Carole Marsh Blog

It’s All About the Kids!

         I said I owed you one more disgruntled blog before I got “back to normal.”  I just read in V.S. Naipul’s A Tour of the South that Anne Rivers Siddon once said something along the lines that there Southern madhouses were once filled with women who had been stifled.

         Today people are self-stifled by a lack of public candor.  In my preparation to tackle a full K-12 school to job or whatever-comes-next curriculum I have attended a lot of panels, meetings, and other public discussions.  So far we have addressed to death all the problems, but not the solutions.  So far, it seems to be all about the adults, all about saying the right things. 

         Thus far we have proven beyond a shadow of a boring doubt that we all care.  But do we?  Do we care enough to begin to “cut the crap” and get to the down and dirty candid part?  Perhaps.

         At the tail end of a recent meeting, I heard a little candor.  A confession, “Well, I’m not supposed to say this, but…”  But what?  What are we waiting for?  Another confession:  “We could have a communication problem.”  Indeed. 

         And yet, it was after the meeting formally concluded in the little knots of twos and threes where candor prevailed, at least to some degree.  Instead of quoting or misquoting, I’ll just say it was along the lines of what these parents (now in their parent role and not in their official this or that role) feared for their children and themselves.  Things like:

         •They are clueless about the world of work

          •Maybe four years of college isn’t essential

          •I thought school was preparing them, not me

          •I have not prepared them well enough to jump from the board of                 high school to what’s next

          •If they get a college degree will they get a job using that                 education?

          •Will they get a job at all?

          •Will they be in debt up to their ears forever?  Will I have to                            help, just when I have other kids moving on and mom and dad                                                                                                     to care for? 

And all this about kids who have attended good schools, have exceptional parents, and live in an exceptional community.  On this day, I could only imagine what other kinds of parents were wondering.

         The cracks in the candor must come.  It is only coincidence that I am working on a book for adults about the change in the classroom over the last 100 years.  A byproduct of my research has been a view of a pretty straight line from a horrible educational life to the kind of education I like to think I got in the 1960s, when I graduated from high school in Atlanta:  A great one!  What has happened since those post-WWII and Civil Rights years confounds me. 

         By the time my sister, four years younger, had graduated from the same school, some of the “harder” classes or requirements were gone.  By the time my own children graduated from high school, they had a good education, but I can’t say for sure that they had had civics, Latin, political science, and an enforced four years of English, math, and more.

         In school I had hours of homework, 24 page term papers, and it was a “no excuse” world.  The dog ate my homework had not come into play.  I lived during a time when even kids cared about current events, the aftermath of the Holocaust and WWII, the assassination of our president, and Vietnam.  Yet we still had time to go to prom, work after school jobs, do our homework, and fall in love with the Beatles.  We did not get self-esteem bumper stickers, we had home chores, and we did not, in general, talk back. 

         I cannot say that we had great careers curriculum, or counselors; actually I recall neither.  Nor do I recall my parents babysitting me about my post-high school education or expectations.  I would be on my own, that’s all I knew.  There were no helicopter parents.  There were vocational schools.  There were jobs.  You picked some course of study (not everyone went to college by any means) and you extrapolated your studies and your experience (whether in afterschool jobs or at a “real” job) and did what you had to do.  You got by.  You survived on your own two feet; sometimes, sooner or later, you thrived.  You did not go back home to mom and dad; “who would want to?” was the prevailing thought, if such a thing was considered at all.  We wanted to be adults.

         My observation is that kids are not the problem; adults are.  Adults who have let things get this bad; there is plenty of blame to go around.  We can’t help the economy, but, hey, when could we ever or when will we ever.  No excuses, remember?

         I asked a simple question at the end of one panel:  “It seems to me that community colleges/tech schools are one great stepping stone from high school to job.  So why did one girl who came to me with a two year degree apply having learned graphic design on software that had been obsolete for five years?  I could not hire her.”

         [Play the dum dum de dum Jeopardy tune here.]  Finally, a waffling answer:  “Well, maybe they didn’t know.”

         “Who?  The people who get paid to know?”

         “Well, maybe they didn’t have funds to get new software?”

         “Who?  The people who took this young girl’s hard-earned money in exchange for a marketable job skill?”

         We are all afraid to Point the Finger.  After all, I get paid by school systems—why would I go out of my way to offend them?  But now it is not about blame; we do not have time for that.  It is about candor and Pointing the Finger because IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KIDS!

         What helps kids is to have educational and home training regarding their lives' possible missions, their lives' potential contributions, and how to prepare for them. Even little kids are excited about such things, though their list may be limited to firefighter or schoolteacher; that’s ok. 

         I remember my first job and not knowing what an invoice was, or a bill of lading.  I was totally (enter bad word here) that no one, not at home, not at school had—I suddenly realized—taught me anything about work:  not the vocabulary, not the so-called (but not by me!) soft skills, not anything.  So in addition to having to learn my job I had to learn all about work on my own, while feeling like an idiot and a dumb idiot at that, and making unnecessary mistakes and missteps, and growing in a lack of confidence and embarrassment for way too long.

         What a disservice!

         Today it’s much worse.  One panel focused on work ethic:  “Kids have none.”  “Work eight hours?”  “70% is good enough in their minds.” 

         A lack of a good education is a dangerous thing.   I know of a man who was turned down for job after job because a high school grad with a new job as a file clerk had filed a horrid psychiatric report in his file instead of where it belonged, in the file of a man who had an almost identical name.  (So, uh, presumably someone hired him.)  Was this kid lazy, could not spell, thought close counted?  Were they was he in a hurry to get home, texting while he worked, did he have his Ipod buds in his ears?

         What we need is for not another year or school system or state full of school kids to get by another year without an appropriate amount of work education.  What we need is for kids to understand WHY they study each class—how eventually that will help them in the real world.  What we need is for kids to see a much wider array of opportunity:  there is no shame in voc-ed, in starting in community college, in working or volunteering for a year to see where your interests lie, in working your way through school, in starting a business, whether you work for mom or dad, or, uh, hunker down in your garage and start a computer company.

         What would keep kids motivated to finish school is a smorgasbord, a wild array, a dramatic rendering of all the opportunity to show their passion, to change the world, to use their education and skills to make a living and become a good citizen.  This array exists:  the world of work in the future is filled with jobs that may not always have a name right now, but that’s ok.  Put the word nano in front of anything and kids will get your drift. 

         It’s ok for kids to change their minds and their goals; what’s not ok is for them to have anything less than many goals to pick from.  We could help them more if we knew more.  It came up in one meeting that a Georgia business had 100 welding jobs it was willing to pay $75,000 a year plus benefits for, but could find no skilled labor. 

         (We won’t even touch on the discussion of what businesses do when they can’t find trained labor for the jobs they have:  they don’t even come here or they leave—plenty of candor there!)

