“Am I dumb or smart?” Rivka Tucker spent years trying to answer this question. She couldn’t understand why she was stumped by basic math calculations but could speak foreign languages with ease. The nagging question ultimately catapulted her to become one of the most renowned experts in learning disabilities.
“Am I dumb or smart?” Rivka Tucker spent years trying to answer this question. She couldn’t understand why she was stumped by basic math calculations but could speak foreign languages with ease. The nagging question ultimately catapulted her to become one of the most renowned experts in learning disabilities.
In Rivka’s home in Israel, concerned parents are constantly calling. The details are different, but the message is the same: “Please help my child.”
The urgency to these phone calls becomes all the more understandable when you consider this statistic: “It’s estimated that about 60 percent of frum boys who left the yeshivah world are learning disabled,” reports Rivka, who has been working in the field for more than 40 years. “Recently, a study was done on girls who have left Jewish day schools and are on the fringes; there, too, we discover a large percentage of learning disabled youth.”
Rivka feels personal responsibility to reach as many of these children as possible. “I hardly sleep,” admits Rivka, who works around the clock and travels regularly throughout Israel. “I believe that children with learning disabilities need an advocate and I put my whole neshamah and life into that.”
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