matthew scurfield

Sunday Times, Malta, 12th December 2010

Dyslexia, drama and self-esteem

By Ruth Falzon

Dyslexia does not only affect the academic component of learning – literacy – but also emotional well-being.

Far too often, the experiences of students with dyslexia at school have clear negative effects on the self-concept and self-esteem of children.

Dyslexia or, rather, how dyslexic students are supported or not supported at school and in general, affects learning, performance, self-esteem and quality of life. In some cases, the feeling of low self-esteem can be severe.

Danish fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen had said, “The life I led during those days still comes back to me in bad dreams. Once again I sit in a fever on a school bench. I cannot answer; I dare not, the angry eyes stare at me, laughter and gibes echo around me. Those were hard and bitter times.”

Riley and Rustique-Forrester (2002) note that students with dyslexia find school a profoundly sad and depressing experience, emphasised by the experience of shouting and retribution: “A recurring image is of school as a prison from which children continually try to escape… small voices crying for help, caught in a cycle of circumstances they felt largely unable to influence.”

Frustration and failure are experiences in learning activities which lead to feelings of disappointment and a lowered sense of self-worth, especially in academic environments. Humphrey and Mullin (2002) note that dyslexic students experience significant challenges and difficulties with regard to self-esteem and self-perception.

Webb (1992) concludes that for children with dyslexia to feel successful, they need to become aware of their unique learning strengths, so that they may apply them effectively while working to strengthen the lagging areas. Furthermore, a more respectful inclusive curriculum and pedagogy and the use of drama would also be helpful (Eaden, 2004).

These research findings were very eloquently brought to life through the partly autobiographical performance on the launch of the first book by Matthew Scurfield, a British actor and writer residing in Malta, in January 2009.

As soon I saw the performance, I realised this experience could not end there. Fifteen months later, last March, the Faculty of Education (Department of Educational Studies and Department of Psychology), in collaboration with the Malta Dyslexia Association (MDA) and the Malta Personal, Social and Development Associations (MPSDA) organised a seminar on ‘Drama, Dyslexia and Self-Esteem’.

This event had three aims. The first was to raise awareness that the experience of dyslexic students at school, given the closed, too-academically-oriented curriculum in our community and the messages given to these students due to a lack of understanding of their abilities and needs, may be negative.

Secondly, it aimed to highlight the importance of self-esteem and its role in students’ and future adults’ quality of life and effective living in the community.

Finally, it tried to show how drama can be a positive experience for students with dyslexia, and could help them develop a positive self-esteem.

This project intended to help professionals, policy-makers, MPs, teachers, educators, teacher-trainers, students, parents and the media to understand that our educational system may be unjust to children with a profile of dyslexia, not to mention children whose intelligences are not verbal or logico-mathematical.

This activity was not a mere seminar. It was a series of interactive performances with actors Mr Scurfield and Clare Agius. Mr Scurfield has a profile of dyslexia and has published an autobiography on the theme.

The autobiographical nature of the performance aimed at provoking the 1,000-strong audience to cognitively and empathically understand this profile – a challenge and a gift.

Performances were followed by a discussion with the audience and a professional panel.

Comments received were evident of how moving the performance was for the audience. One mother commented, “Attending this event, I could feel the anger and frustration of people dealing with dyslexia. The most important thing I learnt from this event is that people should channel their frustration and anger into creating positive energy.”

Kate Gonzi, who was present at the event, said: “The presentation by Mr Scurfield was... powerful, poignant and touching. It highlights the suffering of children when their specific learning difficulties are not acknowledged or recognised by parents and educators.

“The autobiographical performance accentuated the lack of self-esteem which can easily lead to anti-social behaviour, bullying, illiteracy, depression, unemployment, drinking and drug habits. I had been aware of the condition of dyslexia, but I had never fully grasped its negative effects.

“Through the performance I realised the urgency to love and respect children with dyslexia, to value their skills, to provide them with necessary support and to empower them with the appropriate tools to overcome learning difficulties.”

One student commented, “I was impressed; I had the wrong impression about dyslexic people. I think it was a very good lesson that they tried to teach us.”

Plans to develop the concept of the performance went on after the March event. The hard work of Mr Scurfield, his wife and director Lena, and Ms Agius led to a performance on the opening night of the London Dys-Pla festival. This festival was organised during Dyslexia Week (first week of November) and was dedicated to dyslexic scriptwriters.

The London performance was very well received and led to a lively discussion. The performance was then repeated in a centre for adults with dyslexia and in a college.

This is now also the start of another project. In collaboration with the Department of Psychology and the MDA, we hope to extend the project to dyslexic students.

Drama is a powerful tool for self-development and we would like to give dyslexic students the opportunity to increase their self-esteem through drama workshops focusing on personal experiences. Given the nature of the workshops, we also intend to support students by giving them the opportunity to process the experience with qualified counsellor Maud Muscat.

