PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I have tried unsuccessfully for years to demonstrate to family members and friend the importancee of reading everything. I've bought them books, subscriptions to magazines, gave them books of poetry. It was wasted breath and paper. Of course my sister did get her BA in computer science, but having worked in a bank she earned her money approving housing and car loans until she retired. Made great bucks, but her kids (4 of 'em) did not see her hard labor, her reading to get the B.S. as something to emulate and become a successful anything they wanted to become. My sister had a sit down job, but her wrists and knees and ankles were destroyed by twelve years in a big supermarket chain as a cashier standing at a register.

I, on the other hand, spent my worklife behind a desk, sitting, throwing parties, having coffee whenever I wanted a fresh-up. No heavy and strange public to deal with daily. (The odd employee or administrator or board member occasionally, but that was rare). Whenever I got the boss from Hell, I resigned and went to work somewhere else. I was smart and read the professional literature of any company, teaching myself "the trade". I know a lot about medicine because of 3 years as a Ward Clerk in a hosptial, working Or to ER and the Operating Room, all shifts, double shifts and triple shifts. $3.00 per hour with BC/BS insurance. Coffee cost about 50 cents and you could eat a full course dinner at a restaurant for under 10 bucks. (I'm 64 and remember when gasoline costs 20 cents a gallon and a stamp cost 2 cents.) 

Reading, filing, typing and phones was my thing, before the revolution that put computers on every Exec and Administrator's desk, that is. Secretaries (a term of pride) was altered to diminish mostly women to Assistant Whatevers. I moved on to management, but I missed the good ol days. Being the only Secretary in a department was wonderful. 

This was the outcomes for my nephews and nieces and friends (95% of them): fast foods on their feet all day. Factory repetitious work. Work for ten months and lay-off. Inability to demonstrate enthusiasm for their work to get the good referral in three years to help them get the government job (still boring but with benefits and good pay scales). I keep telling them. Read! Not newspapers, they are selling products. I often wondered in University why a liberal arts education had to be "well rounded". You learn skills in different areas so that you can quick learn anything that comes at you in the work world. No, I say to the employer, I have no experience working with children, but I had three psych classes and four philosophy classes in college, and as an English major, I've read the classics. Proving that I could  without questioning why understand, regurgitate (apply) and follow instructions with excellent interpersonal skills due to large vocabulary. I once had a Director ask me about the year 1066 - for five minutes I discussed with wondrous enthusiasm the great vowel shift, the Norman conquest William The Conquerer, and the addition of french words to the English language from that time. She went away to personnel to tell them my transcripts from college were genuine. I had worked for that Director for a year, and it did not occur to her to talk to me about the degree credits in my personnel file. Ever. (Some fake transcripts had gotten some folks fired, and they were double checking everyone). Ha. I read. A lot.

Note: Confidential secretaries learn to not blab everything they here to get a rep as trustworthy. Misinformation is given employees to locate who is leaking information. Most hiring at that level is at will (as the employer wills that is) and requests for resignation letters are simple answered with the signed document.

They haven't got a clue that starting their own business, one that people in the community want, will make them rich. I knew a lady who could see a designer dress and go home and make it. Exactly. Start a business, I said. I don't know how, she said and I don't want to lose my disabilities payments. Talent wasted, moreover, money not earned. If her payments were associated with training to be an entrepreneur and business woman, taxes for the rest of us would plummet if the model was extended to the disabled. Example, the artist who is quadraplegic but can paint with a brush in his teeth. Emotionally challenged people can do repetitive tasks for decades. Many can not, and need professional therapists and skills training to do a minimum of living. It is not those I speak of. The belief is that most people on disabilities can work. They can "work" the system. Mentally challenged institutions have been closed and getting into one nearly takes an act of Congress. Half-way houses, group homes, or on the streets. That's what I call a solution to those who are genuinely ill. If I lose a hand, I get 20-30 K a year and dont have to work again for the rest of my life. Perfectly healthy otherwise, but DISABLED.

Public schools turn off way too many of our students to the importance of reading as a practical tool for success. I knew a lady, dead now from cancer, who opened a clothing cleaners and was successful and wanted more money and dealt drugs, then took drugs and lost everything. Didn't read those articles on drug addiction aftermaths and collateral damages

I never took a teaching certificate, but my poetry career as editor and publisher landed some work in elementary, middle and high schools - the problem was they didn't like reading. So I taught them verse forms, had them read them out loud, had them read published poets out loud. Read my work out loud to them to hear what a professional poet does/sounds like. Captive audience. And voila! Lives changed, some of them.

Teachers stood on the side criticising my techniques in insulting manners or just left the room glad to have a sub. We had a ball and I connected with every kid/young adult in the room, something new to most of them. Teachers do not take the time to befriend their charges. That's totally unprofessional (teacher are taught), but if tv and movie school dramas have taught us anything, it's that school years are developing years and very lonely...any human contact is an opportunity to put ideas inside the head. Not just rote material. Not simply learn it and spit it out exactly. In math, yes, in English, languages, the teaching of math and sciences, and art and all the rest, touching the human need to know is useful and exciting and absolutely essential for success.

Fast is also necessary or kids get bored. (I have left a few teachers in the dust from time to time and taught them a thing or six). They have what we never had in electronics and could learn English better from a minion or superhero or major monster attacking earth than a super straight laced teacher in a suit. Teachers should wear blue jeans and tees, cords and sneakers. The world has changed. The clientelle has evolved to know what they want.

Industry and the business office is learning that letting employees control their space increases productivity. Suits for the meetings with the Board, yeah, but casual Monday thru Sunday is a long overdue experiment. Even white collar workers have blue collar upbringings and mentalities conditioning from the media. A bad employee is going to fail no matter what you do. The hard workers deserve a reward. To save on cleaner's bills is a raise of sorts. Suits and stockings, jewelery and make-up costs money. Employers are not in the business to make money for other industries and companies and competitors. Energy taken out of prep to look good will translate into higher interest in the work day's requirements.

The point or rather the question is how to get young folks to read the way we do. It is as if ignorance in a certain percentage of the population is public policy. That is horrible. The internet is the most useful tool in teaching anyone anything. Discussion boards and a lively chat environment would serve the needs of most students who are ackward in speaking in class anyway. So either forget them and leave them behind, or give them the tools they need to excel.

I was once in a classroom where each studen had a computer (inner city experiment) but the teacher would not alow the students to use the training programs. Instead she talked to her favorite students about nothing related to school and the students cut up or were bored. I asked her, why not let the students plug in and, swear to God, she said, "These students are not going to amount to anything anyway. Why teach them anything."

That really hurt. I showed the kids how to access Word and the teaching programs in math. Teacher was livid, but began doing her job and showed the rest of the class how to access the programs. The line was warpped around the school of kids skipping regular classes trying to get a computer. Lesson, punish the kids who skipped class. I'm done.

(Pissed off that with all our resources and money we have, Janie and Johnnie hate reading, because change and advancement of poor kids is unacceptable to our teachers.)

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