Teaching a Lesson in Literacy, Character

Few things have the power to transform a life like honesty, especially after a lifetime of deceit. For John Corcoran, that moment came 12 years ago when he stood at the desk of the Carlsbad Public Library--a tall man in a business suit--and for the first time confessed to a stranger that he did not know how to read.

Almost at once, the strain of four decades of lying and pretending--through high school, college and, most unbelievably, through 17 years as a public school teacher--at last began to fall away.

The elation that followed has not yet faded. It was much in evidence Sunday when, preparing for a well-rehearsed speech, Corcoran began talking about a book he just read, “Angela’s Ashes,” by Frank McCourt.

Suddenly, the silver-haired 60-year-old could barely sit still. McCourt’s book, he said, made him realize “that a person could have the power to put down all that emotion.”

He leaned forward in his chair, gesturing, his eyes full of intensity. “It’s extraordinary,” he said, as if describing a vision. “It’s like being born with one leg, coping with it for 40 years, and waking up to find you have two.”

Corcoran, who learned to read at age 48 through the Carlsbad library’s adult literacy program, was in Los Angeles for the Reading by 9 conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center, one of few presenters without a PhD.

The conference, which drew 6,000 teachers, parents and principals, was sponsored by The Times as part of its campaign to teach children how to read by age 9.

Corcoran was by no means the biggest name there--a Sunday keynote speech was given by U.S. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley, who touted recent national test scores showing improved reading scores and praised community involvement in literacy campaigns, but said there is more work to be done.

Corcoran’s presentation reiterated the themes of the conference with a painfully personal twist.

His mission is part atonement--he wants to apologize for his double life as a teacher--but he also wants the education establishment to own up to its own deficiencies.

Don’t saddle children with the blame, he preaches. Accept that a large proportion of children don’t learn to read easily, and need individual attention.

He’s been at it now a decade or more, doing the talk show circuit. He has even written a book, with Carole C. Carlson, “The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read.” Exposing his life as an illiterate, once something he dreaded, is so routine now that his usual speech is full of stock phrases.

But the emotion he feels about reading still has a raw quality to it. In private, for example, he mentions that he is trying to read Plato’s “Republic,” then breaks off, looking uncomfortable.

It’s a telling moment: After hesitating, he admits he is having trouble--especially with the names. He seems not to know that many literate people haven’t ever read Plato, let alone worried over the pronunciation of Greek names.

Corcoran traces his illiteracy to childhood. Born in St. Louis, the son of an educated, military family, he fell behind in school.

He remembers being called on in class and standing silent as a stone, waiting as the seconds ticked by.

Eventually, he developed a stratagem to get him through: He hummed the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” to himself over and over until the teacher gave up. Later, he would simply misbehave, tipping over a desk when his name was called.

Secretly, though, he said he ached to read and prayed for a magic cure.

Not once was he held back a grade, he said. The reasons varied: The family moved frequently, and Corcoran excelled in everything but reading, making it easier for teachers to pass him on. Besides, few teachers wanted to deal with his outbursts two years in a row.

By his high school years, his methodology had changed. He behaved, played basketball, dated. But he had adopted a dual identity, he said, just like the double agents he saw on television. The reading world was against him. It was war. He became a cheater.

He was never caught, though he used every trick he could. When he graduated from Palo Verde High in Blythe, Calif., with a basketball scholarship to the University of Texas, El Paso, he knew college was really not for him. But he couldn’t say so. So he went, and cheated some more.

He majored in education--a subject he chose because, he said, he could skate through the classes easily. He went to work at Oceanside High School--actually teaching freshman English one year before switching to social studies.

It was the 1960s, and drills were out, free-flowing discussions were in. Corcoran was praised as a progressive.

Just one person knew his secret, his wife, Kathy. But she said she didn’t realize its extent, and his defensiveness discouraged further probing.

Corcoran eventually left teaching for real estate development, became a successful home builder, then fell on financial hard times. At the same time national awareness of adult illiteracy had grown.

Personal crisis and the public campaign finally took Corcoran to the Carlsbad library.

It took him weeks to tell his wife what he had done. He wanted a breakthrough first. It came when he learned that letters have sounds.

The changes in him have continued to this day, said Kathy Corcoran. “If you could hear him speak 10 years ago, you wouldn’t think it was the same person,” she said, adding, “and he’s a lot nicer now.”

Several dozen teachers showed up for his morning presentation at the Sunday conference, where Corcoran recounted his story and brought out a pair of reading glasses to read a poem from his book.

When time came for questions, several teachers made the same query in different forms: What were the techniques that finally got him to read? Corcoran’s general answers, though, seemed to leave some frustrated.

But not Jeanne Hartman, a teacher at Multnomah Street Elementary School in East L.A.

Corcoran made clear there are as many answers as there are children, she said. As a teacher, she added, “it’s up to me to figure this out.”