A retired teacher who now spends his time campaigning for improved literacy has revealed that he taught classes for 17 years even though he could not read or write.
Despite his illiteracy, John Corcoran worked as a teacher then as a property developer until the age of 48, when he decided to seek help. He used oral and visual stimuli with his pupils, rather than words, and insists he was a very successful teacher.
"There wasn’t the written word in there. I always had two or three teacher’s assistants in each class to do board work or read the bulletin," he said in a television interview.
He began to hide his inability to read and write from the age of about 10, relying on classmates to help him cheat in lessons. "I can remember when I was eight years old saying my prayers at night saying, ‘Please, God, tomorrow when it’s my turn to read please let me read.’ You just pretend that you are invisible and when the teacher says, ‘Johnnie, read,’ you just wait the teacher out because you know the teacher has to go away at some point," he told 10 News in San Diego.
He continued undetected through high school and the University of Texas at El Paso, where he gained an athletics scholarship and was then automatically offered a teaching job. That is when he created an elaborate oral teaching method to avoid detection in the high school classes he taught – including English grammar.
"As a teacher it really made me sick to think that I was a teacher who couldn’t read. It is embarrassing for me, and it’s embarrassing for this nation."
He is now the president of the John Corcoran Foundation, which is dedicated to eradicating adult illiteracy.