Can my Dyslexic dd become an English teacher?

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My daughter absolutely loves books.  She reads in super lightening speed.  She reads kids fiction, clean teen fiction, classics, Homer and a lot of very challenging books in her Worldview course.  She loves to discuss them, share them...she even volunteers at the library in her free time!  

She's thinking of becoming a math major because she also really does love math...but I think she's leaning more towards that not because she really loves it more than the idea of teaching English, but because of her dyslexia.

Truth be told, I don't know how someone who can't spell could write on the board all the time....BUT nowadays teachers hardly ever have to write on the board. Most of the time, they use their laptops and projectors.  So maybe I should encourage her to keep looking into that idea....

Any thoughts?  (PS she says she'd like to teach Middle School English, and maybe get involved in homeschool co-ops when she has kids to teach in non traditional classroom settings etc.)

[BlsdMama]

I think my answer would be - that really depends.

I think the literature part of it would be easy - pre-prepared lectures, powerpoints, handouts, etc.  It would be more about facilitating the discussions.
However, there is a part of middle school and high school English that requires teaching sentence structure, grammar, etc.   I have seen in some students that prosody is so greatly affected that it affects their ability to figure out how to properly punctuate.  For example, I have a son who struggles significantly to understand where in the world to use basic punctuation.  Now - can it be taught?  Yes to a great degree but it is very much a challenge.  

I would say that if she can write with proper punctuation now, spelling aside, then yes, she could teach English.  Honestly, I think it would be incredibly encouraging for 20% of that class.

[Lanny]

I once worked with a  young Electronic Engineer who had Dyslexia.  He did have some issues. If he was able to become an Electronic Engineer and work in that field on Avionics for a commercial Turbojet aircraft, which is what we are doing, I think your DD can do whatever she wants to do. Good luck to her!

[8filltheheart]

I would say BlsdMama's pt about grading papers (especially picking up spelling s mistakes) would be the biggest hurdle.  My dyslexics have been very successful and have not been negaimpacted by their dyslexia **but** they learned coping strategies which include having all important written work proofread for spelling by an outside source.

if she interested in teaching, would she be at all interested in becoming a reading specialist? I think a reading specialist who could relate to reading issues would be a huge blessing to children. 

[Pingo]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Avi and Diana Wynn Jones are two prolific writers who are dyslexic. Yes, they're not English teachers but obviously they deal very much with the written word. Somehow they got around that hurdle. Guess what I'm saying is it's probably not an insurmountable problem. Depends on how much she wants to teach English.

[elegantlion]

One of our history professors is dyslexic. He knows several languages, write academic journal articles, and unless you notice, he doesn't mention his dyslexia much. He presents information on slides, prepares a lot beforehand, and will have someone proofread anything he has to do quickly - like if he's writing a letter. 

He routinely grades papers of 10 pages or more and provides some of the best/most feedback in the department. He's very driven and admits he doesn't read much for pleasure. 

He would probably say his dyslexia is a stumbling block not a road block. 

 

[...................]

These are all great points!  Thanks a lot.

Her written grammar is ok.  She uses grammarly for a little extra help and it doesn't catch a metric ton of problems.  She can teach basic grammar, although she would not fit in at a Classical School where they're diagramming long sentences.  However plenty of private and public schools nowadays don't stress formal grammar with diagramming.  So, she'd have to search out the school that would be right for her.  

BUT grading papers would be difficult...I don't know how someone with dyslexia would catch other people's spelling mistakes.  Maybe she could teach high school instead of middle school and require the students to use spellcheck, and just not take off points for spelling mistakes?  Good question....

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4 hours ago, Lanny said:

I once worked with a  young Electronic Engineer who had Dyslexia.  He did have some issues. If he was able to become an Electronic Engineer and work in that field on Avionics for a commercial Turbojet aircraft, which is what we are doing, I think your DD can do whatever she wants to do. Good luck to her!

Lanny, my husband was a Network Engineer (Cisco) and then a Computer programmer for Yahoo and then a manager at Google and his dyslexia is worse than my dd.  And yes, from the start he used a myriad of coping mechanisms mainly avoiding white board work (his colleagues back then were good friends and knew his issue and would stand up and do the white board right away when they needed to work together on a white board), to little pocket spellcheckers and now everything is computer or ipad anyway.  

I'm just not sure how much of these coping tools can be used on-the-fly, in a classroom full of (sometimes immature) kids, ....

 

[Lori D.]

