00:00What's up? I can't read. But that's all right. Because if you've been following along, you know we're on a journey to fix that.
00:05Meet Oliver James. At 33, he decided to overcome a long-standing fear and learn how to read.
00:11And he's sharing his journey on TikTok.
00:13Up to now, I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it.
00:19I done read this about five times already, and I'm still having trouble with it. But, hey, that's what it is.
00:26James, like 21 percent of U.S. adults, falls into the illiterate or functionally illiterate category,
00:32meaning he couldn't read well enough to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.
00:38I felt like I was only being able to go so far and I could see people with so many gifts and talents and doing things.
00:45And I'm like, I could do that. But then I would always find myself being scared because I couldn't read.
00:51You didn't learn in high school. You're done. You can't learn anymore. You didn't go to college. You're done.
00:55You're not going to get a good job. That's kind of how the world kind of showed me.
00:58But at 30, I was like, I can't keep doing this.
01:01And that's when I started to realize, like, if I don't start reading, I won't be able to function as a 60 year old.
01:06Where do you think I had to go? The library.
01:09So I'm reading the diary of Anne Frank. Right now, we're on page 30.
01:13Dearest Kitty, I've deserted you for an entire month, but so little has happened.
01:20In elementary school, James says he struggled with learning difficulties and was often excluded from normal classroom instruction.
01:26I was a kid who didn't know how to sit still, didn't know how to teach me.
01:30They kind of treated me like as if I could not cooperate like any other kid in the class.
01:36It was like, you got to go. And I remember I used to have to go straight to the principal's office.
01:40That was my schooling. I would walk straight into the principal's office and I would sit at a desk that would face a wall.
01:44And I was probably first or second grade around that.
01:46Eventually, he was placed in a special education class meant for children with behavioral problems.
01:52There, he says the focus shifted from early learning to strict discipline and forced with physical violence.
01:58It was really hard for me to, you know, think about school, reading, anything had to do with school.
02:03I couldn't understand it fully, but I knew it was different because everybody in this class was similar to me.
02:08They had these similar behaviors. The teaching went from talking to me and telling me, don't do that.
02:13Oliver, sit down. It went from that to slams and chokes. It was a normal school with a special class.
02:18I didn't know that. I knew it after they started putting hands on me.
02:21Then I knew I was like, this is different. They didn't do this at the last school when I didn't pay attention.
02:26In his early 20s, James ended up in prison.
02:29According to the Department of Justice, at least a quarter of incarcerated adults spend much of their schooling in special education.
02:35And I thought for a long time I believed myself when I went to prison.
02:38But I realized I was like my life was set up to go to prison.
02:41I got out of prison. I went back to doing the same things. I felt my life leading right back to going to prison.
02:46Like I was just like, ah, and I'm not a prisoner. I'm not a criminal. I didn't want to be that.
02:51I realized that my life will not change unless I go read.
02:56So at 34 years old, I'm reading books like The Given Tree.
02:59Though he had some of the foundations of reading, James lacked the skills to be able to do seemingly simple things like fill out forms or respond to messages.
03:07I used to get a lot of anxiety going out to eat because I didn't know how to read menus.
03:11I would just get familiar foods if I have to.
03:13I knew I had to always make these lies up my whole life.
03:18Everything I had to do had to be like a lie. I had to figure out how to get over so I can be right there with somebody.
03:24As long as I'm there, then everything would work out.
03:26So I did that with everything, everything that you can name in my life, like filling out forms, like anything I had to do.
03:33I would always have somebody that would, you know, take a liking to me that I'm like, they're willing to give it to me.
03:38I'm going to take it.
03:39Now, James is sharing his journey with his thousands of followers on TikTok.
03:44And I sat in my bed, I turned the camera on and I said, what's up?
03:48I can't read. I even felt like sweating when I was saying it.
03:51And then I posted it and then the response was immediate.
03:54The world told me I was stupid.
04:03You know, I was in school. The world told me I wasn't going to amount to nothing.
04:05The world told me that if you don't know how to read, you don't do this.
04:07If you don't, they told me everything against what I felt.
04:10I realized once I gave myself that power, I started to understand I got to live as who I wanted to be.
04:16We're reading Outsiders. I'm learning to read.
04:18And this is the second book. This book, this one right here.
04:21Oh, wait. This one, I understand it.
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