Category Archives: Education

Let The Sweet Slacker Slide By?

I recently made this comment, which I’ve edited slightly for this post, in a Facebook discussion:

FI was due for severe consequences in my 12th grade English Literature class. I should have been given a failing grade, and I probably would have had to retake 12th grade — not completely sure, but it’s likely. However, the teacher showed leniency and allowed me to pass and graduate.  Continue reading Let The Sweet Slacker Slide By?

Review #FierceConvictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More–Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist

Hannah More enjoyed a brilliant literary career among the London literati in the late 1700’s, was an equal among William Wilberforce’s cohorts in ending the British slave trade, and brought to fruition what the Protestant Reformation boldly stated in theory:Fierce Convictions in order to understand the Scriptures, all should learn to read. So why is it that her poems, essays, pamphlets, and fiction as well as her pioneering work in education are little known today? In part it is due to her immediate friends; in part it is due to her subsequent enemies, states Karen Swallow Prior in her biography Fierce Convictions: the Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist.

Continue reading Review #FierceConvictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More–Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist

A Better Reason To Go To College

My online friend, Bronwyn Lea, invited me to write for her Words That Changed My World series. When I read her invitation, I knew exactly what to write about.

I have generally been a mediocre student. Clever, but… my teachers would often say looking perplexed at me. But… the motivation was often difficult to find, I might have supplied had I known myself better.

My parents were each the first generation of their respective families to go on to and graduate from a university. My mother is now a retired pharmacist and my late father was an electrical engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Northrup Corporation in Southern California. The FACT that each of their five children WOULD acquire a university education was in the air we breathed and the water we drank. It was an of course in my mind. Life without a university degree was inconceivable. Being the youngest of five, I watched as each of my two sisters and two brothers graduated from high school and went on to area California State Universities.

I somehow squeaked through my senior year of high school and graduated low in the class. Finished with high school, poor grades in hand, and no driving career ambition led me to enroll at the local City College. There I merely took some acting classes my first year.

Read the rest of the post at Bronwyn’s Corner