Pocket Learner: Challenging The Education System With Andrea Campbell

I'm going to ask you to think about what it's like to grow up with a learning disability. Without access to the types of resources that you might need to become your best. You might learn differently. You might not see things quite the same way that other people do. That may not work in your favor. You're simply left behind. You might even feel as if you've been discarded. As the sad truth of what many educational systems are like around the globe. To navigate this discussion, I'm joined by one incredible woman who seeks to change our educational system for the better, so that those that aren't neurotypical can receive the support they need to learn and excel. Andrea Campbell joins me from the UK on her birthday to talk about Pocket Learner, an award-winning invention and learning system that she developed to help her own child learn to read. It's her passionate pursuit to help others who learn differently, gain the access that they need to learning tools that can help them on their educational journey, so they can be their best and thrive. Andrea, I have to first say happy birthday. Thank you, Corinna. I appreciate that so much. It's nice to have you here and to tell your story. I would love for you to tell me a little bit about what your journey was and what led to the Pocket Learner. In my early life, I worked in the diplomatic corps. I was traveling the world and I spent five years in Mexico City. I was born in Jamaica. I was sent off to Mexico City when I was young. I went across to Belgium. I was traveling all over the world. I knew I wanted children at some point, but they were not my priority. I had a few miscarriages and I thought it's not going to happen.

Pocket Learner: Thankfully, our social systems are starting to see that each of these people can have a contribution to society in an equal or maybe a different way from what we might expect with the normal or the neuro-typical.

This girl came along and I realized that she has Down syndrome. On day one, it seemed as if the world was against her. In the hospital, they said to me, "You don't have to have her. We can give you an abortion if you want. It's your choice." It's saddest the thing where they leave you with that feeling, "Am I doing the right thing? What is this I'm taking on?" They're not telling you to do it, but effectively they're telling you to do it. I decided not to do it. When she was born, it continued. I was told, "She won't be able to live on her own. She won't be able to go to the bank and conduct transactions." I stopped them there. "I don't want to hear what she won't be able to do anymore. She's already here. I can't turn her back. We're going to do the best." When she was born, I was disappointed. I don't know with who. Maybe with myself. I did ask why. I've been a Christian all my life, but I did question God. I can't imagine how difficult that would be as somebody that's pregnant and you're already having to deal with the changes in your body and everything else. To feel like you're being lobbied to do something that you may not necessarily want to do, that's heartbreaking. I do not condemn people who do it. It's their choice and I respect it. I'm pro-choice. People can do what they want with their body and I will never condemn them because that's their circumstances. I'm never going to say never, even my kids, but I knew I'd be the one to do it. I want my baby home, despite what she couldn't do and all that. We loved her and everything. I realized she was growing like any other child. She's slower. Even at fifteen, her speech is still impaired. She is not able to communicate fully, what she wants and all that. We may do with what we have and it turned out to be a real joy. This part of this journey started when she was about eight years old. She was going to school and her dad and I went to school to see the teacher. Parents are quite excited. "How's she doing at school today?" We were told that, "Don't worry about her. She can learn to make a sandwich," as I'm putting my baby at the back of the class. They're putting her in the kitchen. She doesn't deserve to be upfront. I'm very disappointed, but I took her home and I realized that from that day, something would have to change around here because as everyone knows and everyone who's reading, nobody puts a baby in the corner.

We try so hard to fit in when we’re all really made to stand out.

