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On this Friday after Thanksgiving, it's time for our Making a Difference report. At least once a week we profile someone who is doing just that and tonight is Betty, Betty Lewing of Lufkin,Texas, who does what 4 million other Americans do each day. She teaches school and happens to think that reading can change a life. Our report from NBC's Don Teague.
(Does anybody know what that is…)
You should know at the outset, Betty. Lewing doesn’t think she’s newsworthy.
(Which one of those does it mean…)
After all she is just an ordinary teacher.
(I’m not doing anything that millions of other teachers don’t do everyday. (Why do you think…)
But consider what brought her here. After her daughter was kidnapped and raped 7 years ago, Lewing went to work at a nearby prison hoping to learn why people turn to crime. She discovered many of the inmates couldn’t read.
(And doesn’t that make sense…)
And decided then and there to fight crime by teaching struggling high schoolers to read before it’s too late.
(So I believe that God led me on this direction, that this is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do...and we will tell you when a real test starts. )
Today Lewing has taught 600 teenagers with trouble reading to read better. (It was a group of small…)
Kids like 16-year-old Laura Kirkland who thought dyslexia would always hold her back.
(Before I would, I hated reading out loud, and now it’s so much easier to get in there and read.)
It’s true Betty Lewing considers it's critical her students learn to read what's in these books but sometimes she says it’s more important that they simply understand there're someone on the other end of the line.
(My phone rings throughout the night frequently. And it’s normally kids that, or might be in the situation where they need help.)
Lewing has literally rescued students at 2 in the morning, others…
(And Jorvorski again...touch down..)
Like Texas A&M running back Jorvorski Lane, a former student just needed encouragement.
(She'll say: Jorvorski. And I'll look, and she says: you know, er, I love you, how I would be like a man)
Newsworthy? Maybe not,but Betty Lewing's passion for literate kids
(What bigger rewards could you ask for?) is anything but ordinary.
Don Teague,NBC News,Lufkin,Taxas
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