3 hours ago, Calming Tea said:

...Maybe she could teach high school instead of middle school and require the students to use spellcheck, and just not take off points for spelling mistakes?  ...

Kind of laughing here, but not really. IF ONLY the occasional typo or spelling mistake was the only thing wrong with my high school students' writing. ;) About 20% of my homeschool co-op students have extreme difficulties and LDs in writing -- not only spelling, but can't even see all of the lack of capitalization and punctuation, the run-ons and sentence fragments, and the subject/verb agreement problems. And I'd say 30-40% of all my homeschool high school students struggle with what makes a complete paragraph and how to structure a paper. And these are homeschool students who *want* to be in the class and who are really trying hard, and who have parents who are very involved in their education. 

 

I totally agree with previous posters about the ability to overcome dyslexia in order to do a job you love.

However, I see the real issue to discuss is that the reality of teaching English is very different from having a deep love of literature, and loving to discuss / analyze / share great books.

So much of being an English teacher is about activities other than reading or discussing books that it's really important to think through how much DD would like/dislike those other activities, since that will be the bulk of what the job would be about. Also, it's important to have a realistic understanding of the students that DD would be dealing with. The majority are not going to have the same sort of love of reading and interest in discussing books that DD has. The students (even in private high schools) are there because they *have* to be, and are focused on how they can most easily get you to give them an "A" for showing up. They are going to be watching the movie version and reading the Sparknotes summaries to do as little as possible.

A friend of mine has been an English teacher for 38 years, with 33 of those years in the public high school, and the last 5 at an expensive/quality Christian highs school, and the above is his typical experience, even at the quality Christian high school school. He counts himself lucky if he has 3-4 students per year who are genuinely interested in the books and discussions, and who are really taking off with literature. His experience with both the public and private high schools is that the average reading level had dropped so low (in some cases to elementary grade levels as the AVERAGE for a whole class of students), that students not only cannot read the literature, but are unable to remember what happened earlier in the story -- sometimes even just a few pages earlier. Their brains have not developed the ability to hold past and present events side by side in order to compare, analyze, or predict. Which means not only can't the students read the books, they also can't discuss the books, even if you spoon-feed them summaries of what's happening in the book.

 

As I recall, your DD is an extrovert, and enjoys working at church with younger children? What about teaching pre-K or kindergarten? The reading there would be the fun read-aloud of picture books to the class, and sharing lovely books with young children before they are cynical or look at school and reading as a "necessary evil". And, she'd get to do lots of arts and crafts and theatrical things with the children. Or... While it's a tough field to get into, if DD would enjoy getting paid for reading books, what about becoming a "first reader" for a publisher (also called a "publisher reader") -- these people read manuscripts coming into a publisher and evaluate whether it would be publishable or not. Of course, the downside is that these are rough manuscripts, not classics. ;)

One thing that stood out to me years ago when I did some career testing was that you don't have to make one of your beloved activities into your paying job. In fact, sometimes that's can really "kill" the love of that activity. Instead, sometimes it's better to keep a beloved activity as a hobby, or personal activity, or as a volunteer activity, so it's all about doing what you love, without all of the things you don't like having to be attached to it (like with a job) and "dragging down" the enjoyment of the beloved activity.

So perhaps your DD might enjoy getting into something else -- a high growth/higher paying job such as Occupational Therapist (or OT Assistant -- 2 year Associate's degree!). And then on her own time, get involved in an adult book club, or volunteer and oversee a middle school or high school book club -- a great way of totally "filling her cup" of love of reading/discussing books with like-minded people, with none of the disliked aspects and disappointments that an English teacher job might have for her. 

Not at ALL trying to dissuade your DD from becoming an English teacher, if there are multiple aspects of the job that she would enjoy! Just sharing some additional things to think about. BEST of luck as you and DD continue to look into what English teachers do, and other career explorations. :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

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Lori, I really cannot thank you enough for all of your thoughts!!! I will be sending them to my daughter as we consider ideas!

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I haven't asked my dd yet, so not going to jump to conclusions, but I checked all of the colleges around here and none not even the expensive medical college has any Occupational Therapy Assistant or PT Assistant.  I should call our PT office and ask where they get their assistants!  :)  I should ask my dd about Dental Assisting...I don't think she will like the idea though...

Anyway, it's great to keep having some things to explore and good thoughts to go along with them.

[...................]