         So where are the broad stroke arrays of, “Hey, kids, here are the things you can aspire to!"—and there be something for every child?

         Where are the business people going into the schools to explain?  Where are the human resources folks going into the schools to tell what they’ll be hiring soon?  Where are the internship matchups, the apprenticeships, the part time jobs?  Where are the kids who even want these?  (Another problem.)

        Where is the curriculum?  (Oh, yeah, I gotta get out of here and get back to it!)  Where are the parents demanding such a thing!

        Where are the companies demanding local community colleges and tech schools change fast enough to help them, and, where are those schools as far as going to the companies and saying, “Tell us and help us so we can help you.”  Where are the colleges saying, “Don’t send us anymore students who need a year of remedial classes”?  Is everyone off sitting on or listening to a panel about What is Wrong?”

         It’s all about the kids.  It must be.  It should be.  The time for talk is over.  The other day I wrote a one page “We’ve got Internships!” and took it to everyone in my office complex.  June 1, I meet with my new Georgia Careers Curriculum Team. 

          Next week, I plan to poll every parent in my company to ask what they want their kids to know.

         And “soft skills?”  I don’t know what all we will do in our curriculum, but we will definitely not call ESSENTIAL skills “soft”…no:  It’s all hard ball and uphill from now on.  Let’s give kids plenty to be excited about, plenty to chow down on, and let’s quit misleading them, and ourselves, about what’s at stake.

         Candor indeed.--

 

Are You Disgusted with Business?

    I’m so disgusted with business.  To be honest, I’m disgusted with my own business.  Once, we were “all about the kids.”  That’s the way it should be.  (And that’s the way I intend to regroup it ASAP!)  Maybe it’s the economy, but that’s no excuse.  Maybe it’s that Gallopade will be 33 this year, but that’s no excuse.  Maybe it’s that we just get our heads in the wrong place and think that the accounting, or marketing, or sales numbers, or legal wrangling, or other stuff are the Important Things.  Not so.  When it’s all about the kids we make the right choices every time; they are not easy choices and they are not always the obvious or the popular ones, but they are the right ones.

    This week I got disgusted with the business of government, broadcasting, and education all in one fell swoop when a news story featured the overt opposition to the use of the word Negro on a Georgia historic marker.  Honestly, this is the kind of thing I have to cope with everyday anymore:  so much so-called political correctness based on ignorance.  Sometimes I just wonder what it is people want our kids to learn:  the truth, or just their truth.

    The Girl Scouts of America is all over our case for writing a Carole Marsh Mystery with Girl Scouts in the title and Girl Scouts on the cover.  The book is wonderful, charming, sweet, adventurous, educational, and, most of all, an ode to Juliette Gordon Low.  I even “held the press” so we could add that she is getting an important national award.  “Legal” is the bane of my life.  To me, this tempest in a teacup is about like the recent Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood fiasco.  Whose side are women on these days, anyway?  A book basically to celebrate girl empowerment and a woman who was early and instrumental in that empowerment role; who can I possibly be offending?   I did not have to deal with you-know-what like this 20 years ago.  The world has changed. 

    I’m disgusted with J. P. Morgan; they lose billions of dollars being stupid…and I imagine that we will be expected to bail them out.  Clearly, nothing’s changed in financial improvement, learned-our-lessons land.  When Sesame Street is smarter than Wall Street…

     But most of all, in my own backyard—educational publishing, I’m disgusted that big business, uh, and medium business, and small business have not had the guts to be MUCH MORE demanding of education.  Every poll I have read for the last 20 years, inquiring of business what employees are not bringing to the table, produce the same answers.  And yet, I have not really seen any Big Time:  “Look, education, here’s what we need; you gotta get your act together and get kids to understand these things BEFORE they get to the work world.” from the folks who will most benefit (besides the kids)—business.   As nearly as I can tell, colleges seemed thrilled to take money for remedial classes instead of a real start to college.  Is that greed or just laziness? 

    What's happened to internships and apprenticeships? Why don't business and education wrangle it out what each really needs from the other? I guess I would not be so disgusted except that I sit in meetings and panels and discussions of all kinds outlining the problems, but I do not hear any list of solutions.  Afraid to offend?  To be politically incorrect?

     If it really was all about the kids, we would not have a national deficit of such epic proportions, the Girl Scouts would celebrate and elevate a book about their own (and not try to intimidate and threaten), J. P. Morgan would set a better example (maybe they need the remedial college classes?), we would not try to ban a perfectly good historical term and thus dumb down history under the guise of political correctness, business would JUMP to the forefront of solutions for 21^st century skill building in schools (starting in kindergarten), and even in my own small, sweet business we would not wimp out, kowtow, procrastinate, and backtrack. 

    My business, Gallopade, is going back to being ALL ABOUT THE KIDS.  And I don’t care who likes it.  And as far as those 21^st century essential skills:  I’d like to add Common Sense to the top of the list…and teach that skill to some adults, in business, government, broadcasting, and most everywhere else.

    Maybe next week I’ll be more cheerful after I read my new copy of TOPGUN ON WALL STREET:  WHY THE UNITED STATES MILITARY SHOULD RUN CORPORATE AMERICA.

 

An Advice Column of Sorts

My mother always said, “Always get doctors and lawyers and such much younger than you are.”  This never made any sense to me.  Wouldn’t we want older doctors with lots of experience?  Shouldn’t we hire lawyers with age and gravitas and lots of courtroom hours?  NO!  Why?  They die on us.  My mother was right.  I saw her suffer as her beloved and trusted doctors kicked the bucket and left her with a file five inches thick and nowhere to turn.  Starting with a new doctor when you’re sixty or seventy or eighty is just no fun.  For one thing, she could not pronounce their names.  (She just called them Dr. T or Dr. A.)  For another, they were all now much younger than she was; indeed, they looked like teens.  (We won’t even go into how young your psychiatrist should be!)

However, for me, my mother left out the most important choice of all:  your authors.  All my favorite authors have slowly gone to the Big Pencil in the Sky and left me here all alone suffering withdrawal symptoms with no really good place or page to turn unless I want to read about Snookie or vampires. 

Once, all my favorite writers were older than me.  I still have not forgiven James Michener for leaving his Smith and Corona, though I realize he had no choice.  Each summer I took three entire wonderful humid, hammock months to read one of his whopper, thousand page novels.  Who else today could or would write what seemed like a thousand pages alone on the birth of an island?  I loved his generations-churning books with so many characters he had to include a family tree or three in the frontmatter.  Acknowledgements alone ran 20 pages.  Michener was my writing hero back then.  They kept a writing desk for him at the Denver Public Library.  He had a wife who took care of “everything else.”  I can only imagine. 

