Teacher Who Couldn't Read is Now An Advocate for Literacy
by Ozzie Roberts
San Diego Union-Tribune - June 4, 1998
For John Corcoran,
covering up the sickening reality that he couldn't read or write
was long a matter of survival.
And soon after he lost the innocence of a child, he became "cold-blooded" about keeping his secret. Like a man with an addiction, he lost
track of his soul, lying, cheating and using people, all to hide
his illiteracy.
And he became a master deceiver - so well-practiced that while still
a functional illiterate, he became a college graduate, a popular
high school teacher and a land developer who made millions in the
real estate market.
Yet John Corcoran never felt alive until, at 48, he found himself
in a Carlsbad library, phonetically sounding out words and telling
himself, "I can read."
"I laughed and I cried," the Oceanside resident recalls
with tear-filled eyes nearly a dozen years later. "I never
knew before that a writer could put thoughts on paper and I could
lift them off and experience them.
"It was like a whole new world opened up to me - it was like
I was a kid again - I still feel that way."
But at 60, in semiretirement, this "kid" sits on the volunteer
board of the San Diego Council on Literacy. For eight years, he
has been a kind of ambassador, speaking at lectures and conferences,
spreading near and far the word about the need to improve literacy
in San Diego and throughout the nation.
Corcoran strongly advocates the philosophy that the best way to
prevent adult illiteracy is to teach more youngsters to read.
And, he says the best way to create more new readers is to properly
train more teachers, such as the volunteer tutors who work with
the council's literacy programs throughout the county.
The literacy council estimates that 43 million adult Americans,
including more than 422,000 in the county are functionally illiterate.
"Illiteracy in this country is an epidemic," he says.
Corcoran paused recently to put in a plug for the Union- Tribune
Dr. Seuss Race for Literacy to be staged Saturday and Sunday. The
annual fund-raising event, intended to increase public awareness
about literacy, includes the Kids' Magic Mile, which starts Saturday
at 8 am at Children's Museum and ends at Pantoja Park.
The international adult 8K race, which courses over part of Route
163, begins Sunday at 7:15 am on Pan American Road in Balboa Park.
It finishes at State and G streets near Pantoja Park.
Corcoran, who tells of his experiences in his book, "The
Teacher Who Couldn't Read," taught high school in Carlsbad
and Oceanside, mostly, in social studies and business, for 15 years
between 1961 and 1978.
As a developer, he built numerous housing developments in the Oceanside
area in the '80s.
He says until he finally grew weary of living a lie and decided
to enroll in a reading program at the Carlsbad Library Adult Learning
Center, he did what he thought it took to get by.
Corcoran never forgets some of the desperate measures he employed,
not only at work, but through-out his educational career, from elementary
school throughout college.
For example, while attending what is now the University of Texas
at El Paso (UTEP), he'd often pass an exam booklet through an open
window to a cohort who'd complete the test and return it to him
before the exam period's end. Once, like a second-story cat burglar,
Corcoran scaled a campus building, jimmied a window and stole copies
of some future tests from a professor's office.
After college, he says, he became a teacher during a national shortage
of educators.
In that role in Oceanside and Carlsbad, he relied heavily upon oral
skills that he worked hard to develop throughout his life. "I
was a good learner and I taught the kids the way I learned - orally," Corcoran says.
But eventually, he left the profession, he says, soon after inner
turmoil over moral issues seemed to trigger a physical illness that
temporarily prevented him from taking an advanced training exam
for teachers.
"Teaching had always been my passion," he says," and I could never square cheating as a teacher."
Recalling that, Corcoran emphasizes that literacy workers know there
are countless others in all walks who struggle, as he did, to hide
their inability to read and write. And he calls functional illiterates "native aliens" because, he says, they represent a large
subculture cut off from the mainstream, literate culture.
Corcoran sees parallels between literacy programs and 12-step recovery programs. In many ways, he says, those learning to read and write
are like reformed alcoholics. But instead of putting down the bottle,
we're picking up the book."