Yeah I forgot she had a very traumatic dental experience a while ago, so that's out :)

But I read her your post Lori, and she was very thankful for the thoughts and ideas.  I think she's leaning towards English teacher :)  ...but now with the knowledge that most students won't really enjoy it and it'll often be a job in the true sense of the word :)

[MerryAtHope]

My dad had dyslexia and taught college level literature classes. And do high schools no longer have separate literature and composition courses? I went to a larger high school (about 2000 students) and the literature teachers were never the same as the "Freshman English" or "Composition" teachers. Specializing may be possible if some aspects are not her forte. If the love is there, she can probably get her skills to where she needs them though!

3 hours ago, Lori D. said:

One thing that stood out to me years ago when I did some career testing was that you don't have to make one of your beloved activities into your paying job. In fact, sometimes that's can really "kill" the love of that activity. Instead, sometimes it's better to keep a beloved activity as a hobby, or personal activity, or as a volunteer activity, so it's all about doing what you love, without all of the things you don't like having to be attached to it (like with a job) and "dragging down" the enjoyment of the beloved activity.

 

OT, but Lori, my son came across this same advice somewhere and took it to heart so much that he won't pursue anything he really enjoys for career possibilities, LOL! Which leaves him with the opposite issue of thinking he'll never enjoy any job!

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, Calming Tea said:

I haven't asked my dd yet, so not going to jump to conclusions, but I checked all of the colleges around here and none not even the expensive medical college has any Occupational Therapy Assistant or PT Assistant.  I should call our PT office and ask where they get their assistants!  :)  I should ask my dd about Dental Assisting...I don't think she will like the idea though...

Anyway, it's great to keep having some things to explore and good thoughts to go along with them.

My oldest dd loves being an OTA. It is a great paying career.

Here is the only source of info I would use. They are the ones certifying OTAs. https://www.aota.org/Education-Careers/Find-School/AccreditEntryLevel/OTAPrograms.aspx

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Calming Tea said:

I haven't asked my dd yet, so not going to jump to conclusions, but I checked all of the colleges around here and none not even the expensive medical college has any Occupational Therapy Assistant or PT Assistant.  I should call our PT office and ask where they get their assistants!  :)  I should ask my dd about Dental Assisting...I don't think she will like the idea though...

Oh, goodness, I was just tossing that out as a random idea... Don't feel you need to actually explore it unless it's something your DD really might be interested in. :)

1 hour ago, Calming Tea said:

...But I read her your post Lori, and she was very thankful for the thoughts and ideas.  I think she's leaning towards English teacher :)  ...but now with the knowledge that most students won't really enjoy it and it'll often be a job in the true sense of the word :)

The nice thing is that she has lots of time ahead of her to explore all through the rest of high school. No need to feel "locked in" with one career idea at this stage! (:D

[BlsdMama]

I love reading the encouraging posts.  What it really boils down to is your child.  I have a mildly dyslexic child, a moderately dyslexic child with an incredibly strong working memory, and a severe/profound dyslexic.  (And a few more because, statistically/genetically, if one parent has dyslexia then 50% of the offspring as well.  Runs true at our house.)

Ironically, I suspect it's only the moderate that could be an English prof.  Look at her struggles.  Has she been remediated?  A good key would be to see how she scores on the Reading and Grammar parts of the ACT/SAT.  A lot of that is recognizing and correcting errors.  If that is a real struggle for her, then that's a real clue that it will probably continue.  If she can "see" the errors, then it's fine.  

As an aside to the PP who said that if a dyslexic can succeed as an engineer then why not an English teacher? (paraphrasing)   Actually engineering is right up the alley of a dyslexic - it plays to their gifts.  It is hypothesized that the majority of engineers actually are dyslexic and I absolutely believe it.

[lewelma]

I didn't read until I was 12, and I tutor English.  I was never diagnosed, but clearly must have had some sort of dyslexia.  By the time I went to university, I still couldn't read a textbook or literature -- that came when I was  about 19 and a 2nd year university student. Grammar I learned through my foreign language studies. I had to fight all the way up through my PhD (Biology) to be able to read and comprehend, and integrate that input into my existing knowledge base so that I could then integrate it into my writing. This 15 year struggle required me to come up with methods that worked, and I trialed many.  And because of this explicit knowledge and metacognition, I can *teach* English very well.  It was my personal struggle, not my education degree, that taught me how to explain the basics and the sophisticated material to others. But I still can't spell. :-)

If your daughter wants to be an English teacher, I definitely don't think dyslexia is what will stand in her way.  In fact it might make her a better teacher.