Through the Mediterranean Centre for Qualitative Inquiry, coordinated by Dione Mifsud, and in collaboration with Prof. Jane Speedy (University of Bristol), Dr Mifsud and I intend to research these experiences through performance ethnography and narrative inquiry, to try to understand the effect of the drama workshops’ experience on children and young people with dyslexia.

We hope the research findings will also be beneficial to teachers and professionals working with children and young people.

Drama, after all, provides experiences in which the cognitive, the affective, the creative, the imagination and the physical are all involved and developed through self-expression, performance, observation, analysis, processing and reflection.

What started as a short performance to launch Mr Scurfield’s first book, I could be Anyone, in January 2009 at St James Cavalier, Valletta, ended up as a performance on the London stage last month and continues to grow.

 

 

Self-cleansing writing

by Marika Azzopardi It takes a lot of courage to write an autobiography that comes straight from the heart. Being a lover of the genre, I have come across several “real” stories which have evidently been tampered with substantially thanks to ghost writing assistance, by their very instigators keen on showing the better side of their character. It happens and a great many autobiographies have a truly tongue-in-cheek quality about them that very effectively destroys their very reason for being. I Could Be Anyone is not such a book. For one thing it wasn’t actually written, and for another, the ghost writer didn’t exist. It was spoken from the heart by the one and only true protagonist who, in the process, roped in many, several, almost too many characters from his life into the tale he has re-told, ably and conceivably. This is Matthew Scurfield with his heart in his hands and a lot more besides. Matthew Scurfield’s laid-back presence reveals little of the tumultuous past he has lived throughout his youth and beyond. As a seasoned actor who has featured in theatre, TV and film, it is surprising to discover his most remarkable secret – practically the pivotal point around which all of his life revolved – he is dyslexic, profoundly so. But he only found this out and had it professionally addressed at age 50. Imagine. Spending 50 years of one’s existence – a whole lifetime – not knowing that one’s inability to read and write is not due to imbecility, as those in his childhood tried to stress, but merely due to a condition that just required direction and understanding to be dealt with appropriately. The long and the short of it is that the constant negation of a problem which was not at all acknowledged and not even recognised for what it was way back in the 1950s, when he grew up, meant that Scurfield was left to fend for himself. In what was termed the class for the “Removed”, he had to brush shoulders with the roughest kids on the block. Knowing that he came from one of the most prominent, intelligent and academically appreciated families in England’s Cambridge can help one understand some of the complexity of his predicament. He recalls how he was considered as being “thick” in a family of upper middle class ranking. “In reality we are all so very different, yet the system tries to push children into one single, same channel. As things turned out, I did not fit into the high-brow academia of my family…. Neither did I fit into the working class mind-set of the classrooms I was entitled to join.” From a stiff upper lip scenario he had to learn how to act his way to popularity with kids used to being tough to survive. Toughness was a way of life and it was in these classrooms of life that Scurfield realised he really could act. Going through the throes of the disillusioned 1960s, drifting on LSD into the 1970s, Scurfield tells how he grappled to come to terms with his existence, trying hard to disguise the fact that he could not read, nor write, even while trying to keep himself occupied with sporadic acting roles. He struggled with his lines and resorted to elaborate games to hide his learning difficulties. Standing on the precipice of self-destruction, he came to discover yoga which he believes really saved his life, way before the discovery of dyslexia. “I was invited to a yoga class in 1972. The Indian man who gave the classes gave me huge doses of confidence, constantly reminding me that I am just fine and it is just all the rest which is wrong. Once my nervous system had been coaxed to calm down, I got the nerve to stand in front of seasoned actors and not flinch. You become so engrossed with the body’s movements – the process helps put thoughts into perspective. I had become disillusioned by the whole 1960s thing and depressed about life in general. Yoga came to me at just the right moment.” As he states in his book, “the science of yoga had taken up the backbone of my life. I increasingly began to see the overall limitation of thought. I had the facility to empty the vessel and take in the world.” The eastern discipline helped bridge the gap between the 1970s and the day when a gradual inward realisation led to him being officially diagnosed as dyslexic. He admits that when he found this out, he initially felt elated and then extremely frustrated at the appalling treatment he had endured. In the interim he had journeyed through life, made new friends, lost a few along the way, established his acting career and come to terms with several drastic realities, including the death of his brother. “When I came to Gozo three years ago, I had a big bundle of tangled string to untie and unravel. The book was in my head. The peace and tranquillity of Gozo, the romantic feeling which the island has always given me, helped make this book happen.” Matthew Scurfield first discovered the island in 1976 when he was starring in the movie Sweeney II on the cliffs of Ta’ Cenc. It was a time when Gozo was still practically undisturbed from its centuries-old slumber and its roads were still characterised by farmers and horse-drawn carts. Matthew is full of admiration for our country. “There is something about Malta – its people stand alone, yet have a strong individuality. There is a unique quality here. And here people are all so incredibly diverse.... And nothing seems to stop them from achieving.” After acting in Unifaun’s production The Alchemist last year, he got a first-hand insight of the great extent of creativity in Malta. He is presently collaborating with Malta’s own Clare Agius in the process of promoting his book through theatre readings with a difference. Yet, one final puzzling question remains.... If he could not write, how did the book happen? He explains how the book was born out of a computer which features voice dictation, a phenomenon he had discovered when it was still in its infancy. It was a tool which allowed to appreciate how the word can be way more powerful than the sword. “Voice dictation technology is getting better and is now practically 98 per cent accurate. Certainly it made this book happen. It is one of those things which certainly changed my life.” By popular demand, another event entitled ‘An Evening with Clare & Matthew’ with Clare Agius and Matthew Scurfield will be held at Saint James Cavalier, Valletta on 8 April at 8pm. ‘I Could Be Anyone’ by Matthew Scurfield published by Monticello Publishing is available at leading bookshops.

