Dear Darius,

Thanks for hosting the workshop tonight.  I was one of your Zoom participants. My student, Sam, was pretty excited that I shared her map of the calculus project with you.  Her Mom had just bought your course over the weekend, so Sam (Samantha) and I are going through it together since she tends to fight with her Mom.  She actually made her own bullet map during your first demonstration in week 1, and we made the calculus project map via Zoom while you talk the parents through how to scribe for their kids.  After giving me random information, she finally pulled out the rubric and read it off in a rather disjointed way, so it was pretty much like having her do a brain dump! Ha ha. Or maybe like pulling teeth…

I am very excited to use this technique for myself and my students.  I’m not dyslexic, but I started my own version of bullet mapping last year because I’m getting too old to keep everything in my head any longer!  I appreciate your insight and techniques to refine my own notes. My dyslexic students are all quite artistic, so I believe they will also like this from that perspective also.  For Sam, the hardest part is narrowing down the key words. Her teachers all require Cornell Notes and it is driving us crazy. She writes down everything or just freezes.

I’m also going to teach this to one of my new college students. She is in a master’s program and on academic probation because she is not scoring high enough on her essays.  She is dyslexic and got in trouble for plagiarism even though she thought that she had reworded the research findings. The anti-plagiarism software that the university uses flagged her paper as 63% too similar to the original.  I think that this keyword technique will be helpful in finding the main points and then putting them into her own words. We need to get her off academic probation so that she can go on to do great things working with people who suffer from depression as a social worker in corporate settings!

Thanks for all you are doing!  It is really making a difference all over the world.  My two students above both live in California and I have a very dyslexic student in Virginia, USA.  My boy that needs to hear your stick shift video was threatening to commit suicide in the third grade because he is so overwhelmed.  He is in 6th grade now, so I’m going to try to teach him your method. Wish me luck!! Ha ha. He’s a tough one!

Blessings,

Sara Shunkwiler

Orton Gillingham Tutor

Home Hospital Teacher (for kids too sick to attend school)

Faculty, Johns Hopkins University School of Education

Washington, D.C. area

Darius,

I would like to give you my feedback on our weekly Zoom sessions and about the whole Bullet Map Studio experience so far.

First of all, please let me remind you who I am. Florine, mother of Josephine, 11, from Texas USA. We took part in a workshop on a Sunday,  signed up for a 4-week training, and are at the moment finishing our Week2.

I want to tell you how amazing the results have been so far.

Josephine was tested and recognized as Dyslexic at the age of 8. Despite the fact that I didn’t know anything about Dyslexia, I realized very early on that Josephine had a reading problem. She attended a miraculous two-year remediation at school with some wonderful specialists in Dyslexia. They regularly pulled her from her “usual” class and helped her tremendously. She can now read. She is very slow in most of the things that she does, but she is very bright.

I pulled her from school at the beginning of the school year, this year, because she had suffered too much from the ignorance and carelessness of Teachers. She was drowning in a school environment where everyone pretended that they cared, and they thought that with just a few accommodations here and there, she would be fine. The truth is that she was broken. No self-confidence, very anxious, hopeless, no self-worth, depressed and insomniac.

Despite many hours of meetings spent with Teachers and Principals, we had to take the matter in our hands.

Josephine is now homeschooled. The experience so far hasn’t gone very well. She still has trouble working, concentrating, understanding the reason for all of this work that is demanded from her. So homeschooling hasn’t been a walk in the park so far.

Then I found you and your method. As soon as Josephine listened to you, something clicked for her. I haven’t seen her so enthusiastic about something other than sports and music, for a sustainable period of time. She gets what you say and do. She is interested, enthusiastic and for the FIRST TIME, she doesn’t drag her feet when she has to watch your videos and do the work. Best of all, she does things INDEPENDENTLY, when usually, she doesn’t do anything without me. The first time we did a map together, I got lost and frustrated, and she told me: “That’s alright Maman, you can’t understand because you are not dyslexic (with a huge smile), let me do this!”. I was flabbergasted!

