Mildred Hope Fisher Wood was an American teacher and a pioneer in special education. Wood was also an author and newspaper column writer. She received multiple honors.
Early life and career
Wood was born in Alta, Iowa on April 19, 1920 and her parents were Jessie and Hazel David Fisher. She spent her time as a child in multiple small farms by the Des Moines River. She attended Humboldt High School and in 1937, she went to the University of Northern Iowa, where she met her future husband named William O. Wood on her first day of class. Wood began teaching in 1939 and during that year, she taught three students that were sisters and one of them had trouble with reading. The student had issues with her vision and hearing. Wood said, "I couldn't teach that child one thing that year". Her failure to teach the student led to her starting a career in special education, during when that field was just starting out. After a short period of teaching, Wood became a speech therapist. She married O. Wood on June 23, 1940 in Renwick, Iowa. Wood earned a BA degree in 1956, a MA degree in 1962, and an Ed.S. degree from the University of Northern Iowa. She completed post graduate work at Syracuse University and the University of Oregon, later receiving a Doctorate of Education in 1970 from the University of Indiana. She helped create ways to see if a student has a learning disability and also started ways to teach those students. Wood started and taught learning disability courses, the first such courses of the time, to prospective teachers at the University of Northern Iowa. She was in charge of several hundred workshops for teachers, principals, parents, psychologists and juvenile offenders. She was one of the people who founded the Iowa Learning Disabilities Association, while also being a board member and president of the association. In a column for the Waterloo Courier titled Parents and Learning Disabilities, she gave advice to parents. The column was written by her for almost 8 years and it was published as a book for parents with children that have Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, titled Handful of Popcorn. She was a co-author of a diagnostic test for children in preschool.
Honors
Wood was appointed to the Governor's Task Force on Education which is the highest honor that is given by the Commission of Persons with Disabilities "for significantly enhancing the empowerment and employment of individuals with disabilities". The Iowa Association for Children and Youth with Learning Disabilities awarded her The President's Award. In 2011, Wood was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and later won a 2012 UNI Outstanding Alumnus Award.
Death
Wood died on July 6, 2014. She was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
