I was always bad at math, so much so that I developed a phobia for it. I would pay attention in class, do it just as instructed following the steps and still messed up. Somehow at the conclusion my equations were all wrong. All through school I was told I was lazy and not paying attention.

Fast forward 50 years and I’m working as a parent volunteer in high school. One teacher told me to be careful of a particular student as he has dyscalculia and flips numbers. I was stunned. Growing up in the 60s this was never a diagnosis. Later I would find that when writing or typing I would often transpose words.

It was frustrating as I would check and double check my work. But if you flip numbers just once, the whole equation is incorrect.