Local actor testifies at Congressional hearing on dyslexia

16th May 2016   ·   0 Comments

By Kari Dequine Harden
Contributing Writer

Reading is everything to Ameer Baraka. To him, the ability to read represents freedom, success, hope and the future.

However despite attending public school through the 12th grade in New Orleans, Baraka never learned to read and write past a third-grade level.

It wasn’t until Baraka went to prison that he really learned to read.

Today, he is an accomplished model, actor, producer and author. (And an avid reader, of course.)

Baraka also mentors kids, and last week, he travelled to Washington D.C. to address the U.S. Senate.

As a boy growing up in the Calliope projects, Baraka didn’t know that the reason he was made fun of and called “dumb” had a name – dyslexia.

That word, that learning disability, was the subject of Baraka’s testimony last Tuesday before the Senate.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy chaired the Education Committee hearing titled “Understanding Dyslexia: The Intersection of Scientific Research & Education.”

Cassidy and Baraka have built a friendship on dyslexia, as Cassidy’s daughter is also dyslexic, and Cassidy and his wife are deeply involved in improving educational opportunities for kids with dyslexia.

“Dyslexia is the most common learning disability,” Cassidy said in his introductory remarks at the hearing. “According to NIH-sponsored research, nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population has dyslexia. That means that 20 percent of those in this room, and 20 percent of those watching on TV are dyslexic. Dyslexia impacts all walks of life, including many members of Congress, our staff, our families, and hundreds of thousands of our constituents.”

While one in five people have dyslexia, Baraka knows all too well how easy it can be to miss. It’s prevalent in the country, yet overlooked, he said.

Cassidy said the purpose of the Senate hearing was to increase awareness of dyslexia and illustrate the importance of early identification and science-back interventions.

Baraka also knows firsthand the consequences of losing out on an education, and spending the first 20 years of his life barely able to read and write.

As a child, he didn’t know why spelling and phonics and vocabulary felt impossible. Math came easy, but that couldn’t carry him through. Today, Baraka understands his dyslexia left him without the ability to learn phonics or to “decode words.”

Back then, Baraka didn’t understand why his sister and brother excelled in school and he brought home failing grades. Sometimes he’d just sneak out and sleep in the hallways until the school day had ended. “I was tired of failing tests,” he said.

Baraka said the teasing from his siblings resulted in a lot of fighting at home, and in the classroom, he acted out, got angry, and clowned around.

“As I look back now, I can’t understand how teachers kept pushing me to the next grade,” Baraka told the senators.

But weren’t there any teachers who tried to help him? Baraka said there was one, in 9th grade, but by that point, it was too late. He was too far behind, his dyslexia still had not been identified, and a teacher with 20 students doesn’t have the time to spend additional hours on just one.

But it was back in the 6th grade, when Baraka was humiliated after being asked to read aloud in class, that he gave up on school. It was then he knew it wasn’t his path.

It was the first week of school, and there was a girl in his class he liked. “I couldn’t pronounce any of the words and the teacher made me continue, knowing I couldn’t read,” Baraka described at the hearing. “Some students laughed, while others looked in amazement.”

From that day forward, Baraka knew his path, his future, was the streets. He started working for drug dealers when he was 12. At first, he just held onto the drugs. But then he started to climb the ladder, and started selling.

And he found he was good at it. After his first mentor went to prison, another man took him under his wing.

Baraka admired him. He had money, cars, women, and respect.

And so that became his dream. “I prayed I’d become a big time drug dealer,” he recalled. “That was my way out.” Baraka remembers wanting to be a benevolent drug dealer – one who bought swing sets for the kids in the projects.

“The streets became my classroom and looking back, the lessons I learned were shameful,” Baraka told the senate committee. “I shot and killed a young person because the streets taught me that is how you resolve conflict. After my release from prison at 15 years of age for manslaughter, I got back into the drug game, still never learning to read. I ended up doing prison time as an adult.”

Baraka spent several years in California, running from the law and a 60-year prison sentence in Louisiana.

While there, Baraka met rap stars who he saw making money legally, and he signed up for his first acting classes. He learned, for the first time, the concept of setting goals, and he learned that acting was something else he was good at.

Still, he had to hide the fact that he could barely read and write. He’d ask his brother or his girlfriend to fill out applications. “I’d get around it,” but it was embarrassing. More than embarrassing – Baraka describes it as a constant “horror” he lived with.

