In the 60's: She graduated from Smith College as chairman of the Student Curriculum Committee, earned her Master's in Teaching degree from the University of Chicago, and taught high school social studies and English until her first child was born.

In the 70's : she learned about behavioral optometry, taking her children and herself to Dr. Amiel Francke in Washington, D.C. This began her quest to get rid of her coke-bottle-thick lenses for nearsightedness (myopia). Dr. Jim Blumenthal helped, too, when she moved to Illinois.

In the 80's : Orfield did a year of office training with Dr. Francke back in D.C. to improve her vision down to the weakest lenses made, worked as a vision therapist in Chicago, and graduated from the Illinois College of Optometry. While in Chicago she continued to work on her vision with Dr. Jim Blumenthal and Dr. Jeff Getzell, and served as an elected parent member of one of the Chicago Public School Councils during School Reform.

In the 90's : Dr. Orfield was a Clinical Preceptor in pediatrics and vision therapy at the New England College of Optometry (NEWENCO). She published research from work done by her and her optometry interns at the Mather School Clinic she set up in Boston. She also joined the eye clinic staff at Harvard University Health Services where she specializes in binocular vision and vision therapy. She arranged the Harvard Graduate School of Education Conference in 2001 called "One Educational Barrier We Can Actually Eliminate: The Vision Problems Of Children in Poverty and Their Interference with Learning". Optometric research presented at that conference was published in the OEP and COVD journals.