“We are the architects, we are the designers.”
Zephaniah, line 2 (page 12); repeated to children at lines 85-86 (page 13)
The opening claims a shared identity with the pronoun “we”, and picks two professions that plan and build rather than read and write. The metaphor answers the school’s narrow idea of intelligence before the article has even described it: dyslexic people are cast as the makers of the world, not failures within it. Because he repeats the words to children in the final paragraph, the article ends where it began, and the opening turns out to be advice he now hands on.
“no compassion, no understanding and no humanity”
Zephaniah on the education system of his childhood, lines 4-5 (page 12)
A tricolon built on the repeated “no”, and arguably each noun is larger than the last: a feeling, then knowledge, then what makes us human at all. The rhythm is a performer’s, made to land when heard aloud. The criticism is aimed at the system of that time rather than at individuals, and he says straight afterwards that he is not angry with his teachers, which makes the judgement sound considered rather than bitter.
“the past is a different kind of country”
Zephaniah, lines 7-8 (page 12)
A metaphor that seems to echo the opening of L. P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between (1953), which calls the past a foreign country where people behave differently. Whether or not the echo is intended, the effect is generous: the cruelty of his schools is placed in another time, with other rules. That generosity is strategic. A reader who sees him being fair is more likely to trust the harsh examples that follow.
“Shut up, stupid boy.”
A teacher, line 14 (page 12)
Four blunt words of command and insult, given as direct speech, so the reader hears them before any comment from Zephaniah. The teacher does answer his question about sleep, with the counter-argument that bad people would do more bad, but she leads with a label. Zephaniah even concedes that her point was fair, which leaves the insult as the only thing to object to. The problem was never her answer but the word “stupid”, used on a child for thinking.
“We can’t all be intelligent”
A teacher, line 21 (page 12)
Said to a boy who had asked for help with writing, it sounds like kindness and works as dismissal. The inclusive “we” pretends to share the burden while placing him outside the intelligent group, and the offer of a future in sport is, he later sees, “stereotyping”. One reading is that it is a racial stereotype of a black boy as an athlete rather than a thinker, though he does not say which kind he means. It is useful in an exam because it shows prejudice in polite language.
“If you look at the statistics, I should be in prison”
Zephaniah, line 37 (page 12)
The conditional opens a list of everything that counted against him: his race, the part of town he grew up in, a family that fell apart, trouble with the police, being unable to read and write, no qualifications, and dyslexia added last as the final weight. He invokes statistics without giving a single number, because the point is not the figures but the prediction they make about a person. The sentence before pairs prisons with architects, the two futures the article keeps in view, and the next sentence answers the prediction: staying out of prison, he says, is about conquering your fears and finding your path.
“I’m not stupid – you’re the one who’s stupid.”
Zephaniah, line 47 (page 13)
The word the teachers used on him is turned round and handed back. The context matters: he imagines someone who reads and writes easily telling him that black people are “savages”, so the reversal links literacy and racism, and shows that being able to read is no protection against ignorance. The mirrored structure gives the retort the neatness of a punchline, and he follows it with one of the plainest sentences in the article, “I just had self-belief”.
“Do I need an operation?”
Zephaniah, on being told he is dyslexic, line 52 (page 13)
At 21, told he is dyslexic, he asks whether he needs surgery, as if the word named an illness. Retold by the adult writer, the question is comic, and the humour is at his own expense, but it makes a serious point: the word seems never to have been explained to him, so the label arrived sounding like a disease. The teacher’s explanation, and his relief that there is a reason, show how much a diagnosis given with understanding can change.
“If someone can’t understand dyslexia it’s their problem.”
Zephaniah, line 70 (page 13)
The article’s argument in one sentence: the burden of adjusting moves from the dyslexic person to everyone else. He makes the comparison with racism at once, saying that when someone oppresses him because of his race he does not sit down and think “How can I become white?” The parallel is bold. It treats dyslexia like race, as part of who a person is rather than a fault to be fixed, and it places the problem with whoever cannot accept it.
“Dyslexia is not a measure of intelligence”
Zephaniah, addressing parents, line 80 (page 13)
One of the most formal sentences in a chatty article, flat and declarative, like a fact from a leaflet. After nearly eighty lines of evidence from his own life he states the conclusion as a general truth, and addresses it to parents, the adults who might otherwise repeat what his teachers did. It reads as a direct answer to the football teacher, and it is followed at once by the bolder claim that a parent may be raising a genius.
“Us dyslexic people, we’ve got it going on”
Zephaniah, speaking to children, line 85 (page 13)
The words that give the article its title, and they are informal: nonstandard “Us” where formal grammar wants “We”, and an idiom that means, roughly, to have real appeal and an air of success. Putting this in the mouth of a professor is deliberate. It speaks to young readers in their own register, and it shows the confidence he is recommending, since he does not tidy his grammar for anyone.
“Bloody non-dyslexics … who do they think they are?”
Zephaniah, speaking to children, lines 87-88 (page 13), the last words of the article
A joke, a mild swear word and a rhetorical question, and together they flip the whole hierarchy: now the non-dyslexic majority are the odd ones out, spoken of the way his teachers spoke of him. It is not a serious insult, and a strong answer says so. The humour lets him end on pride rather than pity, and the ellipsis marks the pause of a performer timing a punchline.