A recent and captivating BBC podcast, both heartbreaking and hopeful, tells the story of John Corcoran, a teacher who secretly suffered from illiteracy but managed to hide it from everyone. In the interview, he talks about his childhood and adolescence in the 1940s and ’50s, explaining in detail how he managed to fool everyone and hide the fact that he couldn’t read or write. By the time Corcoran was in third grade, frustration led to acting out, and he got into trouble at school until he figured out how to use his math skills, sports abilities, and charisma to keep his secret hidden. Corcoran did “whatever it took to never get caught” and eventually went to college and became a high school teacher for 17 years. Hard to believe! Later on in life, when he fell in love and got married, he decided to be truthful with his wife. For the very first time, he shared the secret he had been shamefully holding onto since elementary school.
How did he eventually escape the demoralizing experience of illiteracy? The turning point came when his daughter asked him to read her the book “Rumpelstiltskin,” and as much as he desperately wanted to, he couldn’t. This devastated Corcoran, and he decided to give literacy another try. He learned about adult literacy classes and worked with a volunteer coach from the library. “For 48 years I was in the dark. I finally got the monkey off my back and I finally buried the ghost of my past.”
