ILLITERATE TAUGHT HIGH SCHOOL FOR 17 YEARS!!!!

[David A. Daniel]

Not as rare as you might think. Although getting away with it as a teacher
seems a bit extreme...

When my mother retired in the 1980's she signed up for a literacy program as
a volunteer teacher. Her very first student was a guy who had an MBA from,
if memory serves, Cal State University Long Beach, and who was illiterate as
a lamppost. He had been an athlete of some sort - basketball I believe - and
had just sort of been allowed to float through the system ever since grade
school. How he floated through from undergrad to grad, I don't know. So, why
start literacy classes now? His wife had left him, and she had done all his
reading and writing for him for years.

Throughout the three or four years she was in the program as a volunteer, my
mother was continually flabbergasted at the number of folks with all manner
of diplomas and degrees and such who were showing up for literacy classes.

Moral of story: Be careful when someone shows you a piece of paper, there's
a lot of worthless paper out there...
DAD


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 2:13 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: ILLITERATE TAUGHT HIGH SCHOOL FOR 17 YEARS!!!!


An inspiration to all of us (for diverse reasons):

  http://www.10news.com/news/15274005/detail.html

  JL


---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org