Flannery O’Connor died way too young.  Many of us still mourn the loss of this voice that only gets more contemporary with the years.  A Good Writer is Hard to Find.  They should live forever, or at least outlive you.  Poor Flannery never even lived long enough to marry and have children, not that I’m sure she would have wanted to do either.  She did have kids, of sorts, peacocks.  She loved her peacocks.  Her childhood home is here in Savannah and we celebrate her birthday each year.  She died of lupus at about age 41, as I recall, leaving us a legacy of southern perfect books, just not enough of them.  I need someone to write about men biting heads off chickens; really, I do.  At least once a summer.

Humorist Lewis Grizzard was not the greatest writer.  Indeed, in his younger years, I despised him. However, after he was diagnosed with heart disease and endured a good many operations, he mellowed into a lovable author with more than hokey humor up his sleeve.  When he died at a way too young age, I felt just like the title of one of his books regarding an operation he'd had:  They Took My Heart Out and Stomped That Sucker Flat.  My heart was stomped flat, too, Lewis, when you left us.

That dadgum Tennessee Williams died too; I know…I was there.  Not kidding.  But that’s a story for another day.  I miss a writer who can rake your heart and soul over the coals and you love every painful minute of it.  I could make a longer list and I know I am heavy on southern writers, but it’s not that as much as writers who could really tell a story, tell it big and bold and with drama and language to bring you to tears.  You did not read the books of these writers to enjoy them, you read to suffer along with their characters, to live the life of another for a while, and never to forget them. 

This week, Maurice Sendak even had the gall to leave us.  We loved his words and his art. He said he liked kids fine, just not too many and not too close.  I know how he feels. At least he's gone on to where the wild things are.  We are stuck here left behind without him. What will I read my grandkids at bedtime?

I have a list of non-fiction authors, too.  It really hurts to see your favorite biographers and historians tumble into the tomb of tomes.  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.  Maybe they did not have young enough doctors?  My mother could have warned them.  My husband, Bob, complains of the same thing.  He’s so old all his doctors and lawyers and such are definitely younger, but his favorite writers long ago left their legal pads and no. 10 pencils behind.  He reads their books over and over, western writers from the great heyday of western writing.  He caves and reads their “new” works, as in written by SO-AND-SO (the famous writer) and so-and-so, the writer who’s really writing them in the style of SO-AND-SO.  Ain’t the same thing, he insists.

 There are many good writers today.  But great?  Did you notice that a recent big national writing award skipped handing out a few?  You can replace a doctor.  You can replace a lawyer.  But replacing a beloved writer who could really “bring it” is just not doable.  Nor, I guess, should it be.  But it doesn’t make me happy, especially not with summer coming, and I have a new Hatteras hammock (after 40 years—even my damn hammock died!) and I heard summer in the south is supposed to be especially humid. 

You can argue over real book, ebook, but that’s not nearly as important as what’s on the page, print or electronic.  If I could conjure up another Michener or Faulkner or O’Connor or Williams or Ludlum, or…

OH, NO!  OMIGOSH!!  HOW OLD IS MY HAIRDRESSER?

Creativity

I must have been doomed to write on creativity this week.  First, someone at work asked me to, then a favorite artist told me she was reading a book on creativity, and then I all but fell over a creative young man at a sidewalk art show.  And, lastly, someone reported to me yet again this thing about how we squelch creativity out of kids at a young age.  

I live in a land of creativity, but what I want to write today is creatively contrarian.  And with good reason.

I grew up in a family and atmosphere where I was only allowed to be creative in secret, by default, and because, honestly, adults just didn't dote on kids like they do today (thank God!), and so pretty much could have not cared less what I was doing, creative or not.  In fact, neither at home, nor at school, did the word creative especially come up.  It was not a skill.  It was not a "testable."  It was not particularly admired, encouraged, or appreciated.  

Creative has never been about what someone else thought about what you "made" anyway.  Do you think Dali, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Picasso gave a fig what YOU thought about what they created?  Why would they?  Your opinion did not matter.  Who were you to say yea, nay, good, bad, ugly to their creations? Who is the critic of creativity?  Those who can't create?  When is creativity right?  Wrong?  Does it have to be pretty?  Good?  Good, grief, Charlie Brown!

I had the luxury to be creative in my pre-book days, during my stint in so-called public relations.  People would ask me to do all kinds of things for them.  They were not "creatives," so not only did they not care what I did, they thought whatever I did  was great—mostly because they did not have to do it.  There was nothing to compare my ideas  to, after all.  This gave me carte blanche to make snow pink, do an annual report in rhyme, or any other wild and crazy ideas.  It was fun and the more I did the better I got.  

Then I started my own company.  Hmm, the early years were great; I could do anything I wanted.  There was no asking, "What do people want?"  How would they know?  If it had already been done, then what was creative about that?  I could invent, stay out of the box, off the grid, push the envelope until it was a square.  I was "one"—the best number for creativity.  Today I watched a Sunday Morning TV show segment about the women who selects the covers for New Yorker magazine.  To date, she's chosen about 900 covers from the many submissions she gets.  During the course of the story, she said something about being sure not to "pre-censure" the cover.  "I pick what I like," she said, noting that it was fine if it made people laugh, cry, talk, ponder, argue over.  She did not seem to worry or care if they liked her choice or agreed with it.  Today, at my office, we often squelch creativity by running the fine tooth comb of critique over it.  "Should it be blue instead?  Can we say that?  Will we hurt so-and-so's feelings?  Could we move the commas around?  Is this word ok to say?  Should it be bigger, smaller?" And on and on.  I used to try to stand my ground more, but now I don't care so much.  Creativity is not a committee.  It is a lone suffering.  

Yes, we do squelch creativity out of kids.  Here's sort of how, why, and what to do differently, my opinions only, but if you have kids, consider:

•Don't give them any paper with lines (including coloring sheets) until they are 10; what in the world is creative about coloring in the lines?  Give them lots of paper and all kinds of paper and it does not have to be square; it can be torn, clear, foil, fabric, newsprint, butcher paper, kraft paper, old envelopes, thick, thin, or anything else.  Do not tell them what to do with it or how; do not comment on what they do as cute, or good, or anything else...they are not doing it for you, and you could be wrong anyway.  "No, Mama that cloud that looks like a penis is a penis, not a pencil."  Don't ask; don't tell.  Do provide chalk and crayons, paints, clay, and they do not have to be new.  The best pencils I ever had were ones I chewed all the yellow paint off of, leaving only incisor  indentions to hold on to.

•Don't squander all your kid's free time.  Let them have time to daydream, to be bored (nothing creates creativity more than boredom!), to think, to stare at the wall (I still love to stare at the wall...it's the most productive part of my day!)...and don't inquire; let them be.  While I wish all children well, the most creative things come from lonesomeness, time to peel back the Vidalia onion layers of emotion, reminiscing (yeah, even little kids can sit around and fondly recall "Back when....")  You can't create if you don't get some time to feel the blood sloshing in your veins, the gray matter gooshing around in your head, your eyes and ears to look and listen, and your nerve-endings writing tunes  of what might be.  

