HUNTINGTON BEACH : Teacher’s Vision of Old School

When Angela Rodecker returned to her old school, it was not for a reunion but to give something back.

Rodecker, 26, who was born blind but now has partial vision, returned this spring to Golden View elementary school to teach students with learning disabilities.

“It really became apparent to me that special education was for me,” Rodecker said. “I found out that this is where I belong.”

She was born with ocular albinism, in which a lack of pigment in the retina causes blindness. Rodecker said she also has congenital nystagmus, which is involuntary muscle movement of the eyes.

Rodecker said that she was born without the nerve endings in the eye that receive light and color but that over time, some of the nerve endings unexpectedly began to develop, giving her partial sight. “I don’t have enough [nerve endings] so it makes my overall vision fuzzy,” she said.

Some vision began to develop before she was a year old, she said, but her ability to see didn’t really begin to improve until she was about 10. She remembers the event: She was standing near a tree and she realized that she could see its leaves. Since then her vision has improved slowly.

She began volunteering at Golden View in October to get to know the students and her master teacher, Merry Stewart, who leads a special day class at the school.

In February, she began student teaching and was assigned to a class of nine students who range in grades from kindergarten through third.

“When one of my students began to read for the first time, it was so exhilarating,” Rodecker said. “Seeing them succeed is what’s rewarding to me.”

Returning to her home school--she still lives around the block--was her first choice because of the positive experience she had there as a child, she said.

“I have such good memories of this school. It was a logical place to come,” she said.

Rodecker graduated from Chapman University in 1992 with a music major and earned a teaching credential two years later. She was then accepted into a scholarship program at Cal State Fullerton for special-education teachers. She also plans to earn a credential to teach visually impaired students.

An accomplished swimmer and former honor student, she also has an operatic voice.

Rodecker, who is looking for a permanent teaching job, said she hopes to be a role model.

“Kids with disabilities tend to limit themselves with ‘Oh, I can’t do that.’ They stop themselves from accomplishing. That’s where they need a little help, and that’s where I come in,” she said.

“Since I’ve been where they are, and I know what they’re facing, I think I can be a very good teacher.”