Reading and Writing, and Arithmetic, Taught to the tune of a Hickory Stick…

I was a child that really loved school, as a kid, a teen, and an adult. In my childhood, I adored spelling, words amazed me and I competed in spelling bees and won once in grammar school. That played into a love of English and reading and writing and poetry as I grew. By High school I was fascinated by writing and was the editor of the paper. I admit I always had a love for history and social studies as well. I had dreams of becoming a Newspaper writer, a journalist. But as life does, mine took a turn to reality and things changed.

As an adult I took classes from time to tie that never were finished as life got in the way of my wants. Then as a older adult I had the chance to feed that old dream, the one that allowed me to learn, to know, to grow. I studied English Literature and submersed myself in literature and words. I of course had to take sociology, psychology, and a required Algebra course. But the one course that changed my world view that made me see inside of me and see the picture of the world in focus, was Christian Worldview. It changed me in a way that I am thankful for, broadened my sense of self, of acceptance, of how much more alike we ALL are than different.

I believe knowledge is power, power to love, to accept, to give, and to be a good human. Real knowledge is knowing that our differences make us unique, special. I suppose this is why the level of ignorance and manipulation in this world now that revolves around lies, hate, and untruths is especially heavy for me. I was a child that loved learning, and the reality of life is we always are learning because life evolves, ever changing as we grow older. I am blessed I say to have had the education I had, to have learned to be fair, to hear, to listen, to see the reality in life, to believe in the goodness of people, to believe that we are never too old to learn something new.

I still love literature, history, and words are something I treasure deeply. If I could afford it, I would still be in school… Nowadays the studying I seem to be doing is that of the changes in people, sadly it seems to take up most of my time. My words seem to be caught or buried deeply some days, and I often find myself lost trying to understand the how, why, and what of life. While school is no longer something I attend, the real learning comes from living life. That is ongoing, if you stop learning what happens? I’m only sure that I don’t want to know the answer to that, not yet….