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I was a teacher for 17 years, but I couldnt read or write
From http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43700153
I was a teacher for 17 years, but I couldnt read or write
15 April 2018
John Corcoran grew up in New Mexico in the US during the 1940s and 50s. One of six siblings, he graduated from high school, went on to university, and became a teacher in the 1960s - a job he held for 17 years. But, as he explains here, he hid an extraordinary secret.
When I was a child I was told by my parents that I was a winner, and for the first six years of my life I believed what my parents had told me.
I was late in talking, but I went off to school with high hopes of learning to read like my sisters, and for the first year things were fine because there weren't many demands on us other than standing in the right line, sitting down, keeping our mouths shut and going to the bathroom on time.
And then in the second grade we were supposed to learn to read. But for me it was like opening a Chinese newspaper and looking at it - I didn't understand what those lines were, and as a child of six, seven, eight years old I didn't know how to articulate the problem.
...
15 April 2018
John Corcoran grew up in New Mexico in the US during the 1940s and 50s. One of six siblings, he graduated from high school, went on to university, and became a teacher in the 1960s - a job he held for 17 years. But, as he explains here, he hid an extraordinary secret.
When I was a child I was told by my parents that I was a winner, and for the first six years of my life I believed what my parents had told me.
I was late in talking, but I went off to school with high hopes of learning to read like my sisters, and for the first year things were fine because there weren't many demands on us other than standing in the right line, sitting down, keeping our mouths shut and going to the bathroom on time.
And then in the second grade we were supposed to learn to read. But for me it was like opening a Chinese newspaper and looking at it - I didn't understand what those lines were, and as a child of six, seven, eight years old I didn't know how to articulate the problem.
...
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I was a teacher for 17 years, but I couldnt read or write (Original Post)
sl8
Apr 2018
OP
i took the act or the non SAT. i am NOT a math person. i was just randomly guestimating my answers.
pansypoo53219
Apr 2018
#4
Freelancer
(2,107 posts)1. BULLSHIT!!!! -nt
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,856 posts)3. I find it beyond horrifying that he could cheat his way through
all of school. It's unfathomable to me that he was never caught.
Oh, and if he ever took the SAT or the ACT, which he ought to have needed to get into college, those exams are generally proctored well enough that he couldn't have cheated. Unless he simply hired someone to take those exams for him.
And I wonder what he did for exams for his students. All of them were oral exams? And how he managed to turn in the grades?
It feels as if there's a lot missing from this story.
dreamland
(964 posts)5. His wife helped him through
Many people hide their illiteracy well -look at dRump.
pansypoo53219
(20,976 posts)4. i took the act or the non SAT. i am NOT a math person. i was just randomly guestimating my answers.
ended up with a GOOD score. yeah. i was WTF. i was taken out of class for advanced su just as they were doing multication. downhill from there.