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Your Catholic Neighbor: Leti Meyer
Local Catholic woman guides special ed students
By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
December 20, 2007
CHANDLER — Shopping for food and preparing a meal is a relatively simple task for most people.
For the students Leti Meyer teaches, however, it can be daunting — at least until the East Valley special education teacher shows them the ins and outs of the grocery store and kitchen.
“It’s the best job ever,” is how Meyer described what she does for a living.
The St. Mary parishioner has been teaching people with intellectual disabilities since 1983, when she graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in education, rehabilitation and psychology. She received her master’s degree in special education the following year.
Meyer became interested in helping the handicapped at an early age when she was growing up in Tucson and attending St. John the Evangelist Catholic School. She volunteered at the Arizona Training Program, a facility for the severely handicapped.
“I was never frightened by special-needs folks,” she said.
As a rehab major in college, she visited a classroom and watched a teacher show students how to peel an orange. “I remember it vividly like it was yesterday. The kids were all circled around her and they all had to peel an orange,” she said. “When class was over I talked to her and said, ‘I want to do what you do.’”
Meyer’s current job involves teaching functional living skills to students at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe.
“We work on a recipe, shop for foods and then they help prepare it.”
The grocery store lesson takes about two hours and Meyers makes the lessons timely. In late November the students prepared a Thanksgiving feast for school administrators.
The mother of three adopted children works part time with the students.
“I’m working six hours a week since I’m home with a preschooler,” she says of her scaled-back hours. She’s been married 16 years and says of the three infant adoptions she and her husband have experienced, “I feel like I won the lottery three times.”
One of her most memorable students was a girl named Suzanne who had a habit of screaming every 10 seconds.
“We figured out that if she had pockets or something to hang onto she wouldn’t scream,” Meyers recalled. When the time came for Suzanne to graduate, the devoted teacher stayed up far into the night sewing pockets into the girl’s graduation gown.
Part of her work in earlier years was to help students find jobs in the community that they could keep after graduation.
Meyer remembered a student named Mark who landed a job at a Fry’s supermarket but whose mother was quite concerned because the young man was very friendly and would take rides from anyone.
“I enlisted my friends to try to give him rides,” Meyer said. “I would hide in the oleander bushes at 2:30 when he walked home. My friends would pull up, open the door and try to talk to him. I would jump out of the bushes and say, ‘No, Mark, don’t talk to that person’ until he finally learned not to talk to strangers on the way home. He thought I could appear out of anywhere,” she said with a laugh.
How does your work help you grow in faith?
I’m constantly reminded of the posture that Jesus asked us to have, to come to Him as children. Folks with disabilities constantly have that childlike state, so I’m constantly reminded of how to come before God, which is simply, honestly and humbly.
What’s your favorite quote?
“People only fear what they don’t understand,” because many people are apprehensive or fearful of impaired individuals. Once they get past their own fears they get to see all the beauty that person possesses. I’ve seen it with students who volunteer in my classroom.
If you could meet one person…
Mother Teresa. I loved her can-do, simple yes, her ‘yes’ strength. I want to be able to say yes like that. To see someone in pain and pick them up and not worry about what’s going to happen and who will do what.
What’s your favorite movie?
My favorite is “Pride and Prejudice,” the original BBC, four-hour extravaganza. I love all things English and genteel. I also like “Sense and Sensibility.”
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