'll stop boring people now.
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No, that wasn't boring. It was actually very interesting. I guess you have to learn all that stuff being a teacher, eh?
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People who qualify as having a learning disability are always of average to above average intelligence. In schools, if they are below average intelligence, they wouldn't be labeled learning disabled. People with learning disabilities have the potential to achieve if they are given strategies and accommodations that help them compensate for their learning disability. People who are below average intelligence do not have a discrepancy between what they are achieving and what they are capable of. If that makes sense. BTW, ADD/ADHD is not a learning disability. But about half the people with ADD/ADHD are also LD. Okay, I'll stop boring people now.
I donn't recall saying ADD was a learning disability. But thanks though.
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Oh, I know you didn't. i just put it there as an in general type of thing. I certainly wasn't directing it at you. Sorry if that's what it looked like.
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No, that wasn't boring. It was actually very interesting. I guess you have to learn all that stuff being a teacher, eh?
No, you don't really have to learn that stuff being a general ed. teacher. I was a special ed. teacher for years though. I had an LD class. Very interesting stuff. I mean, you could go insane really. Not from the LD kids, but the kids they put in there because the general ed. teachers can't stand them.
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Oh, I know you didn't. i just put it there as an in general type of thing. I certainly wasn't directing it at you. Sorry if that's what it looked like.
I didn't think it was a "you don't know the difference" type comment, I just wanted to say that I knew the difference :) lol
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I was browsing this art site for Beatle ideas and there was a necklace that said, "John Lennon had dyslexia." I have a feeling this is false, but will someone tell me if this really is true?
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I wouldn't be surprised if he had some sort of disability, he was always famous for messing up words, even on the albums!
Oh, and here's one of the few jokes I know, hope you like it!!
Did you hear about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic? He would stay up all night wondering if there really was a Dog :)
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Maybe that's why he sang backward lyrics in several songs.
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^ ;D
Was Albert Goldman the first person to claim that John was dyslexic? If so, has anybody more reliable done so and provided evidence?
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The claim that John was dyslexic may originate with Albert Goldman:
Concerning the author's account of Lennon's consumption of LSD, the New York Review of Books said: "Goldman's background research was either slovenly or nonexistent." As such, The Lives of John Lennon was extremely controversial upon its release because of its portrayal of Lennon in a less-than-admiring light. Lennon was presented in the book as an extremely talented, but also extremely needy, duplicitous and deeply flawed man, who manipulated people and relationships throughout his life, flinging them aside when they were no longer useful to him. Goldman also suggested that Lennon was an anti-Semite, and that he was dyslexic and a schizophrenic; such claims had never been made before. The book has been criticized by Lennon fans for allegedly containing much unsubstantiated conjecture, and tending to present worst-case scenarios when doing so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_John_Lennon
If this is the case, the claim is at best unsubstantiated: Goldman is hardly reliable. A review of his book is available here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6D8143CF931A2575AC0A96E948260
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People who qualify as having a learning disability are always of average to above average intelligence. In schools, if they are below average intelligence, they wouldn't be labeled learning disabled. People with learning disabilities have the potential to achieve if they are given strategies and accommodations that help them compensate for their learning disability. People who are below average intelligence do not have a discrepancy between what they are achieving and what they are capable of. If that makes sense. BTW, ADD/ADHD is not a learning disability. But about half the people with ADD/ADHD are also LD. Okay, I'll stop boring people now.
I know this is an old comment, but I'm fairly new to this site. My wife (a clinical psychologist) has a relative with learning disabilities. It's suspected that she was brain damaged at birth. My wife carried out a WAIS test on her, which revealed that she has an IQ of around 55.
It'd be wrong to suggest that she has the potential to achieve what a normal person does. Contrary to your suggestion, she is not of average to above average intelligence. Perhaps here in the UK 'learning disabilities' is a term which is used differently in other countries.
Ah, this makes more sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_disability - it states that the US and Canada define LD in different ways to the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_disability
Either way, Lennon was born in the UK, Goldman was an American writer, so we should perhaps be circumspect when commenting on unproven diagnoses :X
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JUST A THOUGHT:
Perhaps he wasn't dyslexic, he just was ahead of his time yet again - kids are now encouraged to learn to read and write phonetically these days, and some of the results I have read from my kids' friends have been hilarious! You have to read some of them out loud or they don't make any sense at all!! But they still have spelling tests, so I think it's a bit confusing for the poor little dears.(dunce)