Owed Thanks - Part 2

There were several teachers along the way whose help was notable...

Mr. Ordway, my 7th grade math teacher was teh first teacher with whom I had success. Just success.

My 9th grade math teacher got herself fired by telling me to get out of that shcool. She was right - and she got out first!

My senior year psychology teacher, Chuck Kalinski, has provided for me a model of caring for students beyond the classroom - and for bringing subjects to life - or at least avoiding putting the students TOTALLY to sleep...

Hmm... I think I will see if I can drag him to BIQ Boston this cycle!

John Day let me act. On stage. In front of people. It was wonderful!

Dr. Andrews let 19 year old Josh into his graduate course on educational change, along with a couple superintendents and principals, the head of the Division for Youth Services, and other adults... And taught a great course, whose material I still apply! And he lives not too far away either...

Don Oliver taught by Socratic Method - but had 90 students. It didn;t work for the overwhelming majority of students. It did for me. Education and Community is a book he wrote that I went to find after the course. It and he propelled my views of what an educational institution should and could be.

He taught me about burn out - and why I needed to avoid it.

My mom. She taught me to write. It has stood both of us in VERY good stead. She did not teach me formally - and frequently, it happened in passing, not directly - I suspect that that was best...

Hmm... I think that is about it. There were many other lessons that my teachers over the decades have taught me - "socio-cognitive foundations of behavior," "if you can't wash your hands well enough, then we will humiliate you," "it doesn't matter oif you knwo the material - it matters if you do it as I have TOLD you to do it."

I am not sure that I owe these folks even the thanks of teaching me what I did NOT want to be. I would like to think THOSE are things I would have learned on my own...

Owed thanks - part three

For SO long in my life, friends were a rare or non-existent part of my life.

David gets thanks, because without him, there would have been nobody. Yeah - towaard the last few years, I would have been happier/more comfortable if he had understood me better - but even the parts he COULD have understood I needed changed in our interactions I could not tell him - the parts he would not have gotten, I cannot imagine even TRYING to tell him.

Andy was okay. Not really there. I am not sure that I was really there either.

The members of the Alchemists Subterranean Society were my first clue that I was not alone.

And Betsy changed my life. W/o Betsy, I do not know if I would have been ready for ESP and the MIT folks... My first friend - let alone my first girlfriend.

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The change from pre-college to college age was stark. Not that I found so many friends AT college - but it led me to where I did.

Many.

The notion of friend, which had been so alien to me, grew quickly to a place of need, not convenience, once I understood the concept! The friends I made through ESP... through Science Fiction... through Chess... these are folks who made a difference - even if they passed on through.

Some of them, I still account as friends - though we do not speak often. They are people with whom I would enjoy reconnecting, even as I fail to do it. So, knowing that I skip some, I list them anyway - for a period and of a sort...

Misty, Audrey, CJ, Becca, Mike D, Tim (who died too young) and Gil and the rest of the Amber Society, Elaine (Rueben T, Shava), Pat, Colleen, Mimi, Renee, Lorelei, Beth, and and and...

Many, many - who made my life happier, made it fuller - and to whom I would be hard pressed NOT to offer thanks, for their friendships... and maybe I will give some of them a call or drop them an email...

But today?