“My strength is being able to help people see their strengths, and I’ve always been good with people that don’t quite fit the mould,” she explains. “My introduction to neurodiversity was in early 2000 when I started working in the Learning Centre at a local secondary school. I was working with mainly boys who were more often than not outside of the classroom. I quickly realised that they were all really bright but just didn’t fit the school system. Boys in particular can be very good at making a ruckus and getting themselves kicked out before people realise they’re actually struggling with reading, writing and spelling. It can be one of the many strategies they come up with to work around their challenges.”

Jeanie knew little about dyslexia at the time but was determined to help those boys find out what they were good at and work from there.

“That was the very beginning of my journey and from there I started investigating what dyslexia was and how to teach people in a different way.”

Since then Jeanie has devoted her working days to supporting neurodiverse learners to succeed, both at secondary school level and into adulthood. From 2008 – 2016  she worked for Adult Learning Support (an offshoot of Literacy Aotearoa), based in Nelson, but a move north for family reasons saw a change in direction.

“We moved to Snells Beach and I took some time off to be a grandmother, then somehow Tina Rose found me!”

As Director of Education Unlimited, Tina has her finger on the pulse of all those blazing a trail in Aotearoa’s education sector. Jeanie’s work had not gone unnoticed.

“Tina initially contacted me because she was working with a horticultural business who employed a father and son who were both dyslexic. My love is people and seeing them gain success and that’s exactly what Tina is about too. We were on the same page, so I started working with her delivering one-on-one training to both neurodiverse and neurotypical learners within the various organisations Education Unlimited was working with.”

Seven years on and although Jeanie has now returned to Golden Bay, she remains an invaluable asset to the Education Unlimited team in her role as Learning Disorder Specialist.

“My driving force has always been working for the underdog in many ways. These people are very bright and they shouldn’t need me, but they do need someone to advocate for them. Learners can initially feel quite reluctant to engage one-on-one, as many of them have been made fun of all their lives. But once they realise that you really care for them and you’re not going to make fun of them there’s a real shift.

“Dyslexic and dyscalculia learners have so many incredible skills and capabilities. For many neurodiverse in the workplace they do not take the challenge of, for example, stepping up to be supervisors as they feel their paperwork will let them down. They just fail and fail and people think they’re not smart, but they’re actually incredibly smart. They just have a different way of learning.

“That’s exactly what I say to the neurodiverse learners I work with. You’re not dumb, look at what you have achieved even when you’ve had so much stacked against you. You’re actually incredible.”

‍

‍

‍