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Mercury News.com

Speaker tells of learning disabilities

By S.L. Wykes

Mercury News

Ivy League graduate Jonathan Mooney didn't learn to read until he was 12, dropped out of school twice, drank and did drugs. He still can't spell.

But there he stood at East Palo Alto High School on Monday, a symbol of triumph over the learning disabilities -- dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -- that frustrated his early school days, and the ``stupid'' and ``lazy'' labels others once gave him.

Mooney, who averages 75 to 100 speaking engagements each year to students, parents, teachers and academics, didn't pretty up his story for this high school audience. Students there face some of the same problems -- especially overcoming labels -- that Mooney did while growing up in Los Angeles.

What saved him was a handful of people and ideas. His mother repeatedly told him he had to fight for his education, and he thought of that when a university administrator laughed at him for wanting to study English literature.

With the help of books on tape, voice-recognition software and other alternative avenues to learning, he graduated from Brown University with honors in English literature. The university, he said, was obligated to make academic accommodations to enable him to overcome his limitations.

But his success came after years of pain, he said, and ``being a ghost of a kid.'' He thought of suicide, too.

Along the way, teachers would reach out to him. On Mooney's first day of third grade, his teacher walked up and asked, ``How are you doing?'' That teacher challenged him to answer one question before the end of the school year: What did he love to think about? ``What matters most in education,'' Mooney recounted his teacher saying, ``is finding that thing you are passionate about.''

Mooney learned to define himself by the things he was good at, and built his education around that, despite the learning disabilities he will always carry as obstacles. ``I spell at a third-grade level,'' he said, ``but I learned to ask for help.''

He got his point across Monday. ``You are inspiring,'' said senior Briseida Solis. ``A lot of what you went through is what I'm struggling with right now.''

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Mooney's visit was organized by Parents Education Network as part of a series of speakers on learning differences. For more information on that series, visit www.par entseducationnetwork.org. Mooney will speak at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday at the McClaren Building, University of San Francisco, and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Gateway High School in San Francisco. For details, visit the PEN Web site.