Ultimately, Baraka got busted, but by a series of small miracles (money given by a stranger for a lawyer, a judge who had a family emergency, and woman on the jury who fought for him), he was sentenced to just five years, and ended up serving only four.

Baraka is certain God intervened in that courtroom. “I was guilty,” he said. But he witnessed God’s work, and God’s plan for him, and Baraka made a promise to never again sell drugs. He also promised God he would make something of his life, and use it to help others.

In prison, he found many other men who struggled with reading and writing. The guy who read at a 9th grade level was looked at as the smart one, Baraka said. “I didn’t feel ashamed,” he said, and he had no choice but to go to school.

Then, one of his GED instructors tested him for dyslexia. And finally Baraka understood that in order to learn, his brain required a different approach. During his four years in prison he spent every day reviewing grammar books and writing down thousands of words – once he wrote them down and defined them, they were “decoded,” and he could add them to vocabulary.

At the end of the four years, he’d reached a 12th grade reading level. He passed his GED test the first time he took it. “My confidence surged,” Baraka recalled. “That day, I knew I could be somebody.”

He cannot overstate the power of reading and writing. “There’re no excuses, if you can read and write,” Baraka said. “Everyone has the potential to do great things.”

Baraka’s goal in working with kids is to “teach them how to avoid the pitfalls” that landed him in jail. The kids today are facing the same dangers, Baraka said. “Those street lies told to me are still being told.” The lies, he said, that killing someone makes you cool, that getting a girl pregnant makes you a bigger man, that selling drugs is a status symbol. “I come to expose those lies,” Baraka said.

Baraka works to teach kids they have the power to choose what path they pursue, and he fights against becoming “incarcerated by our own thinking.” Thoughts become actions, and actions become behavior, he said.

He also exposes kids to a wider view of African-American history – and history of which they can be proud and be inspired.

Despite the past decade of education “reform” in New Orleans, Baraka said kids with dyslexia are still facing the same challenges he faced.

Only today, the dyslexia is often mislabeled as a behavior problem and kids are increasingly medicated with Ritalin or Adderall or other forms of methylphenidate commonly prescribed for ADD or ADHD.

Overmedicated in too many cases, Baraka contends, while never addressing the learning disability.

Baraka also sees a lack of consistency and experience in the teaching force.

So what would he do if he were in charge of public schools in New Orleans?

Open a (free) school specifically for kids with dyslexia, Baraka said. And test more kids for dyslexia. There are three public charter schools in the country dedicated to kids with dyslexia, and two of those are in Louisiana.

There are also private schools, Baraka said, but those are out of reach of most people.

“Let’s return to the fact that if a family can afford to pay $10,000-$50,000 in tuition their child’s needs can be addressed,” Cassidy said at the Senate hearing. “Isn’t it interesting that there are many private schools specializing in dyslexia and only three public schools? Why shouldn’t a child attending a public school have the same opportunities as the child in a wealthier family? This is not about designer label clothes, it is about the ability to graduate from high school and get a better-paying job.”

The science and the targeted teaching techniques for dyslexia are advancing, but most schools still don’t have teachers with the time or the training to help kids with dyslexia, Baraka noted.

Cassidy also points to the higher rates of dyslexia among people who are incarcerated. “I mentioned before about how addressing dyslexia could greatly impact the rates of incarceration,” Cassidy said. “We know that many who are incarcerated are functionally illiterate. A study of the Huntsville, Texas state prison, found that 80 percent of prison inmates are functionally illiterate and 48 percent are dyslexic. So, we know that the prevalence of dyslexia in the general population is 20 percent, but in prisoners it is 48 percent. If appropriate science-based strategies to help target and treat dyslexia are instituted, the effect on our future prison population and on society could be profound.”

Baraka is optimistic about a new era of awareness and resources for people with dyslexia. He said he sees momentum. And Baraka will continue to be a part of that momentum, sharing his story with courage and brutal honesty. Sharing his mistakes, his redemption, and his lessons learned – so that other young people can get the help they need much earlier in life than he did.

“In my opinion we can stop people from allowing dyslexia to rob them of all that this great nation has to offer,” Baraka concluded in his testimony at the Senate hearing. “If we understand this enemy, we can work to prevent it from stealing our most fundamental asset, our youth.”

This article originally published in the May 16, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.