Dyslexic Success: Erin Brockovich’s Biggest Victory

Erin Brockovich is famous for rising up from humble beginnings as a single, unemployed mom to an activist that helped win a class-action lawsuit to the tune of $333 million, the largest settlement in a direct class-action suit in the history of the United States.

Brockovich did her thing by going over myriad pages of text with a fine-toothed comb. But those thousands of pages she scoured weren’t just any kind of text—they were legal briefs and medical records, consisting of difficult, technical language. One might say that Brockovich’s biggest victory wasn’t winning a lawsuit against a corporation worth billions of dollars, but the fact that she could read. Brockovich has dyslexia.

Brockovich has said that her high school teachers wouldn’t have believed she could read that many briefs. In fact, educators counseling her told her that she wouldn’t be able to get through college. While Brockovich was aware she wasn’t stupid, she did suffer tremendous hardships in her school years. She says the problems began in the second grade.


Like a lot of children who suffer from learning difficulties, Brockovich didn’t receive a confirmed diagnosis of dyslexia until she was an adult. As she grew up, she became the victim of a great deal of teasing from her classmates. Even today, Brockovich’s difficulty is still manifest whenever it comes time for her to balance her checkbook. Erin tends to reverse symbols. The balance may stand at $1,800, yet Brockovich might write $8,100. That’s something that scares her, and Brockovich doesn’t scare easy. Still, Ms. Brockovich no longer minds the teasing. She believes her handicap is what led her to do her current work. In reflecting on her history, Brockovich is adamant that we must not typecast children. She is concerned about the fact that educators tend to label students and feels this is a damaging trend.



Brockovich directs those with learning difficulties to never lose hope. If a teacher should become frustrated, Erin tells kids not to let that frustration touch them. She advises that they step away, because the pressure is sure to make them fail at learning. She tells them not to worry about being labeled.


Brockovich credits a wise teacher, Kathy Borseff, her high school history teacher, for keeping her spirits up. Borseff recognized that Brockovich knew the material in spite of her failing marks. So Borseff convinced the teachers to give Brockovich oral tests. The positive results of this experiment proved that Brockovich was just as smart as the other kids. She just had her own brand of intelligence.

This article was reposted with kind permission from CogniBeat :Erin Brockovich’s Biggest Victory