The Greatest Gift You Can Give

My Mom gave me the greatest gift you can ever give a child. She gave me the gift of reading. As a divorced single parent who worked a full time job, there wasn't a lot of time for her to interact with us, but she made the time count. She didn't sit us down in front of a TV. She read to us and developed her own set of flash cards to teach my brother and me to read. She started with 2 letter words, then three , then four etc. I'll never forget how good it felt to read my first three letter word (off) and I did it before my older brother! The first last and only time I beat him at anything.

The first book she read to me (that I remember) was Joseph and the coat of many colors. We made her read it to us every night (probably a good thing since money was tight and books were expensive. As tired as she was and as much as there were other things that needed to be done, she never let it interfere with our reading time. She taught me that if you can read, you can do anything. She made reading seem like this magic wand that would help us get whatever we wanted. Because of her I developed a passion for reading that exists to this very day.

Every Birthday or holiday with gifts involved I always got a book. First the Hardy Boys, when I caught up we had to wait until a new one came out, and no matter how tight money was she found a way to get me the books I loved. I went on to graduate from college, and most of the success I have had were due in party to my habit of reading everything I can.

Which brings me to the point of my blog. I keep reading about the failures of our public schools and the crisis we face in education. There is no crisis in education. I repeat, there is no crisis in education. There is a crisis in parenting. Any kid with a passion for reading will stay in school, or school themselves. If a kid can not read BEFORE he or she starts school, you have failed them as a parent. Certainly there are exceptions, some kids with dyslexia may take a while longer, but for the vast majority of kids, this is true. Lets shut off the TV and give kids the attention they deserve. The crisis in education will disappear quicker than a David Blaine magic trick.

Once again, only my opinion...Thanks mom for not failing me.