She draws maps almost every day, for anything she finds a reason to make one. All this is clearly working for her. And if things continue this way, I can see a way to have her go back to school and do well thanks to your method.

Now, as for the weekly zoom sessions, I’ll be straight with you, they are killing me. Horrible, useless and a total waste of time. Nobody is of the same level, we are week 2 and others are beginners. Nobody wants to talk because they are either uncomfortable or not prepared or not well managed. We can’t see anything on others’maps. We don’t understand what they are talking about, and what’s the point anyway? If at least people could send a picture of their maps before we start the session. We could see them better. You could talk with the author and constructively help them express themselves about what they did or attempted to. The young lady (Leena I think) is very nice but she can’t do your work. And mothers at the end won’t chat together when they haven’t been guided into a chat with a subject or a question to answer to. Plus, YOU are the one we want to talk to because you know what you are talking about, not someone who’s done the training and who is very shy, by the way.

Please don’t take it badly, I know that I can be very blunt, but I thought that my input could be helpful.

Sorry for the long email, I should know that a dyslexic has trouble reading!

Very sincerely,

Florine

Hello!

I am so happy I found this site! I have been a teacher for over twenty years and now I have my own business, HOPE Center for Learning.

I decided to focus my teaching on dyslexia because my daughter, who is now 15 yrs old, diagnosed at 11 yrs old, has dyslexia and the “regular-automatic” teaching did not work for her. I loved your video on that analogy, that is I how I found the website!

I also have a Masters in Curriculum and Teaching from Columbia University. So, I researched the best curriculum to teach her and I found the Orton-Gillingham approach works very well and I opened my own Center.

I am now in several schools and I have about 25 students.

I am also teaching part-time in a Learning Center at a private school and I am so excited to learn more about mind mapping! I think it will be great for our middle school and high school students. Including my daughter!

Your live video was the first video that I think I have ever sat through from start to finish. I am always so busy. But there was something about mind-mapping that I found very relatable and very helpful.

I also should have known by your engaging way of teaching that you used to be a Steiner/Waldorf teacher. I was one too!

I thought that was very funny. The one video I watch was from a Waldorf teacher!

Thank you!

Jennifer

Hi Darius,

loving your videos. Thought I’d share one of my solutions to a 30 + year frustration of never knowing where my keys are despite having a key bowl by the front door! Last Christmas (2017) my son bought me a Nut. This past Christmas I found it buried in a pile of magazines and attached it to my keys and downloaded the app. Oh boy – hasn’t happened since. I also have a car that beeps at me if I leave my keys in the car  The kids I support love the fact that I ‘get them’ don’t get annoyed and always try to find solutions.

Shelagh

Hi Sir!

I have been watching your videos and love your analogies! It helps me to understand my daughter’s working memory. She has Dyscalculia and I realized lengthy problem sums overwhelm her… I have attached a typical Singapore math worksheet for you to take a look. After hearing what you said, I realized it is even crucial for her to write down the different informations given , like taking notes , so that she can remember it. Since her working memory is short , this dropping down the ‘clues’ could help her to remember the whole ‘story’ . What do U think? How can I help her in this area?

Thank you for your kind assistance !!!

Christine Goh

Thank you for you’re video today, I am so passionate about my boys learning, seeing you emotional today, made me emotional as I feel as strongly about all of it as you do and you are so right about when the boys keeping presenting ideas but they get turned away and in the end they end up just shutting down – this rang so true, thank you for your videos please do not stop

– Zoe in Cornwall

Hi Darius,

I’m a private Learning Specialist who works with kids one-on-one. My students are 6-12 years old and most are dyslexic or more visual/right-brained in their learning style. I currently have 6 students who will be entering 6th grade middle school next year and would live to offer them summer sessions to teach your mind mapping techniques so that they are feeling confident and ready for middle school! I’ve signed up for your webinar on March 6th but as a tutor (I’m not planning to work with high schoolers) what do you recommend as a plan for me to learn your great techniques quickly so I can share with my students this summer?

Thank you and I’m so happy I found you!

Kelly Williams-Cavanaugh