Carlsbad Library - He now knows the ABCs of life - Teacher/businessman overcomes his illiteracy

He now knows the ABCs of life
Teacher/businessman overcomes his illiteracy
Evening Tribune: May 18, 1990 by Tom Cushman

SINCE being profiled in the sports pages of a newspaper presumes some affiliation with athletics, this much can be said for John Corcoran. A scholarship basketball player at Texas Western (now UTEP) in the late '50s, John is remembered on that campus both for on-court achievement and the fact that his roommate was Charlie Brown, the first black ever to dribble for a major university in the South.

That John is remembered for his academic record is unlikely. He did leave El Paso with a degree -- no stock accomplishment for varsity athletes, then or now.

The remainder of John Corcoran's classroom data is standard for any successful educator. There are elementary and high school diplomas plus graduate work, most of the latter having been done at San Diego State.

Once certified, Corcoran would teach in high schools of the Carlsbad-Oceanside community for 18 years. Concurrent with that service was a gradual move into real estate acquisition and development; this eventually would mushroom into a permanent occupation. At present, Corcoran's company (Brebon) is completing construction of Fire Mountain Estates, an arrangement of $300,000-plus homes in Oceanside's southern corridor.

There was one departure from the norm. While doing all of the above, John Corcoran could neither read nor write. John was what is known as a functional illiterate.

The Corcoran story is offered as a companion to Sunday's Trib 10, which is about running and walking and festivaling, but -- in a less carefree sense -- is a vehicle intended to increase public awareness of a lingering national disgrace.

Some 42 years after entering our public school system, John Corcoran -- through the resources of an Adult Literacy Program at the Carlsbad Library -- finally learned to read.

One of the first things he learned from reading was that his dilemma was not unique. Illiteracy is a trap in which 20 percent of the U.S. population is snared. "Every spring, a million youngsters graduate from high school with reading skills that are eighth grade or below," Corcoran was saying on a recent afternoon.

John was one of the "belows." He estimates that his reading level during college was that of a second grader.

Level of intellect was not the problem. To accomplish what John Corcoran has obviously requires a superior mind.

Aptitude for reading did not suddenly arrive in the middle of the night.

Like so many others, John Corcoran was victimized by physical malfunctions and a system that tends to tolerate only the normal.

That he didn't begin talking until age 3 should have been a signal. There was an auditory difficulty (John can't hear certain letters). There is some dyslexia. None of this had been diagnosed, however, when John took a seat in the first grade.

"Back then, a child who picked up a fork with his left hand might have that arm tied behind him to force use of the right," Corcoran says. "Mind-set was that rigid.

"People like myself are not going to learn the traditional way. We're capable of the same things, but we're wired differently."

When John had early difficulty with certain reading fundamentals, he was placed in what he refers to as "the dumb row," there to remain throughout his elementary schooling.

"I didn't feel dumb," he says, "but over a period of time the system persuaded me that my brain couldn't be taught to read. This can be devastating to a person's self-esteem.

"We learn by being honest about what we don't know. When it's suggested up front that you're dumb, honesty is discouraged."

By the time he reached junior high, John Corcoran had decided his only choice was to live with illiteracy and disguise it as best he could. His degree of success is in itself an indictment of the educational process that abused him.

"I couldn't learn our word system," he says, "but the school system was easy to figure. It's a wide-open barn door. If you insist on attending, you'll graduate. "How? When you're dealing with a stacked deck, what you do is mark some cards."

While in high school, John dated the valedictorian. Another girlfriend was a whiz in accounting. From both, plus other classmates, John mined information. No one even suspected the reason. By the time he entered college, John had developed math skills. Symbols, he could read.

Since his only means of communication was oral, he did well in classes where the verbal was emphasized. He scheduled more courses than needed; those with testing procedures that emphasized reading and writing he then dropped.

After speaking recently at a literacy fund-raiser in Baton Rouge, La., John was approached by a college professor who huffed, "You'd never have gotten through one of my classes."

Said John: "I'd never have taken one."

When necessary, John cheated. "Whatever it took," he now says. "By my junior year at Western, I knew I would get my degree.

"Graduate school actually was easier. There is less structure."

By most accounts, John became an above-average high school teacher. He limited his course range, concentrating on those in which verbal communication would suffice. Any necessary reading or secretarial work was assigned to students.

"Many of the things a good teacher should do, I was forced to do. I always was early for my classes, always was willing to spend extra time with the kids. That way I could pick their brains.

"We taught each other."

John Corcoran had been gone from the classroom for several years when he finally made public his illiteracy. He was by then a success in the field of residential development; still, a sense of inadequacy was his daily companion.

"Literate society has no idea what the inability to read and write is like," he was saying the other day. "You're running on fumes all the time."

Entering the Carlsbad Library program at age 48, John was tutored by a retired lady named Eleanor, age 65. "She wasn't an educator by trade," John says, "but she became the second-grade teacher I never had.

"For the first 30 days, I thought it was going to be the same disappointment all over again. Eleanor wouldn't give up, though, so neither did I. And, one day she pulled the switch. The dark room I'd been living in all those years suddenly was filled with light."

John Corcoran smiles. The sense of accomplishment runs deep, as well it should.

"It's hard work to teach people like me," he says. "The good news is that it can be done."