Jackson, Rosemary : Georgia College & State University
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.
Lee, Christopher : Georgia Assistive Technology Project/ LD Adults of Georgia / Learning Disabilities
Association of Georgia
Christopher Lee is a creative learner who graduated from the University of Georgia in 1990. He is currently
Director of the Georgia Assistive Technology Project, Tools for Life, and devotes extra time to public speaking
and writing on self-advocacy and assistive technology issues. Lee also serves as president of LD Adults of Georgia
as well as president of the Learning Disabilities Association of Georgia. He is currently enrolled in the Ph.D.
program at Union Institute.
Summary
Faking It is Chris Lee's story of almost two decades of frustration in school matched by remarkable persistence,
resilience, and ingenuity. The title is bluntly fitting; if Chris hadn't faked it through school, he wouldn't have
made it through school. But he also knew that he couldn't fake it through life. 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 stupid. Fearing every encounter with the English language, he
devised his methods of faking his way through school sufficiently well to be admitted as a special student 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.