 •Lower your expectations; lengthen your timetable.  I haven't met many six-year-olds with a patent, or trademark, or copyright.  Creativity has nothing to do with time.  A new very popular British author who has won many awards and a loyal following only just wrote his first books, starting at about age 73, as I recall.  My mother used to complain that I did not write romance novels.  When I asked her to be more specific, she specifically mentioned Gone With the Wind.  "Been done," I reminded her.  Creativity is not about what's been done, but about something unseen, unknown, and indeed, unknowable until someone does it, whether it is a book, painting, cure, concept, formulae, sculpture, dress, etc.  My creative hero is Charles Drew who figured out how to start a "blood bank" and do transfusions.  Wonder if his mom once fussed, "But Charley, it's blood, too gross, pick something else, son."

•Don't praise your kids so much.  Every person who creates something has one automatic fan (well, usually)—their mama...and guess what:  she don't count!  Sometimes I think...sometimes I really think—lucky the kid with some snot and concrete.  If you can create beauty or meaning or newness or awe and wonder with those two things, then the  world is your creative oyster.  I know.

And, if, perchance, I continue to write about creativity over and over and you ask "What's with that?" well, maybe I'm just trying to figure out why parents and schools are having so much trouble with this.  Give a boy a refrigerator box and leave him alone and he will probably grow up to be a ____________.  When my son Michael was small we let him have all (and there were many) foam peanuts and packaging that our printing supplies were shipped with, especially some styrofoam toner "blocks."  I loved watching him build igloos, towers, tunnels, continents, spaceships, dragons, and more things than I even know what were.  Being allowed to be creative is a great stress-reliever and it is one way you learn to think critically.  It's a big deal to say (to yourself) "What can I make today?" and just do it.  If you are not allowed time to figure it out for yourself, alone, and without critique, then all you have learned is that you don't know how to create, or you must not be good at, and you don't know how to decide, choose, invent, innovate.  Now why would we do that to any child?  I'm sending a mental kiss to an art teacher who once let me create and paint a set of "poker" glasses, and even gave me a good grade.  I'm sure she got a good laugh out of a second-grader's Vegas sense of style (my granddad was a card shark), but that's the point:  what fun is it, really, to squelch the creativity out of a kid?  No fun for them?  And no fun for you.  I can just hear Leonardo's mother now, "Well, if you're gonna go dig up bodies, here's some old kitchen stuff that might come in handy.  Wipe your feet when you come in, Lenny, ya hear?"  

There's only one side of the creative fence to be on if you want to help a kid and that's the side of freedom and ignorance.  What they write or paint or make won't hurt you, you know.  It might even save your life one day.  Besides, you'll never know unless you let them try.  They do not need your help.  They do not need your help.  They do not need your help.

At first glance this might appear a drawing of a young boy, but no, the artwork is the young boy himself, all chalked-up by himself, and arranged on the pavement himself, and trust me, in spite of the lack of emotion on his face, he was exceedingly pleased with himself!

 

The Life of a Writer...

The things that keep a writer busy are hardly ever writing.

Writing, after all, can be done in your sleep, anywhere, anytime...it's finding time to sit down

and type what you have "written" before it vanishes from the Jell-O of your gray matter.

The last 48 hours, for example, have involved;

a.  all the usual life stuff

b.  the process of packing up my Gallopade office from the busy week and prepping for the next week

c.  same with my home:  if it's not plants or wash or what the yard guy failed to do or what the pool guy did he should not have, it's just and endless array of "to dos" that have nothing to do with writing!

d.  there were fan club and Skype letters to respond to

e.  there were magazines to vet or read, books to order, and many other "paperwork" chores

f.  we won't even start with the emails!

g.  there was fun to do (I do so love to have fun!), such as a garden tour, visiting with Michele, Christina and friend, going to a golf tourney with Papa, seeing the new baby's new nursery, and other such things...busy, busy, busy!

h.  I had to vet the design of a new tee shirt an artist did for me

i.  I had to write a questionnaire for those I plan to interview for my new FIRST CLASS book

j.  I started a new book (reading, not writing, thank goodness!), a novel based on Civil War quilters, and I am committed to reading a short story each night.

k.  Paige would say I was remiss if I did not add that I finally finished my taxes, and a few other money chores

l.  There were "must dos" related to some upcoming travel and school visits

m.  I had some websites to visit for research

n.  Phone calls to make or return

o.  Cooking...and cleaning up thereafter

p.  My most hateful chores:  anything about the tv or any other appliance that needs something, but what?  And should I do, or does it require a visit from the dreaded repairman?  Grrrrrrrrrrrr...

q.  Well, you gotta look good, or try, and that takes time.

r.  There's church and devotionals.

s.  After a big rain, I had to sweep up leaves and such

t.  After some company, had some sheet washing and such to do.

u.  I did get to watch a movie—Midnight in Paris!

v.  I did make a million notes on a yellow legal pad while driving (uh, Papa was driving!)

w.  On Sunday evenings, I like to prepare for Mondays which are always busy and start with gym!

x.  Papa says we need to go to the grocery store; we are out of x, y, z, and more!

y.  I haven't read the Sunday paper yet and I always do; love to!

z.  Well, this should be WRITING, and will, either in my sleep or after midnight before I go to bed.  Because I know that if this was my last 48 hours, that Monday will be busy with work that is not writing, and more fun, and chores, and all that other stuff.  But I can keep trying to write!  Sometimes, people ask me, "How have you written so many books?!" and I honestly answer:  " I have NO idea!" 

Oops, can there be a "z+1"?  I had to write this blog; hope that counts.

                                                                                                                

Pet Peeve

Good people:  there are lots of them.

I hate this thing where people, often media types, claim something like, “Americans just don’t care.  They don’t support the troops.”  Or, “Americans don’t care.  They don’t give/do/say/think/understand/____________”… well, you get the idea and and can fill in the gap/gaps. 

 

There’s one big problem with this “They say” that “They don’t”— it isn’t true.  Sure, some people don’t care.  Some don’t do.  Some do bad.  Some do real bad.  But mostly, I see good people—Americans—doing good all day, everyday, all day long.

 

We do care about our troops, thank you very much.  One thing I’ve learned by traveling a lot is that if you read that in your own community, for example, that a classroom of fourth graders have written and sent hundreds of letters to soldiers, then you can be pretty sure that this same thing is happening in hundreds, even thousands, of communities large and small around the nation. 

 

And, if kids (adults, groups, churches, organizations, neighborhoods/fill-in-the-blank) aren’t writing to the troops, they are filling shoeboxes with goodies to send overseas, going on mission trips, delivering meals, building Habitat houses, making teddy bears for children in hospitals, knitting afghans for the elderly in Hospice…well you get the idea.

