Trainee teachers with dyslexia: personal narratives of resilience

This paper tells the stories of two trainee teachers
and their personal experiences of dyslexia. Both
informants were English and training to be primary
school teachers in England. Through drawing on
their own experiences of education, the stories illustrate
how dyslexia has shaped the self-concept,
self-esteem and resilience of each informant. The
narratives presented in this paper illustrate powerfully
the ways in which teachers can have a positive
or negative impact on the self-concepts of students
with dyslexia. Both had been inspired by teachers
they had met, and these positive role models had
given them the confidence to pursue their own
ambitions. However, both had encountered teachers
who lacked empathy and patience, and these teachers
had a detrimental impact on their self-concepts.
For both of these trainee teachers, personal experiences
of dyslexia also shaped their professional
identities as teachers. Both trainees described
themselves as caring and empathic teachers, suggesting
that personal experiences of dyslexia had a
positive impact on teacher professional identity.