Nobody puts my baby or your baby, or nobody's baby in the corner. I turned into a mother hen. I decided I would go to look for something. I'm going to help this child. My background is in linguistics. I have a Degree in Linguistics and I'm a translator and interpreter. That's my first profession. I also have an MBA, but that didn't prepare me for this. I decided to use what I had and I found rudimentary I found things on the internet and I started to work in my layman way. She responded to everything I gave her. She was like a sponge. These teachers came to my house to see what I was talking about because she was getting the vocabulary in particular. She was learning. A friend of mine came around 2014 and say, "You have something here. You should take it to the British Invention Show. I thought it was rough. It wasn't even built up properly. I said, "Okay." I took it to the show on their advice. I was surprised I received a medal that year 2014, and then I received the British Women Inventors & Innovators Awards and the following year, I received the European Woman Inventors Innovators Award. The next year, we got Global Powerhouse Award. The next year we got the Black Enterprise Mobile Award. In 2021, I received the British Women Business Award. I got the runner-up award. In 2020, interestingly, my daughter brought home what they call a Jack Petchey Award. Here in the UK, it's an award that's given to children who are excelling at school. She was 1 of 3 in her school who received that award. That award is not only academic, it's also about how people get on social skills and the whole works. I thought her teacher had cooked this up for her because her teacher is close to her and they love each other. Her teacher said, "No. The entire school voted for her. She's a social butterfly." When I look at that, I used to ask, "Why me?" I got to a point where I thought, "Why not me then who?" Sometimes we receive a gift and it's not in this shiny package that we like. It doesn't look desirable and it doesn't look like the other stuff.

Pocket Learner: Having tools and resources that could support the education journey of anyone learning to read is beautifully simple. Everyone could benefit from it.

If you're patient enough and stay the course, you can make that thing work and you can see the good in it and that's where I am at, at this point. With that, I had developed out of that same system, the multi-award-winning system called the Pocket Learner. That system is now on the internet being sold. We're able to get funding here in the UK and give it to the children in our local vicinity here, in the borough and in surroundings. Almost 1,000 children in this area have already received Pocket Learner, free of cost because I have a social enterprise that I have cofounded in 2006 when my daughter was born and that has been serving the local people. I'm so happy that I'm able to make that difference. I said to you that I was a diplomat in my early years. I didn't make that difference. I made more money, but I didn't make the difference, if I have to choose, I prefer the difference. I'm looking and talking to the world, partnering with people to give it to parents whose children are like mine, whose family is up and pushed to the back of the room, to the corner. I'm excited to be on this journey. That's where it's at now. Thank you, Corinna. It's like I go through this memory lane every time that we connect. The reality is when I was in elementary school, which is now many years in the past, and thankfully some of our social systems have improved around how we educate and treat people with learning disabilities or who are differently-abled. At the time that I was growing up in Southern Oregon in the small town of Medford, I was in elementary school and I was a little hippy kid. I was a little weird by comparison to the others. It was a predominantly right-wing lumber town for the most part at that point. I didn't fit in. I believe I was encouraged by some of the teachers to volunteer my time during some recesses because I wasn't engaging with students the same way. I would work in the mobile unit then we have this mobile building at the tail-end of the school that taught people who had all sorts of learning or physical disabilities. There was a blind girl, somebody who couldn't hear, a couple of children with Down syndrome, and another learning disability that isn't as visible, but just as difficult. I don't remember what that one was called.

It's really about individuals being themselves and being the best of who they are.

What I found was that the way I was treated as other, this group of people was treated as other, because none of us fit. It was almost like this band of misfits together that developed this strong connection. It forever changed my perspective on the othering of differently-abled people. I got to see the person behind the ability or disability. I don't think that's something that many of us tend to encounter unless we seek it out. Thankfully, our social systems are starting to see that each of these people can have a contribution to society in an equal way and maybe a different way from what we might expect from the normal or the neurotypical. I'm so encouraged to see the acceptance of your work when we met first and you've walked me through your website and shared some of the stories of the people you're affecting. It's a marvelously simple invention. I will encourage everybody who's reading this to go visit your website, which is PocketLearner.net, and what you'll see there are these simple binders. It's almost like binders with sleeves and you would change out the photo with the word and maybe start with the word in the photo, and then remove the word, or put the word back in if they're trying to learn these peas in a pod and how to read the word, so that they can go to the movies and select the movie they want to watch as opposed to being told which movies are playing. Order from a menu. Basic things that we all are expected to know and learn that you were experiencing, "They can just make a sandwich," and that's it. The beautiful thing about the Pocket Learner is that it's tailorable. You can use it to learn ABCs or the periodic table. It's something you can tailor based on what you want to learn. It's not a prescription. You make it work for you and that's why we run training programs also for parents and families to be able to learn how to use it. The beautiful thing of what those programs and the sessions is that by being in a session with other parents, they see how it can be used for their child, and we all learn in the process as the other uses for it that I didn't even think of. My almost seven-year-old would have benefited from this system and learning to read because he made everything backward. His mirroring is near perfect. When he wrote his full name of Benedict out, it would be exactly the reverse of what it was supposed to be. You'd hold it up to a mirror. It would look correct. It was hard for him that transition. I guess that's normal for people who work in the education system with children and they tend to know the reversals can be normal, but it was extreme that he still sometimes starts to read a word from its last letter. It's a little hard for him to get over that hurdle.

