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From: Jaan Pill
Date: 10/8/01
Time: 2:12:49 PM
Remote Name: 134.29.30.79
Question No. 1 -- Joseph Lukong asked:
As a teacher who stutter, how do you succeed in your job of teaching? I had always had the feeling that stutterers should not go in for jobs that involve alot of talking like yours.
Answer from Jaan Pill:
I know quite a few stutterers who teach –- in elementary school, high school, and university. Many but not all have good control over their stuttering, so that speaking is not a big struggle for them.
A number of the leading speech professionals in North America, who have made significant contributions to the field of stuttering treatment, are themselves people who stutter. Many of these professionals are involved with teaching, at the university level.
Also, a number of stutterers who are active in the worldwide self-help movement (as volunteers) work as teachers (in their day jobs).
I am able to work as a teacher, and achieve success at it, because I have learned fluency skills that enable me to speak quite smoothly. I like to say that I learned fluency as a second language. I learned these skills 14 years ago, in 1987, at a three-week clinic at the Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research, in Edmonton, Canada http://www.ualberta.ca/~istar/. Before 1987, I was not able to do any public speaking. Since then, I have made large numbers of well-received presentations, and have often appeared in TV, radio, and newspaper interviews.
I would add that being a fluent speaker is just one aspect of being a successful teacher. I would also add that learning fluency skills is one way (but not the only way) to deal with stuttering.
As well, along with knowing fluency skills, I'm also open about the fact that I'm a person who stutters. That makes my life much easier, because I'm not trying to hide anything.
Also, the therapy that worked well for me will not necessarily work well for everybody else.
When I was a child, and as a teenager, I stuttered very severely, to the extent that sometimes I could not get out any words at all. That was very frustrating, because there were many things I would have wanted to say. At that age, I would never have imagined that one day I would be working as a teacher.
I had been teaching even before I went to Edmonton, after attending still another therapy program in Toronto, 25 years ago. That program had helped, but I still could not do any public speaking. I had been working as a teacher of developmentally handicapped children, in small classes. The students didn’t care or notice if I stuttered or not. But at staff meetings I generally didn’t speak at all.
Some years after getting help in Edmonton in 1987, I became a teacher in a regular school. I’ve now been working for many years with children. I enjoy teaching, and I now also have more time to devote to my work as a teacher, because I have largely retired from my volunteer work on behalf of people who stutter. The one area where I'm still active, as a volunteer, is in the area of public education.
In speaking (often by email, and also at meetings of the Stuttering Association of Toronto) with other stutterers who are teachers, I have found that, depending or her or his level of control over stuttering, such a teacher has particular challenges to face. It’s very useful for teachers who stutter to have the opportunity to compare notes with each other, and learn from each other’s experiences.