 

Every nightly newscast I’ve watched for quite a while on NBC features someone, or someones—American— who are “Making a Difference.”  They are young, old, in between, and some not in such good health themselves.  They may be doing fundraising, training seeing-eye dogs, giving free haircuts, blood pressure readings, key lime pies, all for good causes.

 

The Bill and Melinda Foundation may give billions and that’s bountiful, but collecting soup can labels, drink can pop tops, and many other small things also count.  What also counts are the good deeds we witness each day all around us.  This day alone, I have been helped by crossing guards, employees, my banker, my doctor, the grocery clerk, and many others, and likewise, like to feel I have helped this day by making a donation to a good cause, approving a donation of books to a military base’s schools, and more.

 

Americans do care.  “They” should quit saying that “we” don’t.

For one reason, I can’t believe that all the theysayers don’t care.  I imagine that they’ve done their own good deeds for the day, and been good-deeded in return.  This can all actually get quite silly; I recall not so long ago when some soldiers were begging folks to please quit thanking them for their service, “alright, already.” 

 

We Americans do give, do do, do say, do think, do understand.  No matter what “they” think, we do understand when politicians are full of it, for example. 

 

I think the “Americans don’t care” thing is not only self-serving for those who proclaim their absolute knowledge of such things, but also is tiresome, ridiculous, and mean-spirited.  “They” should speak for themselves and leave the rest of us out of it.

 

Perhaps around the world it appears that people think Americans don’t care/do/think, etc., but not those who get the letters, the shoeboxes, the donations, the free eye exams and eyeglasses, and on and on and on.  There are so many good blanks to fill in, I know not where to begin.  No time, anyway.  I must go and write a letter to the teacher I sponsor at an orphanage in Liberia.  And in my mind, I hear pens scratching paper everywhere—a rather noisy symphony of care. 

 

So see, “They” don’t know what “they” are talking about.  Do they.

 

Older and Better

One thing I love is watching people (all politics aside) get better as they age.

I’m thinking of the Carter Center, Jimmy and Roslyn Carter’s lovely compound in intown Atlanta.  I’ve seen great exhibits there, even one on fishing flies, which seem to be mini works of art.  Most of all, the Center, as you know, spends time and money fighting Guinea worm disease around the world.  What a good thing.  Since I get the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I’ve been able to follow their good causes since at least back to 1986, whether that’s building Habitat homes or eradicating dreaded diseases.  Look at Bill Clinton doing good.  Look at Hillary Clinton doing the best she can in the world of danged if you do, danged if you don’t diplomacy.  Both have aged admirably.  There is a world of folks who fall in this category, not all past presidents and spouses, of course, not all wealthy, not all with anything in common at all—just people who got older and wiser and help the world go around a little better.  I see them all the time.  One day I hope to grow up and be one of them.

 

In Fetters and Pale

            Sounds horrible, doesn’t it?—In fetters and pale. Ugh!  All but gruesome.  This expression was one I read on page 203 of Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James.

            I love the cover, the tactile dust jacket, the exquisite type fonts, the intriguing carriage with the disembodied hand waving some cryptic, surely dire, message.  But I didn’t care for the book.  P.D. is fabulous, so I am sure it was just me. I am too into Downton Abbey, perhaps. 

            But I did love this phrase—in fetters and pale.  Fetters are, as you know, a rather archaic term for restraints of some sort.  I am sure we have all felt as if we were in fetters at some time, even if not actually physically restrained.  We have all been pale.  Being in fetters would make you pale. 

            In this story, it’s a main character in fetters and pale; he has reason to be both.  But for some reason, to me, in fetters and pale just sounds like a feminine condition. 

            Next time my husband wants me to do something I do not wish to do (go to the supermarket in the pouring rain, for example), I will deny him, claiming, back of hand to brow, “Oh, I can’t dear, so sorry, but I am in fetters and pale.”

            Wonder if that will work at work?  With the IRS?  Oh, well, maybe it only works in fairytalelike, long ago and far away, onceuponatime eras such as P.D. writes about.  The land of Jane Eyre and such.  Not in the 21^st century. 

            Hmm…still…I think P.D. is on to something.  The very next time…the VERY next time I get an unsolicited money collection fundraiser phone call, I absolutely plan to say:  “Take me off your phone call list or you will be in fetters and pale!”  Oops, I mean, “I am in fetters and pale—and don’t you forget it!”

 

 

Gotta Milk Those Cows, Man!

[another thought in a continuing dialogue on changing directions in education goals]

It was the most unusual “talk” I ever gave. I’d been invited to speak to parents of top drawer high school students in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina area, land of high IQs and higher salaries. It was contentious from the start, unusual since I’m just a kid’s book writer, you know? 

It was a stormy night, the moms and dads seemed ill at ease and ornery. I had no idea why until they began to grouse. Most worked in the Research Triangle at high tech jobs; many had just been laid off due to a recession. Many, I learned, were losing their homes, being forced into bankruptcy. There was a look of panic on their faces and a general dismay palpable in the room. And still, good parents, they had come to hear me speak. Because I knew their kids were gifted, I was sort of tough on them. The Challenger had just exploded in the sky and there was all that talk about something called O-rings. I was talking about responsibility, owning a problem, speaking up…those sorts of things, when all heck broke loose. “Our kids shouldn’t be expected to do those things!” one father insisted. 

“Then who should?” I asked, thinking that if not their gifted kids to handle oversight, integrity, ambiguity, and them the best and brightest, why not? 

Their ire instantly turned in a surprising direction. They seemed to want to talk about how their sons would have to move away and change schools, right in the middle of football season. (“Priorities?” I thought to myself.) Maybe I missed something while I was musing, but suddenly a mother stood up and accosted a family sitting to the side. It was clear that this family was not One of Them. No three-piece suits and skinny ties; no Lily Pulitzer sundresses. “SHE won’t even let her sons stay after school for football practice!” the woman screeched. 

I noted the three well-built young men sitting beside their mother, the only “kids” in the audience. The complaining woman continued: “We want our kids to get college scholarships (In football?, I’m now wondering in amazement?) and those boys are dragging the team down by going home first and only coming back later for practice!” It was clear that these boys were the football scholarship material. The accosted mother stood up. She was near tears. “You don’t understand!” she said. “We have to milk the cows!” There were insulting giggles and smirks from the other parents. 

One of her sons stood up. In as polite a tone as I imagine he found possible, he said, “Ma’m, you don’t understand. We have to go home first and milk the cows. Our family’s dairy is our business. The cows have to be milked. The cows come first. Football comes second.” He sat back down and except for the outside growl of the storm, the room was quiet. 

Truly, I felt as if I had been transported to another time and place. How was it that the “smart ones in the room” had missed out on the “real world” skills of not living beyond your means, having emergency savings, and teaching their children a certain kind of responsibility? 

(The parents had already assured me earlier that “No, of course none of our kids work after school!”) The young dairyman had just trumped all their kids by spitting out an entire business education in a few words: “The cows come first.” 