Ruth in NZ  

[katilac]

19 hours ago, Calming Tea said:

I haven't asked my dd yet, so not going to jump to conclusions, but I checked all of the colleges around here and none not even the expensive medical college has any Occupational Therapy Assistant or PT Assistant.  

3

 

Did you check the community college as well? That's where it's taught around here. 

18 hours ago, MerryAtHope said:

 And do high schools no longer have separate literature and composition courses? 

 

 

I went to a large high school in the early 1980s; literature and composition were integrated into one course every year. You could take additional classes on specific types of literature, like Shakespeare or sci fi, but of course those would also have writing assignments. No composition courses. 

That's what I recall, but it may have been different for students not on the college prep track. 

[g1234]

My dyslexic dad spent his entire career as a university English professor, specializing in the “basic”/010 courses for students who weren’t ready for the entry-level 101 course. He loved these classes and always requested them (to his colleagues’ relief) even when he had the seniority to request more prestigious upper-level classes.  He was deeply beloved by his students who often wrote him later to say convincingly that he had radically changed their lives by giving them the written communication skills to succeed in whatever field they chose.  He kept getting nominated for a university excellence in teaching award but never received it because he didn’t care to jump through the hoops and get the required letters of praise etc, yet he got nominated year after year.  I say all this not to dad-brag but to say yes, it can absolutely be done.  In fact I’m certain he was a better teacher for having his own issue and being able to relate to the students’ challenges.  He couldn’t spell his way out of a paper bag, but that’s not what writing is, at least not what the vast majority of the writing process is.  That’s editing, and I’m sure she could find workarounds.  Writing is thinking, organizing, analyzing, using the page as an extension and distillation of your brain.  That’s way harder to teach students to do than teaching them how to get their spelling checked, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up being very good at that.  Best wishes to her, whatever she decides!

[MerryAtHope]

2 hours ago, katilac said:

I went to a large high school in the early 1980s; literature and composition were integrated into one course every year. You could take additional classes on specific types of literature, like Shakespeare or sci fi, but of course those would also have writing assignments. No composition courses. 

That's what I recall, but it may have been different for students not on the college prep track. 

 

I'm talking college prep courses. Our lit courses included writing assignments too, but there was more of a focus on the content and ideas, laying out a good "argument" for how elements were used in a work, understanding literary elements, the theme of various works, and so on. It's not that grammar and mechanics weren't marked wrong, but teachers in the lit-focused classes didn't mark every single mistake and focused more on other aspects. It was vastly different from courses that focused specifically on composition (or Freshman English, which for us spent a good portion of the year on grammar). And even one of my advanced writing courses spent more time focusing on style and voice than on mechanical errors. I think there's a variance in what English teachers focus on if they are in a school that allows them room to specialize (or that at least there was in my high school back in the dark ages, LOL!)

[Dmmetler]

She may also want to consider library science. Librarians get to lead book clubs and book discussions and need a prolific love of the written word, too.  One of my friends is a school librarian and also teaches English elective courses, and I think that would be a lot more fun than teaching Freshman English :).

[...................]

You know, she thought about being a librarian, either at a school or at a library. But, we've seen a very disturbing change in our libraries here.  NOw, they hire 13.00 per hour "clerks" who know the basics of the dewey decimal, the layout of the library and computer search.  That's it. We asked where the librarians are and they said they mostly work in the back office choosing books, training clerks, and they are rotated through the branches of multiple libraries. There is no research desk anymore :( No truly knowledgeable person on staff...the people doing the Children's Story Hours are mostly well trained volunteers, or the same "Clerks" that run the desks.  ...

idk...I think it's a dying profession, or at least a diminishing one. :(  

[Mom22ns]

As someone getting a master's degree in order to teach college English, I would say it is very possible for her to do this. Generally, she will get to choose what she emphasizes. The current trend in pedagogy says content over form. Depending on the school district, she might be able to have students turn in papers in electronic format where she can use a spell check to help her in grading, then she'd only have smaller assignments and tests that she would have to work through. I would expect grading to take longer for her, but she could do it. I would encourage her to lean toward high school where there is less emphasis on grammar and spelling and more focus on reading and writing.

[Lanny]

Follow-on: I also knew a man who wrote for a major Computer magazine. Apparently everyone who writes regularly for a magazine now is called an "Editor".  I think that your Dd can do this, but that there will be some issues.  He used a Spelling Checker and had an Editor who would go over what he wrote, but he wrote for that magazine for years.   Every month