Pocket Learner: Sometimes, we receive a gift that’s not in this shiny package that we like, but if you're patient enough and stay the course, you can make that thing work and see the good in it.

We're making progress. He's come a long way, but the struggle was real. When you're being told that your child is behind the eight ball and they should be reading at this level, but they're not. We had this Zoom lifestyle for a critical moment in many students' education and it set people back. Having tools like these resources like this, that could support the education journey of anyone learning to read. I felt the system was beautifully simple. They could all benefit from it. It was particularly useful to parents whose children were homeschooling because it can be something that says, it teaches to lead or learn to lead. We try hard to fit in, but we are all made to stand up because that is normal anyway. It's just the beauty of the difference is among us that makes this world as it is. I said, "I'm not trained in this area. I'm a parent who was frustrated and found an answer." I don't know the technicalities of it or anything like that. It's beautiful in that way. He may be able to develop something out of that skill that he has later on to help other people like himself. There is so much more for us to discover. We have discovered a lot, but the human mind is out of this world. I don't know if we have experienced half of it. We'd have to fight to fit in. What are we fitting into? If I'm a square, I can't fit into a circle. It's about individuals being themselves or being the best of who you are. Some people can never learn to read, it's not ultimate. My parents, myself, her dad, and all of us have Degrees and studied, but if a child doesn't have a degree it's not the end of the world. What is she called to do? Too many of us are caught up with careers and all that. If we look at the end of it, it's what are we called to do here? What are we put on Earth to do? It may not necessarily be that you have to be the best reader. I would love for her to read. I like everybody to read because it's a vital skill. I've seen many young people who die early because they have not been stimulated. Part of it is if they had been taught to read or help to read, even if it's not perfect. It might've helped them to be a bit more stimulated and be interested in more things. You can pick up a book and learn about something that you're curious about and not have to be entertained. I felt like my books growing up were some of my best friends, the characters I learned about and the stories I read. They added the color to my life that didn't always exist when you're in the routine of daily living and the power of the imagination harnessing that, we all have that. If you were to tell somebody, "You don't get access to this part because you're not expected to learn it."

Too many of us are caught up with our careers, but if we look at the end of it, it's really about what we are put on earth to do.

Without giving them a chance. Imagine they will learn it, even much better than you. As parents even as a wider community and society, we have to understand that we have a role to play in enabling these children and they become adults to be the best they can be. It's not going to be by denying them or putting them in by the back of the class and thinking, "This one is useless." A little child can lead them. We need to allow people to be who they can be and facilitate the process. The beautiful thing about the Pocket Learner is that it fits around the child. The child is a center. You don't try to adapt the child to you, you adapt with the child. What's the child's style of learning? They have this thing in education called VARK, Visual, Auditory, Reading and Kinesthetic. People who try to learn by hand. We all learn differently. We need to be able to tailor the learning, not tailor the child. I want to get back to something you talked about, I was what they call a geriatric mother. I had my children late in life. It was standard practice to go through all of the genetic testings to find out, "Does your child have a potential genetic anomaly that could affect their lives in livelihood?" This is now a standard process and people are they're given the option to end or terminate a pregnancy because we look at it as a challenge more than life. Our society looks at learning disabilities as a challenge, more than any inconvenience almost. What I am encouraged by is that I'm seeing more even not-for-profits who are focused on this particular thing. I had shared with you when we first connected, the charity Brittany's Baskets, which I think is genius. This very bubbly girl who has Down syndrome. She's very social, active and capable of taking care of herself and passionate about celebrating the lives of other babies who are born with Down syndrome. What she does is every time there's a baby born with Down syndrome and the communities that she's aware of or able to affect, she sends a basket of goodies to the parents, the mom, to celebrate the life of this new angel, and then celebrates them on social media. I thought that we need more of that because people need to see that boxing people and putting them in this category of others, doesn't solve anything at all. There's beauty and in each soul and we can celebrate that and learn from one another along the way.