How, I wondered, can we not forget that even our best and brightest can come to the work table clueless about the real world and hindered by a lack of certain work skills, attitudes, and understandings. If all the parents’ kids had also been in the room, and I were hiring, I already knew who my top pick would be.

Story Number 2: Pantego

 An awful lot of years ago, when I was a novice writer and speaker (still am?), I was invited to a very “down east,” all but off the map and in the sea school in Pantego, North Carolina.  Bob and I love the blue highways and always find it enjoyable to take a map (no GPS back then) and see if we can get where we are going on the backiest backroads possible.  Getting lost was always an option, and fun. 

            The elementary school was a small, traditional, conservative one in a tiny town in the lower piney woods and kudzu-crossed canals of a poor county.  I was unsure how folks there made their livings, but supposed it was agriculture, logging, and such.

            You can never judge a book by its cover or a school by its exterior.  Inside, this school was sweet, kind, gentle, colorful, accommodating.  Sometimes, a low-key, down-home, “you’re not a celebrity, you’re our friend” school visit is the very best kind.

            Even though the children had read my Carole Marsh Mysteries and wanted to hear about those, the teachers seemed very, very eager for me to primarily talk about writing:  the inspiration, the process, the uses of good writing.  I was glad to share.  I have a short list of  “reasons you want to learn to write” —the main one being so you can write a letter of complaint and get what you want:  refund, new product, apology, whatever.  Kids like that idea.

            The visit was fine and we returned home.  In just a few days, I received an almost frantic letter from a couple of the teachers.  It was accompanied by a manuscript, one written by a fourth-grade girl whom I actually recalled meeting during my time there. 

            Their lengthy letter begged me to review the manuscript and advise them how to “handle” this possibly talented young writer.  They expressed many concerns, seemed at a loss and confused, and I was truly puzzled by the rather cryptic letter.

            Until I read the manuscript.

            The young girl, as I recall, was small, quiet and shy.  A clearly poor African-American child (as was much of the student body), I could still tell from her wise, inquisitive eyes that she was listening and very curious during my talk, though she never asked a question. 

            You have to understand that I have a somewhat different take on teaching kids to write.  It may be a little more mainstream now, but somehow, I sort of doubt it.  I won’t elaborate, but one of my key instructions to kids is to write from their heads and their hearts, that each of us has a story, and our story is unique.  It is not wrong.  It is not bad.  It is not less because we don’t think we know how to write, it is not lessened by poor grammar or misspelled words, which we can fix later.  Seek the voice deep inside you and let it out.

            Alas, I have to add a footnote that their teachers may not welcome or appreciate such writing, nor may their parents.  But “real” writing is not about getting a good grade.  It is about the willingness (I should say desperate need) to share the story that is inside you, that is you. 

            My personal definition of writing is that it is the “excruciating ecstasy of transforming gray matter to black type,” but that sounds boring.  I prefer the famous old, “Writing’s easy; just take a knife and open a vein.”  I do not share these definitions with elementary school students.

            You speak, some listen, some heed, but geez:  I never expected such a young child to take me so much to heart.  Her very long manuscript was scrawled neatly across pages and pages and pages of notebook paper.  It was real, raw, honest, open, heartbreaking; a vein had been opened.  No doubt it was her real story, yes, the kind I said a teacher might not appreciate, and in this instance, certainly not a parent.

            I don’t feel I have to elaborate for you to get the picture.  At least this child was fortunate that her teachers instantly realized that she had a real gift, perhaps a great gift, a natural talent remarkable, indeed.  However, as they said, “Our job is also to teach grammar, spelling, etc.  But we feel we should not correct her work.  Are we right?”  Honestly, I could literally feel their hand-wringing, and with good cause.

            There was nothing “right” in the girl’s manuscript, at least not in the traditional, elementary school, “We’re learning to write” meaning.  But there was everything right…no, not right:  powerful, beautiful, compelling, and more in her writing.  She did not need to learn to be a writer—she was a writer.  If that wasn’t blood and brain on the paper, then I had never read real writing.

            I returned the manuscript untouched, just to emphasize my response that they were indeed correct:  Don’t change a word!  They’d also asked me to write the girl a short note of encouragement.  I gladly did.  The length of my letter was longer than her manuscript, and still, I felt inept to convey anything of worth to this most worthy young writer.  How to explain that her writing was perfect just the way it was?

            It was years before I had an answer.  When the book The Color Purple came out, I had only to read the opening paragraph to know what I had wanted to tell the girl, show the girl:  a kind of writing never before seen.   No, I’m not trying to say the girl was that famous author.  But I can say that she could have been.  In fact, her manuscript may have even been better, more exceptional, more purple than Purple?  But who’s to say.

            I never learned what happen to this young girl.  Did she grow up to be a writer?  Did she grow up at all?  All I know is that an outback crossroads brought my heart to the doorstep of her head and heart.  Our roads converged in a piney woods; I was the better for it.  I can only pray she was.

 

A Trio of Stories (Part 1: In the Army Now)

Last week I was asked something to the effect of what my “contributions” or “accomplishments” were over the last 30 years. I answered in the vague, PR-sounding monologue that comes out when put on the spot like that. After all, who really knows what, or even if, they’ve contributed or accomplished anything at all whatsoever. I can tell you no busy working writer dwells on such things. However, since I’ve been in this mode of we (at Gallopade) don’t change kids lives…we save kids lives, the question lingered in the back of my mind until I realized that the answer could not be measured in a product or a book, an award, or a statistic. Since my answer was supposed to eventually fit into some 25-words-or-less box, I guess that left no room for the truth. The truth, as nearly as I can tell, is a lot more ephemeral, more one on one, fleeting, happenstance (or perhaps just totally meant to happen?), and certainly beyond any plan or my control. Of all the “events” in my writing life, for some reason these 3 staggered into my head later as humbling examples of how we just do what we do, never knowing what it might “contribute” or “accomplish”—indeed, in a perfect world, the ending contribution or accomplishment best comes from those whose lives you might have touched, whether willingly, meaningto or not, or even by “accident.” Who’s to say? Especially in 25-words-or-less.

Well, here goes with story number 1:

In the Army Now..

