Reflecting on our Love/Hate Relationship with Media

The Love Hate relationship with Media takes many turns through out lives. For instances as young 1st and 2nd grader I began learning reading words and found that I could identify the words and say them aloud. I'm not sure about then, but sure do like how some words roll off the tongue and learning those words is a great joy. The love relationship is words and their meanings, but the hate relationship runs a much deeper vein. It may not have been hard for me to learn to read words, but it was really difficult for me to understand what they meant when they formed thoughts or ideas that were not my thoughts or ideas. I remember well the meeting my beloved 2nd grade teacher had with my mother and me near the end of the school term. "Betty" she said, in a stern but caring tone, "this boy can't understand a thing he reads and the way I see it we have two choices. We can either hold him back in the 2nd grade or send him to the reading lab." Held back I thought... I knew what that meant... failing the second grade, I sure didn't think that was an option... How embarrassing I thought! My Mother said send him to the reading lab, what a relief fell over me as I knew I wouldn't be failing the second grade. All of this was really quite a surprise to me anyway because I had not received failing grades on my report cards. That's my hate relationship... print media and the comprehension curse! I'm not the only one that suffered this dreaded curse then and many still do today. I thankfully went to the reading lab and spent some time with some great ladies that taught me great reading strategies that didn't just catch me up with my peers, but allowed me excel. My hate relationship print media is better now, but in the course of that journey I developed a great dislike for "English" in general because it lacked rules. Sure there are rules about this and that, but they all exceptions to the rule. This in a very practical way soon meant to me that these "rules" were really just suggestions and you shouldn't be punished for getting a suggestion wrong. What would happen if math had suggestions instead of rules or rules with exceptions?