Pocket Learner: Boxing people and putting them in this category of “other” doesn't solve anything at all. There's beauty in each soul. We can celebrate that and learn from one another along the way.

That's something I aspire to do too. I don't even have it now, but they used to have a gift pack that they give to parents who do have a child. I dream of the day when I could put a Pocket Leaner in one of those packs. Even if it's a care pack, you have other things in it, but something for children who are born with Down syndrome or born with any other abnormality. Some of the abnormalities that show up later on like autism and all that, but Down syndrome they know right away. As you mentioned, I did do the test initially, because it's something that's a routine here. They weren't sure. As a matter of fact, the first test showed nothing. They did another one and they say, "Could be," they're not sure. I didn't do the amnio one, that last one would have been more definitive, but then it was late. I knew that had I done that test, it would not have changed anything, because it was late anyway. Even if I wanted to change, it would have been a late abortion, which I was never going to do. The technology has come much further, that they test your blood, if you're of a certain age and your blood is able to tell them pretty much everything they need to know about the genetic of the baby, from that very early point about 15 weeks, 13 weeks or maybe even earlier. For me, when I had already had my first child, it was like there is no question I was going to have my second. It can be different for a mom who's pregnant for the first time and never experienced motherhood themselves. The bond that comes right at that beginning stage it's pretty incredible. I confronted this in my mind. "I'm an old mom. I'm 41 and pregnant and going to be delivering this baby. If my child has a genetic abnormality, I'm fine with it. They will be beautiful. They will be everything they're supposed to be." The reality is I have a very normal four-year-old who tries to tear down our house on a routine basis. Another person can make a different choice and it's up to them. I noticed that here in the UK and I work with her. I was talking to this particular person one day and she said that she had a pregnancy and she was told the child would be extremely disabled. It wasn't Down syndrome or anything like that, but it was that a child was going to be seriously disabled. She's of a particular faith.

We have to understand that we have a role to play in enabling children to be the best adults that they can be.

They tried to get rid of the child and she did get rid of the child and she's regretted it ever since. She doesn't know what the child would have been. She hasn't had a child since. When she looked at my daughter, she says, "Maybe she would have been like this and I would have been happy if she wasn't like this." She's grieving. This was like several years ago that this happened to her. Some decisions are final, but a lot of pregnancies don't make it too when there is an abnormality. There is a sentience within the body in a way. The genetic coding, our body's ability to carry pregnancies to term, often if there's something wrong, you'll have a miscarriage and as a very sad and difficult thing to go through at any stage. There's an intelligence within the body and I feel like your body can make a choice for you too in some ways. It's a philosophical discussion because I don't think there's any right answer. If we build a society that appreciates all people then the choices become more open and you feel less obligated to one particular choice or another. That is the right way to build a healthy and constructive society. Respect each person, each individual for their strengths, and give them the resources that they need to thrive. That's important because too many people may want to condemn a mother. For example, for a single mother with a child with special needs, that would not be easy. I never condemn that person. At the same time, you would not hold a hand out to help that person. What legs are you standing on? If you're telling the person, "You can't do that." At the end of the day, that person has to face their days alone with that child, because maybe the dad is gone or whatever has happened. Things happened to people. We have to be careful that we're not judgmental about people. Not too long ago here in the UK, there's a family. The lady has 4 children and 3 of them were severely disabled. Her husband took the able child on holiday and left her at home with the three severely disabled children. I say severely, they can't move, feed themselves, and do anything. She's left with these three children. I don't know if she had help or anything like that, but what she did is she killed all these three. She drowned them all. CMBB 65: Pocket Learner

