Progress!

I have won Best Evaluation and Best Table Topics at Toastmasters since the last entry, but still have not given another speech. Peter Nickerson at 352-359-0850

#5 A Setback

In the table topic section of the Toastmasters' meeting last week,I addressed a situation in public school up in Virginia, and ran into a constriction of my throat at about 3 minutes of speaking. I was speaking of race-baiting toward whites by the school administration at a graduation ceremony. The staff had a black girl run up and down the aisles in the audience while two white boys pursued her. This was a reenactment of fugitive slaves being hunted down during slavery. My children went to this school, and there was tremendous racial tension there. I wonder why with such a helpful school staff! Peter Nickerson MS, MSW at 352-359-0850.

# More Individual Input

I asked a clerk at Lowe's the schoolboard question, and her response was, "I would like to see the school staffs and teachers given the authority and backing to enforce discipline." This is an input particularly important to me because both of my children dropped out of school due to the physical and verbal abuse. On one day, my son was knocked to the floor and stomped twice by young thugs. This was back in Virginia where the school system was keeping alive slavery and the Civil War as if it happened only yesterday. This made it very difficult and very dangerous for white students. My son had made the mistake of reporting a black drug dealer, and the reprisal was quick and violent.
I have been reading Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason" and have found several items to report. Her opening quote was made by Thomas Jefferson in 1816. He said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Susan Jacoby writes that standardized tests in public schools are not demanding enough. There is no glory in passing them. (page 310).
She also drops a little pearl of wisdom: "It is easier to think and be told that you were a victim of a lie, than to know that you were too easily deceived." (page 311). Another way of saying it might be: "The sheep attracts the wolf."
I don't want to be accused of reprinting her book so will end with this tidbit from page 229: Among the 29 most industrial nations, American students ranked 24th in mathematics. We were only better than Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Mexico.
Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com.

Baby Steps

Today, I thought about the school board issue and how much better I would feel about myself and life if I went ahead even if all I took were baby steps. But what could I do? Eventually, I thought about Hillary Clinton touring New York supposedly listening to people's reception of her running for the Senate seat. Why couldn't I do the same thing and really use it to represent the people if I run? I could approach people, strangers, and say, "Sir ( or 'Mam), my name is Pete Nickerson, and if I ran for the school board and was elected, what would you like me to do?"
I called a friend and asked her the question. She replied that she would like to see more alternative educational programs (she's a liberal so of course she's interested in programs) to teach kids how to get along together better, how to function better while taking tests, and other things I don't recall. Later this afternoon, I asked the young woman who cleaned my teeth, and though she didn't have kids yet in school, she said I should attend individual parent-teacher conferences and sit in on classes to make sure I really knew what was going on in the schools.
Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com

#2 Winning the "What's Bugging You?" Contest

Days after writing the first posting, I missed a Toastmaster's meeting which is essential to my overcoming the speech phobia. When FM 97.3's "Drive Time Happy Hour" came on, I decided to get some practice. I called in as "Speech Phobia" to ask Chip Morris and Mr. PC if that had heard talk show host Michael Savage discuss the "Rolling Stone's" article about Goldman Sachs ruining our economy but getting richer as the result. They hadn't, and Chip Morris graciously asked me for a precis.I said a couple of sentences, and Chip picked it up and went with it.
Yesterday, I called in during the "What's Bugging You?" Contest and told Chip and PC that a sentence I had read in "The Wall Street Journal" several weeks ago kept bugging me and wouldn't go away. The sentence was: "If you like public housing, you'll love public health care." Chip liked that and took it away. PC gave me first place which means I have one chance out of thirty to have lunch with the two of them. That would be great fun as both of them are very much for the individual - that's you and I, zombies (How could you not like someone who is for you, zombie liberal-collectivits?).
I think I have solidified things at Toastmasters that I don't want to give a prepared speech yet because that causes all sorts of anxities to arise. Instead, I want to be called upon to give an extemporaneous one. That will only happen when someone who is expected to give a prepared speech does not show up. Unfortunately, Toastmasters does not include giving extemporaneous speeches of say, four to seven minutes, a part of its program. It does have a place for one to two minute unrehearsed mini-speeches which are called "Table Topics." Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com, 352-359-0850.

#1 Why Run?

I want to do something more with my life, and back in Virginia, I had started to run for the James City County School Board, but when the school board staff contacted me about attending a meeting to introduce myself, along with the other candidates, to the media, I chickened out. As Viper said of Maverick, I have "a confidence problem." I actually have two, and they are severe and chronic enough, to properly call them phobias. I have a phobia of public speaking and another one of being in an audience. I got the first one at Ferguson High School in Newport News,Virginia speaking Latin from our fourth-year textbook and the second one at William and Mary. I got through undergraduate school and my first master's without having to give a speech, but for my Master's in Social Work, I had to give two speeches including introducing and defending my research paper. I got through the first speech by making it about my phobias and then got through the second by admitting that it was scary getting up before classs. This got a murmur of sympathy from my fellow social workers (if you aren't the nurturing type, you don't belong in social work), and fortified, I proceeded on. If I could function okay, I believe these disabilities would help me in having empathy for students who are challenged by school in general or any specific aspect of it. But this does not mean I would concentrate solely on leaving no student behind because I believe that every student should be able to get ahead and go as far as his abilities take him while in public school. Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com.