Larry Niven wrote a modern retelling of "Dante's Inferno" called simply "Inferno." (Short story, science fiction writer dies and finds himself at the outer circle of Hades. A guide named Benito shows up and offers to show him the way out. Which involves travelling through every level of Hades.)

In one circle, where people who practiced "witchcraft" are sent. The hero finds his sixth grade teacher. Whenever a student had difficulty, she would label him dyslexic and dismiss him as "unteachable."

Allen: But dyslexia is a legitimate condition! It...

Teacher: It's a magic word Allen, I said they could never learn to read... and they never did!

I remember being a little disturbed by that attitude and wondering if this was where Niven actually stood on the matter.

p.s. Did a quick Wikipedia search. He wrote "Inferno" with Jerry Pournelle, so it's possible that's Jerry's take on the subject, or both. (Or neither for that matter. It's possible they just wanted to throw in someone who used dyslexia as an excuse, but didn't actually believe in it!)

AND there's a sequel, which I was not aware of and now have to find!

Thank's Ed. I had forgotten that one, it definately rates a reread now that I've cut the cable.

I've read that thing at least a half a dozen times. I had to re-buy it three times because I kept giving away my copies.

Why is there so much highlighted text that leads to spam? I had nothing to do with "giving away" leading to a sweepstakes entry.

Cool thanks for that.....

"............... My address is ....9 Holdon Croft.....

I'm off to amazon to have a look now.

But there are people who have been told 'you can't do ' xyz by teachers and gone on to never do that. Then there are people who were told that they couldn't do something by a teacher then gone on to 'stick it to the teacher' and done what they were told they could not.

I have been told by a student "I'm dyslexic I can't read" ..... He got a ticking off ..... And encouraged and then read to the class of 15 ... He was really please with himself at the end of the lesson. Also if it saves me doing some reading that's great!