>>Speaker: Okay, now you can tell your story. Just say your name and tell your story.

>>Rhonda: Do you need my school (0:09.0)?

>>Speaker: Yeah, you can say that if you would like.

>>Rhonda: Well I just want to say that when I first sat down I...

>>Speaker: Oh we need you to say your name.

>>Rhonda: Oh, we'll start over.  This is take two.  This is Rhonda Schlatter, and I was sitting outside the registration in the empty chair that I found, just to wrest my feet.  When I found out that I was the storytelling booth.  Serendipity, huh? I feel like Rosa Parks because she sat in the bus and she didn't want to get up and because are featured.  And, I'm not trying to rebel and she wasn't trying to rebel either.  The first question that I was asked by the presenters was "Do I have a story about literacy?" Is that correct? Then I was asked who taught me how to read and write.  And I thought about it, and it's not what at a teachers convention you would expect me to say.  Because you're expecting that somebody with a teaching certificate is college educated. (Pause). And that's not it, it was my brother. (Crying)

>>Speaker: Oh dear.

>>Rhonda: He's dyslexic and a high school dropout, and he's why I teach.

>>Speaker: What's his name?

>>Rhonda: Jeff.

>>Speaker: And how old is he now, is he still living?

>>Rhonda: I don't know.  He's 46 years old, I'm 41.  He moved to Hawaii and that's the last that I heard from him.  You know, completely struck relatives.

>>Speaker: Tell us about him

>>Rhonda: When I don't like that they called the retard.  Or the retarded classes, or the remedial classes.  And that's where he got placed, because they noticed in the first grade that he was starting to write letters in reverse or backwards.  And you really can't cure dyslexia, you'll always have it.  And its severe dyslexia.  And he was lucky enough to have a first grade teacher that told him that dyslexia was associated with genius level intellect.  And then it's a matter of processing information differently than most people do.  And his teacher suggested that he read to somebody who would not be critical.  So, my mom gave birth to me and I was a newborn infant.  And I have no memory of this, but I always knew how to read and write, because I was read to from infancy on.  I've always known how to read and write, before I started kindergarten I could spell my name and write sentences.  I was reading a college level by the time I was 10 years old.

>>Speaker: And this is because your brother...

>>Rhonda: My older siblings and especially my brother, there was no great appropriate reading in our home.  Read whatever books we could find, so I didn't know what college level was, my family didn't know either. When I got tested at ten years old, I could read and write at college level.  So what does that say about our school systems if a 10 year old kid can read at the college level?

>>Speaker: what does that say about your brother?

>>Rhonda: Placement isn't everything, and you don't have to be educated to be educated.  I'm probably shocking a few of the people, and I know that whenever I say things like this you can hear the pin drop if you're in front of college educated people because they don't want to hear that. So I am Rosa Parks.

>>Speaker: Maybe you are, that's perfect.