People condemned her and what she did was not right. How many people knew that she was there with those three children and didn't help her? How many people say, "Let me give you a break?" Sometimes all we need is a break. You need to sleep. I have a friend who comes to my house sometimes to get a rest. Her son is autistic. He beats her up. He does all sorts of things. I know when she comes, she doesn't say it, but she sits on the couch and she'll fall asleep because she knows we'll take care of her son. It's a simple thing like that. Too many of us are too judgmental when things like that happen, but we didn't see the need. Sometimes we have to see a need before it's even expressed. We are not any better than that woman who kill those children because at the end of the day we saw the need and we did nothing. We went about our merry way. When we talk about it, "She's a wicked mom." She didn't do the right thing, but neither did you. That gets back to more philosophical conversations about the role of society in helping us manage our lives, like, giving one another leg up, the power of community. As we get to space where we stop otherings, many things that aren't exactly as we want to see them in normal, the likelihood of the support being there is going to be stronger. I also think that women need to get better at asking for help in general. This is something that you go, do and produce. You're almost told in a way it's like, "You have your responsibility of the home, but you also have your responsibilities of work and maintaining finances, and the house.” It's a lot to manage. It is a lot. Society is moving fast and people are fast-paced and are running. Look what happened with COVID no matter how fast you were running, you had to stop nobody's indispensable. When COVID came, no matter how important, you had to stop. I write inspirational quotes. I have books with inspirational quotes. There's one I wrote during that time, it says, "I don't learn because I write them down because they are inspired." Sometimes I don't learn them.

We all learn differently, and we just need to be able to tailor the learning, not tailor the child.

What comes to mind is when tiger steps up, poodle steps back, because all along, we thought this was tiger life and rushing and this and that, and then when they real tiger, which was COVID. It was a poodle competing with a tiger. That was what came to mind at the time. All the important things we had to do that we thought were a tiger. It can't wait. "I don't have time for you. I'm rushing." We had to stop. People work from home, the office is closed, the world is still there, it didn't fall apart. Things happen, but they didn't fall apart. We have to understand what's important. It's not about the things, the job and the money, it's about people. It's interesting that you drew a correlation between a tiger and a poodle because one is very wild and it's the biggest cat there is. One of the fiercest predators that there is that sneaks and attacks people. They never see it coming. They're very effective predators. A poodle is a manicured dog in so many ways. I don't know if you're talking about the large poodles or the small ones, but even they're very bred. It's like one is known to be physically manicured to the hair trimmed and everything else. You realize what you thought was a tiger in comparison is a poodle. "It was bigger than this. There was more to life than this. It takes us by surprise sometimes. We need to put things in perspective. I'd like to ask you a couple of closing questions. One of them is a question of whether you're working on something new or different if something else is coming for Pocket Learner. I'm writing the book about Pocket Learner. For a long time, I didn't feel qualified to write that book. I still felt like it's imposter syndrome maybe because I'm not trained in that field of education. I run a social enterprise here and it's a training organization. I run the training and I do some of the training and everything like that, but I don't have a teacher training qualification. CMBB 65: Pocket Learner