Fort Bragg Long ago, as a new children’s book author, I was invited to speak at an elementary school on the Fort Bragg military base near Fayetteville, North Carolina. I was a novice at school visits, but learned I had many young fans there and thought it would be nice to do this small thing for our military children. As I recall, when my husband Bob and I got to the first school, the librarian in charge of the event was flustered. She explained that the students on the base had been upset over a forthcoming deployment. She asked me if I would mind trying to visit each of the base’s elementary schools and speak to them that day—so that all the children would get this “author treat” and not be disappointed. After I agreed, she confessed that there were eight schools spread over the base and that it would be a challenge, but that she thought we could get the job done. At that, we were off and running, sometimes literally, up and down hallways, into and out of gymnasiums and cafetoriums, across parking lots, and racing down long, straight, seemingly endless roads through the piney wood forests of the base. All the schools were in on the change of plans and helped by grabbing boxes of books, opening doors, tossing us bottles of water—anything to hasten us on our journey, which, of course had to be completed before the end of the school day. I had rehearsed one “talk.” As I said, I was a novice at this public speaking thing, and a nervous one, at that. The introductions were short and sweet, my first talk enthusiastic and coherent, the questions many, and I wanted to answer them all, not leave any child with a disappointed raised hand. Applause, blow kisses, give a wave, hustle on to the next school. Pretty soon, I could not be certain where we were, or what I’d said or not said. Lunch? Bathroom breaks? Neither! I was in the Army now, and we had a mission, perhaps impossible, but our librarian general was determined and so were we. It didn’t help that the weather came and went in gusty, rain-dashing downbursts, or that we got lost and made a few wrong turns in our haste. The faster the clock moved forward, the speedier we moved. Teachers had students seated and ready. We could do this, couldn’t we? Finally, I had to stop and go potty. (Surely even soldiers go potty?) My voice was cracking, then fading, then all but gone. Still we pressed on, tired, wet, thirsty, hungry. I no longer had any idea what I was saying but the kids didn’t seem to care. They were just thrilled to meet an author, that Carole Marsh had come to THEIR school, and that they had gotten to shake her hand, ask a question, or get an autograph on a book, snippet of notebook paper, or even on a grubby forearm. By the time we reached the last school, we were virtually out of time. School bus motors revved anxiously. The last audience of kids antsily crowded near the exit doors, coats and bookbags piled around them. Teachers gave me pleading, anxious stares. The introduction consisted of a Johnny Carson-style, “Here’s Carole Marsh!” Surely, this last talk was the worst of my life. The principal paced. Parents peered in windows and edged in the door, looking for their children. Drivers gunned their engines in big loud hints to hurry-it-up. My librarian minder had a gritted-teeth grin of encouragement that clearly meant “Talk fast!” I was completely exhausted, bewildered, and near to bursting into tears. (If you think this sounds silly, try this for yourself sometime!) I took a deep breath of fetid school gym air, summoned my dead vocal cords, and screeched at the top of my lungs the last talk I hoped I ever gave. There was no time for questions. The school bell CLLLLAAAANNNNGGGED. All heck broke loose. Still, a few kids dashed to hug me, say thanks, ask a rushed question, or offer up a grubby forearm for an autograph. Trying to hold my exhausted tears back, I glanced up with relief at the grateful faces of the teachers, hurrying to help students exit the building with the least amount of chaos and confusion. The principal gave me a hurried thumbs-up as he raced to guide busses out of the parking lot. When the auditorium had emptied, Bob, the librarian, and I stood motionless and speechless. I could understand why my throat was sore, but not why I was so sore all over, as if I’d just completed an eight-round boxing match. They each took an arm and lead me to the car. We drove back to the first school in silence. In the rain, we found Bob’s car and hauled our books, fliers, and such into the backseat. It was only when the librarian and I exchanged hugs that I realized that she had been as stressed as I, maybe more so. She had promised. She had delivered. So had I , I hoped, I guessed. We were even too tired to exchange smiles. Bob helped her into her car, and we all drove off. Back in town at our motel, I realized that I was still a novice speaker, but much more knowledgeable—and appreciative—of what “It’s all about the kids” means to dedicated educators. No child left behind, indeed. We had a drink, dinner, and went to bed. The next morning, we returned home. On the nightly news that evening, we were stunned to learn that while we’d been returning from Fort Bragg, a “stick” (as Bob says it is called) of soldiers who had jumped from their plane during a routine exercise…had been stuck down by another plane. I later learned that many of the children I had spoken to that day had lost fathers. It was a long time before I heard from the librarian. She wrote: “You were the last good thing that happened to some of those kids that day. Some from every elementary school lost their dads.” I never have understood what to make of that day. But ever since, even when I want to say no or have good reason to, I usually just suck it up and do it. Like any good soldier.

A Salute to Sara Blakely!

Some of you know who she is...

Sara got tired of seeing/having panty lines, chopped the feet off the end of her pantyhose and created a business called Spanx. She started her company 12 years ago with $5,000 of her own money and has self-funded ever since. In case you haven't heard: Sara was just named the youngest woman ever to appear on the World Billionaire list! Yep, at age 41, her company is a billion dollar business! What makes this really special is that she did not inherit money or her company, is a woman, is just 41, is an Atlantan, and seems to be a great gal. So if you want a business role model for your girls (or boys) tell em about Sara. As she puts it, "Life as an entrepreneur hasn't been all sunshine and roses." She says at an early age she learned not to be beaten down by challenges. "With every obstacle that has happened to me, my brain immediately says, 'Where is the hidden blessing?' In starting a business and growing a business, everyday is learning how to manage obstacles." Yeah, Sara, true, so true! My kind of woman! Let's celebrate her achievement (you can see her on the cover of Forbes magazine), our own achievements, and believing we can be all we want to be. Sara did. Sara does: She plans to now go public with Spanx so she can grow more internationally. After all, NO ONE wants panty lines—not even men, according to Sara!

How School is Changing!

My, how school is changing all of a sudden!

I read that 45 states have left behind...No Child Left Behind! (So does that mean it's now ok to leave em behind?)...What have they gone to?  Confusing to me.  Common Core Curriculum?  And this "new" thing: school-to-job-or college; what's  new about that...isn't that a big part of what school should be for?  

I understand what's driving this, but now, as I understand it, school is to be much "harder"...I thought school was supposed to be "hard," in a good way:  when you are learning something new, it usually is hard at first.  Challenging?  What fun if it is not challenging?  It's the swing from standardization and pass the test and things I did not necessarily agree with to a whole new thing—all right in the midst of the massive adaptation to digital technologies.  Sort of a fruit basket turnover?  Hopefully for the good of students.

However, if I were a teacher, I'd either be massively energized, or overwhelmed!  At least these changes seem to portend more out of the box (I hope!), back to social studies (why did we ever leave it behind in a global world?),more enrichment vs. worksheets (enrichment is the fun part!), less focus on test (and so maybe on cheating?), and many other good things.  I just pray some kids don't get caught in the crossfire of change.  

 I always say "I don't know nuttin' 'bout nuttin!"—but I have been witness to some interesting things that help me hope these new changes could be good for kids.  If not, my advice to a kid would be go live in the library among the great books of the world and teach

yourself.  You don't even have to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)...most libraries have done an amazing job of transcending with the digital times, leaving no patron, young or old, entering their doors behind!

What if....it really, really was about the kids?

