Faking It: A Look Into the Mind of a Creative Learner

Faking It is Chris Lee's story of almost two decades of academic frustration, matched by remarkable persistence, resilience, and ingenuity. It is a moving account of how people with his problems can be helped to overcome them. The story Chris tells of what happened to him when he wound up in the University of Georgia Learning Disabilities Adult Clinic, where he met Rosemary Jackson, is both a moving account of how people with his problems can be helped to overcome them and, at the same time, a powerful indictment of the system--and it is nationwide--that leaves people like Chris feeling incompetent and stupid.

Chris was considered 'disabled' because he could not see or hear letters correctly; his processing of written language interfered with his ability to use both written and spoken English, and for this reason the system labeled him handicapped. He labeled himself as stupid. Fearing every encounter with the English language, he devised his methods of faking his way through school sufficiently well to be admitted to the University of Georgia. There he found his faking wouldn't work--he had to recognize and deal with his problem. But he also found support and encouragement from people who not only understood his problem, they understood him. After five years of intensive work with Rosemary Jackson at the Clinic, he graduated from the University. He lost the need to fake it, And he wrote this book.

Rosemary Jackson, Ed.D., is a teacher educator in the Department of Special Education and Administration at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. She serves as a mentor leader for undergraduate students majoring in special education and also teaches graduate classes in learning disabilities.

In 1992, he published Faking It: A Look into the Mind of a Creative Learner, and in 2001, What About Me? Strategies for Teaching Misunderstood Learners (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, Boynton and Cook). These books draw on Christopher's developmental experiences and his challenges attending the University of Georgia (UGA) in order to help teachers and parents optimize learning disabled students' performance. Christopher has published a one of a kind on-line guide, Learning Disabilities and Technology, an Emerging Way to Touch the Future. He has published articles, chapters and several journals, and has been selected to chair many collaborative projects that relate to disability issues. In 2003, Christopher was highlighted in a Microsoft video and publication, Microsoft Accessible Technology for Everyone (http://www.microsoft.com/enable/casestudy/videos.aspx). That year he was awarded the W.F. Faulkes Award by The National Rehabilitation Association for his contributions to the increase of knowledge in the fields of rehabilitation. He graduated from UGA with a major in Speech Communication in June 1990. He served as Director of Georgia's Assistive Technology Project: Tools for Life, a project operated under the aegis of the Department of Labor, Division of Rehabilitation Services/Vocational Rehabilitation. Christopher is working on national systems change with the Georgia Department of Labor, Department of Education, Department of Technical and Adult Education, Division of Rehabilitation Services and technology assistance projects throughout the country. Christopher has served as Executive Director of the Learning Disabilities Association of Georgia and President to both this organization and the Atlanta chapter of the Learning Disabilities Adults of Georgia. Currently he serves as Director of the Alternative Media Access Center house at the University of Georgia, Department of Psychology.