For a long time, I didn't feel qualified to do things like this. As time went on, everybody's saying you are qualified by developing this system and by looking after the child and all of that, that qualifies you. Over time, I started to rub it off on myself. I say, "Maybe I can write this book." I did launch a book. I launched two books and both hit the bestseller list. They are top of the best of the bestseller list in Amazon, but one of them is blended families, looking after a child with special needs. That book is out and people are buying that book. It's called Blended and Special. I also pre-launched a book on that day, which is called Pocket Learner. For a long time, I've had the bones of the Pocket Learner, the bones of a book, course or whatever it is, but I'd never developed it. I pre-launched that book. It's yet written. I have until October 2022 to deliver, but I think I can deliver by the spring. It should be out at that time. That's what I'm working on at the moment. In the meantime, while I'm getting the audiobook done for the Blended and Special book and the hardcover books, I'm working on those for the time being. The Pocket Learner can be interesting, but because of the way I have to put that book together. I'm consistently divinely inspired. That book is based on the fruit of the spirit. The child being the fruit of the womb is in the middle. I said to you that whatever we're doing revolves around the child. That child is not to be changed to adapt. We need to adapt to that child's style. The child's in the middle of the star of the show and she's a fruit of the womb. Around that, we have the different fruit where we started to hope. Hoping that the fruit of the spirit or anything, but hope is important. We start with HOPE and each of those means something. H has a meaning OPE and it continues faith love, gentleness and peace as the last one, it's six pieces of that pie. Those are the five foods to the spirit. Whereas hope is a start. You have to have hope. You have to believe that your child can achieve. Believe in the process. You have to be optimistic about it. The O in hope is optimism. "I can make a difference here. This child can make a difference. I'm in a position to help that child to make that difference. What do I need to do in order to do that?" That's the first chapter of that book is. It goes all the way around. Faith, believe in a process and all the way around to peace, which is now the acceptance, living with this with yourself and going forward, and looking at how the child can live a peaceful life despite whatever challenges are to us or they may have. That book is interesting and I'm in the process of writing it at the moment because as I said, it's already launched, I do have to deliver it and I will do that. When it is ready, you'll have to come back on and we can talk about it then. Is there any question that I haven't asked that you wish I had? "What should parents do?" I can't tell them what to do. Parents who are facing this journey. You may be pregnant at the moment, or your baby may be born, or you may be an older parent and getting pregnant or whatever it is, what should they do? I can't tell him what to do, but behind this dark cloud, there is a rainbow. Whatever you look for, you'll find. If you look for it to be a dark, hard, rough journey, that's what it would be for you. You have to be open and optimistic as I said, in my book, and know this is a child like any other child, they may be different, but we all are different. Even if they are identical twins there's still some difference. That child is as different. Have hope and understand that this is another person. If you choose to take the pregnancy forward again, that's your choice. We are not here to judge, but if you choose to do it, there is hope and it's very fulfilling. There's a lady called Helen Keller, which many people may have heard of. She was born deaf and blind, but she was such a joy. She was such an impact. She became an activist. She also was a prolific writer. The world would've been poor without Helen. Think that your child can make that difference. It doesn't have to be on a large international scale, but whatever it is you will get to love that child at some point, but you have to want it. How can our community support your efforts? What would you like to leave them with? My dream is for the Pocket Learner to be in the hands of families, especially people in developing countries that have little or no access to resources, or the child has no access to an educational provision. Some children may be physically disabled, cannot get there. It could be that they're okay cognitively, they could be fine. My dream is for us to work as a community to be able to provide those resources to those families. I would love to partner with people who would want to help me to do that. These resources can be used in any culture. As it is now, they are in English, but they can be printed in whatever language. I love for it to be able to be tailored to different communities, so it makes more sense to them. I want people to reach out to me to see how we can partner, if they want to fund some for whatever community that they want to support, they can decide which community goes to. Whether on a commercial basis, because we can send it to and also, we can give it away to people in those developing countries. In the UK, we are okay because as I said, I have a social enterprise. We get funding to give it to local people. Most people already have it and they didn't have to pay for it. I want the same thing for developing countries and it doesn't matter which country. Happy birthday again, Andrea. In closing, I would like to invite my audience to act. It doesn't have to be huge. It could be as simple as sharing this show with someone in your community that you think could benefit from it. I also encourage you to visit the website that they have put together for Pocket Learner, PocketLearner.net. You can watch some of the videos that I got to see of this tool specifically in action. You'll see the simplistic beauty of it as well. I also encourage you to check out Andrea's books on Amazon. Thank you now and always for being a part of this show and community, because together we can do so much more.

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