Teachers called me a dunce .. but my filmsproved them all wrong
Successful composer and moviemaker tells how he defied his ‘dinosaur’ teachers, cruel classmates and bullies to become a multiple award winner
WHEN Adam Stafford was five, his teacher pushed him into a corner with a dunce’s cap on his head.
The composer and film-maker was illiterate until the age of 10, because teachers failed to recognise his dyslexia.
Adam, 35, was raised in Falkirk and when he went to his local primary school, he was labelled idle and moronic because he couldn’t read or write.
School staff dismissed the concerns of his mother, who insisted there were learning issues with her otherwise bright son.
Adam recalled: “There was impatience from teachers and ridicule from classmates. I was called stupid and lazy.
“I was called a dunce and that stuck with me throughout primary school. There was no learning support.”
But Adam was anything but stupid – and testimony to the fact is his award-winning film career and his new music album, Fire Behind The Curtain, which will be released in May.
He recalls how as a child he viewed words as a jumble of confusion that hit his brain as alien, incomprehensible text.
Now the father of a three-year-old daughter, he shudders at the memory of such barbaric treatment of a child.
Adam said: “I would despair if that was my daughter. It was terrible behaviour from old-fashioned teachers who were dinosaurs.”
The playground bullying and taunts turned him into an anxious, erratic little boy.
His parents, desperate to identify the root cause of his literacy problems, took him to a child psychologist when he was 10. Tests diagnosed dyslexia.
At that point, he was practically illiterate, able to write only his name and the most basic sentences.
After diagnosis, his mother succeeded in her struggle to secure the expertise of a learning support teacher.
Adam said: “The teacher patiently sat with me, moving from word to word, teaching me to read.
“By the time I went to high school, I had good literacy skills.”
He described his secondary school, Woodland High in Falkirk, as a “rough and tumble” place. The bullying he had suffered in primary intensified.
A polite boy who was part of a theatre group, Adam was easy fodder
Children should be encouraged and they should never be called stupid ADAM STAFFORD