These are my thoughts following an outstanding panel of educators and others at the Fayette Chamber February 28 to explore the task of preparing Fayette students for jobs that do not even exist yet:

-What if school is “in the way” of kids getting prepared to enter the swiftly moving river of business? Is education willing to have a “bloodletting” of sorts where they sit down face-to-face with business people and learn what they really want, need, expect, even demand, of a 21st century employee? For the benefit of children, can they together figure out how to make school a better bridge to job/career/economic success…and soon? Could such candor and specifics completely change our view of an “effective” education today, to seamlessly segue from student to successful job candidate/multi-career(s)/eager lifelong learner/effective civic contributor?

-What if, as in examples in the book GOOD TO GREAT, the business of education has changed so drastically (or needs to) that it calls for a bigger, faster overhaul of “how we do things”… that just moving people around on the bus is not enough, not nearly enough? If this were true, could we accept it? What if accepting it, and changing accordingly, meant such a fundamental shift that it turned our world upside down, but for the better—at least as far as student to job/career/success is concerned? Can we accept, even embrace, such a change? What would it mean to “go whole hog” versus a slower, piecemeal, fearful, cling-to-past methods approach? This is scary territory indeed, but these are scary times when we want every student fully prepared to be part of the workforce of the future.

-What might it mean if the answer to “Who is your audience?” was The Future Employer…and the answer to “What is your goal?” was for every student to: •Find passion for their life’s work •Have access to a straightline path to the jobs or careers of their dreams (many of which do not yet exist!) •Specifically see the value of any class or course of study to its use in this job •Above all, to answer the primary demand of employeeship and entrepreneurship today: be able to think and to do.

-What if different tracts toward this straightline path from student to employee were as short as a handshake—meaning there was such a powerful meeting of the minds between business and education that both knew what to do differently?

-What if parents (who don’t want their kids to spend 12 years in school, and yet still end up unemployable, under-employable, and possibly forever unable to “catch up”) became eager and active participants in a school/home/community/ business solution? Tools that tie them to what is being done in school could include specific guidance, exercises, and advice, so that children could be positively impacted every way they turn and realize we are all rooting them on to a successful future, and are here to help.

-What if kids were able to enter the River of Business (where the “future” is always now and change is constant and fast) well-prepared for sustainable success, via a new kind of educational system committed to lifelong learning?

-What if school wasn’t boring? What if the interface between the world of education and the world of work began in preschool and continued through high school? What if there was a compelling careers curriculum so effective that students were excited about learning in general, school each and every day, and their future? This IS possible!

-Where is our respect for a student if we don’t see, believe, understand, and appreciate that they are civic contributors now?

-What would it mean (and I am thinking total transformation) if we better recognized the “windows” when kids are excited about their future and believe that they can change the world, and we believe it too? Could we organize school so students felt they were constantly on a path that would lead them to a future that allowed them to do exactly this?

-Success is only a handshake away. How can “school” be the mechanism by which we move the student’s hand into the hand of his or her future employer? How can it be seamless and happen soon?

-If many of our most successful entrepreneurs and business people achieved success though the School of Hard Knocks, often “dropping out” of school to DO something instead of wander/flounder/wait…what does this tell us?

-What roles do different tracts, career exploration in all grades, internships, apprenticeships, “real world” scenarios, and more, play in having students discover the wonders of work, the purpose of knowledge, the need for lifelong learning, and the joy a passion for “loving what you do” can bring?

-I am the proud product of the Georgia public school system. I received a fine education. But I never received any eye-opening connection of “what it was for,” how it would help me, how utterly essential and useful it would all be, what my options were, or what I should do next. In fact, if anything, there were a number of detrimental events that squelched my enthusiasm, diminished my confidence, and undermined my concept of myself, my abilities, and my future. [Note: I was a good student, so heaven help the others.] High school graduation was much like a buffalo jump—into a kind of oblivion that derailed and detoured my talents, career, and eventual success as an author, educator, and entrepreneur for many years—all for the lack of a compelling careers curriculum. While I was able to bootstrap my way down a path to economic viability, lifelong learning, and civic and career contributions—this is surely not how we want the school-to-career connection to work.

-What if it really, really was about the kids? That would change everything, wouldn’t it? We must change. Not just identify the problems, but find solutions—and quickly. The future is so yesterday! It’s come and gone and the speed of business and change is faster than it ever has been, and not likely to slow down ever again. Are we sure we are getting kids ready for the right things…and are we letting them in on the secrets that any business person can tell them are the “keys to the kingdom”:

INTEGRITY

INTENTION

INITIATIVE

GUMPTION

COMMUNICATION

COOPERATION

COLLABORATION

CREATIVITY

CHANGE

CRITICAL THINKING

DISCERNMENT

ACTION

As has been said: If not you, who? If not now, when? If not, why not?

What needs to happen next, Education? What needs to happen next, Business? Get together. Get it together.

Think.

Do.

Now.

Please.

Our kids are counting on us.

Carole Marsh is the founder and CEO of Gallopade, an international educational publishing company, established in 1979, located in Peachtree City/Fayette County, Georgia. She is a Georgia Author of the Year. Her newest book, A KIDS BOOK OF “Get a Head Start!” CAREER SMARTS, will be released in June. Her GEORGIA CAREERS CURRICULUM for K-12 will be released in stages beginning this fall. She can be reached at carole@gallpade.com.

Read Across America Day at Gallopade

Hi Friends, Fans, and Fellow Bloggers, Gallopade has decided to re-vamp Read Across America Day! The entire publishing company is gearing up for our event on March 2, 2012! Please help spread the word! I can't wait to meet all of you and launch my newest book, The Great Train Mystery!

Here are some details:

On March 2, 2012, kids can attend a free author reading of The Great Train Mystery and (literally) read their way away across America with Carole Marsh! The Great Train Mystery, Marsh’s latest release in the award-winning mystery series, Real Kids! Real Places!, takes young readers across the United States, visiting some of America’s most interesting and historical places to solve a fun mystery along the way!

What:   Read Across America with Carole Marsh

Who:   YOU! Children, parents, students, teachers, fan club members and friends!

When:  Friday, March 2, 2012
10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Author meet & greet at Gallopade’s Educational Product Showroom / Mimi's Haunted Book Shop
10 a.m., 1 p.m., & 3 p.m. Group mystery- writing workshop sessions(1-hour long, Pre-registration required)
3 p.m. - 5 p.m. Author meet & greet and readings of excerpts from The Great Train Mystery; play Across the Country Mystery Trivia; tour Carole’s office

Where: Gallopade International 
6000 Shakerag Hill, Suite 314
Peachtree City, GA 30269

Cost:    Event is FREE; cost for the group Mystery-writing Workshop is $10 per child, with a minimum registration of 5 children per workshop session. Spaces are limited and are first-come, first-serve. For more information, or to reserve your group’s spot in the Mystery-writing workshop, contact Kathleen at 770-631-4222 x16 orkathleen@gallopade.com