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Through the looking glass

"I Could Be Anyone documents the writer's involvement with radical artists including Pink Floyd's creator Syd Barrett"

The explosive, psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s, epitomised by Pink Floyd's revolutionary light installations, burns bright in actor Matthew Scurfield's autobiography I Could Be Anyone. Cambridge bred, Scurfield moved to Gozo to write and publish his first book, having been on the Maltese islands previously filming Sweeney 2in 1973, Byron in 2003 and, more recently, A different Loyalty with Sharon Stone and Rupert Everett.

^{_{Alternatively contemplative and raucous, I Could Be Anyone documents the writer's experiences growing up in the rigidly academic town and his involvement with seminal radical artists of the decade including the Floyd's creator, Syd Barrett. While so doing, Scurfield describes and accentuates the feelings of isolation and disenfranchisement caused by the rigid conformity attitudes of major institutions.}}

^{_{Walking home as a child past houses owned by the creme of academic society, Scurfield recalls the "inaccessibility and unfriendliness" of these castles of the literati; behind closed doors there lay a complex cycle of "academic one-upmanship"; a cruel, socially exclusive club which glorified those who could and ostracised those who could not.}}

^{_{Scurfield's debilitating dyslexia ensured he was cast-off as a failure and highlighted the deficiency of the school system in recognising and adequately attuning to the problem. The book describes how the ruling establishment drummed in the feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy and alienation felt by many of the protagonists, through its ceaseless, slanted perceptions; yet, Scurfield claims that shutting the door on any dialogue was “was an opportunity to begin the dance.}}

^{_{The hedonism of the 1960’s betrayed desperation to overcome this sense of estrangement. Scurfield's brother, Ponji, "caught up in the unending treadmill of what other people thought of his character", was the most tragic victim.}}

^{_{Having embraced the inclusive attitudes of Eastern mysticism and Buddhism, he wanted to convince others around him of the truth as he saw it. The ill- fated attempt saw him deteriorate and "glimmers of a sadder picture in his" eyes became evident. His conviction in the renunciation of the physical self to reach divine heights did not persuade those close to him and his attempt to prove his point only resulted in rejection, anguish and ultimately his suicide.}}

^{_{The acid-dropping, marijuana smoking, subversive generation blossomed on these walls of the disillusioned. According to Scurfield, the infamous Syd Barrett, a friend from his Cambridge days, also suffered a similar embitterment; Syd shunned the superficial success enjoyed by the Floyd, hating the glib, one- dimensional and frivolous commerciality of the business. This, he says "seemed to add an increasing disassociation that was starting to separate him from the ones he loved".}}

^{_{Scurfield's saving grace seems to have been the theatre, where he found a "home away from home". Yet this too seems to be tinged with his endless desire to fit in and to please his parents. His first performance, in the John Webster play The White Devil with the then still undergraduates, Michael Pennington and Richard Eyre, is enshrined in his memory due to his mother's reaction, who was "thrilled at the way my first proper appearance on the stage had worked out and thus, above everything else, fulfilled a dream."}}

^{_{Throughout, Scurfield's distinctive narrative voice reflects on events with deep insight, enlightening and inspiring. While warning readers of the subjectivity of his account, he is, nonetheless, unashamedly honest, even at points embarrassingly so. Moreover, the dramatic storytelling and the elegiac tone employed at points is reminiscent of a tragedy in which each character's fatal flaws contribute to their rise and eventual fall.}}

^{_{For some, there was no rebound from the depths. Yet for Scurfield, salvation from self-destruction allowed him to reflect on and enrich his life with what he had learnt and in so doing, enrich ours too.}}

                    Mojo Magazine Oct 2008