On Tuesday, Feb. 4, St. Thomas English professor Todd Lawrence had a stroke. He lost the ability to read and has trouble with word recall.

Regardless, he returned to teach his African American literature class the following Friday, missing only two class periods.

Not being able to read presented a major challenge, Lawrence said. He struggles with letter recognition and sounding out full words.

“Basic problems that any child who is learning to read would probably have, I’m having now as a 47-year-old person,” Lawrence said.

Despite this learning curve, Lawrence is optimistic.

“I’m getting better every day,” Lawrence said.

According to Lawrence, this progress has not come without a great deal of work.

“I’m just trying to read every little thing,” Lawrence said. “Like kids books and stuff. Everything that I can read to get better.”

At first, Lawrence thought that he wouldn’t be able to return to work. With the support of his department chair and other professors, he has been able to adjust his classroom to continue teaching.

“There’s a couple of books in [my] class that aren’t on audio book,” Lawrence said. “My colleagues are reading them and recording them and giving me these files.”

Lawrence was very open about telling his students about the stroke, said senior Kevin McQuillan, who is in Dr. Lawrence’s class.

“He assured us that he was still able to teach a class and that he was passionate about us,” McQuillan said.

Lawrence has changed the structure of his classroom completely. Before this, he would usually run his classroom discussions by writing notes on the board. Now it is up to the students in his class to write notes on the board and follow what he is saying.

“Having the students write a lot in class and then talk about what they’ve written has been really helpful,” Lawrence said.

His students have also helped him find different ways to teach and communicate online without being able to read.

“They were immediately supportive and had ideas about technology that we could use in the classroom,” Lawrence said.

McQuillan doesn’t think that this obstacle has impeded Lawrence’s teaching.

“For the most part, I think the class is running just as smooth as it would with any other teacher,” McQuillan said.

McQuillan said this is due to Lawrence’s expertise from years of teaching and enthusiasm about his work.

“He’s obviously been teaching for a long time and is an expert in his field,” said McQuillan. “The fact that he can’t read doesn’t matter because he is so passionate.”

Lawrence has gained perspective on how students with disabilities may have to use different technology or learning strategies in the classroom. He says that he didn’t know that the technology that now allows him to teach his class even existed before this experience, but he hopes to build a more accessible classroom.

“I’m going to be way more cognizant of those things for people that are my students in the future,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence is grateful that his stroke did not impair his movement or vision.

“I was really lucky,” Lawrence said.

Annie Terry can be reached at terr2351@stthomas.edu.