Press-Republican

McGovern

Related Photos

  • Jerry McGovern, the Press-Republican's coordinator of Newspapers-in-Education, taught in New York state's public schools, and now teaches in the Communication Department of Plattsburgh State. He can be reached at gmcgovern@pressrepublican.com or 565-4126. This column is the opinion of the writer and not necessarily of this newspaper.

    mcgovern_mug.jpg

Discussion

PLEASE NOTE: There is a 150 word maximum for comments. All comments greater than 150 words in length will be deleted in their entirety.

ALSO NOTE: Derisive name-calling of an individual or group will result in the entire comment being deleted. This includes the terms "stupid" and "idiot" and similar references.

Welcome to our new online comments feature. Before you can join the discussion, you must first register with Disqus and verify your email address.

Once you do, your comments will post after they have been reviewed by a moderator.

We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean.

Not all comments are deemed printable. Some are disqualified, at the newspaper’s discretion, for a number of reasons. Here are some typical practices to avoid in trying to get your comment printed:

There is a 150 word maximum for comments. All comments greater than 150 words in length will be deleted in their entirety.

Don’t state as a fact something that is unsubstantiated or that our editors wouldn't know to be true.

Don’t presume someone’s guilt in a case when it hasn't been established by a court.

Don’t assail or impugn an identifiable individual or group. If you have that kind of criticism, sign your name and submit it as a Letter to the Editor. (There is some leeway on this in connection with public officials, but it is not unconditional.)

Don’t use profanity. This includes the term “tea bagger.”

Don’t be incendiary or tasteless. Those qualities are subjective, of course, and our editors will be the arbiters.

Do not identify yourself in the main content area of the article content form. Only by enforcing this rule can the moderators prevent unscrupulous commenters from falsely identifying themselves as someone they are not.

Don't type in all caps. It is considered the Internet equivalent of shouting.

In sports articles, do not criticize officiating.

Remember, moderators are not allowed to edit any article comments. If an article comment fails any of the above criteria, the entire comment will be deleted.

We monitor comments Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Approval of comments outside these times may be delayed.
comments powered by Disqus
May 29, 2011

Unlikely books become an education

JERRY McGOVERN, Contributing Writer Press-Republican

In a couple of weeks I'll attend a high-school reunion at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. It's a long drive for some linguine and too many sentences that begin with "Remember when ..." and end with an embarrassment I've tried to forget. This might be a dreadful evening.

The prospect of mentally revisiting high school, however, made me look back at the teachers we had, the books we read. My 11th-grade English teacher had a profound influence on me and is probably one reason I became an English teacher myself. I remember reading "Hamlet" and "The House of the Seven Gables" in his class.

Curiously, while the teacher influenced my life, the books we read for class didn't. Instead, my views and values were shaped by three books that weren't classroom assignments. In fact, after so many years, I don't remember exactly why I read them or who suggested them. What I do know is they changed me.

"The Children of Sanchez," by anthropologist Oscar Lewis, is the story of a Mexican family living in Tepito, a very poor section of Mexico City. Lewis tells the family's story by letting each member have a voice — chapters are "written" from each person's point of view. And those points of view sure are different.

Lewis did more than provide a window into an impoverished Mexican family. By allowing each person in the Sanchez family to describe his or her life, I realized that none of us experience the world in the same way. Our frame of reference borders our experience, shapes our world, modifies what we call reality.

Harry M. Caudill's "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" is about the history, culture, poverty and the coal industry of the Appalachian Mountains, especially eastern Kentucky. I was studying (well, I wasn't studying very hard) to be a Catholic priest in that area when I read the book, so I was sympathetic to its message.

The message was about the destruction of a beautiful environment through strip mining, the brain drain of the Appalachian people to assembly-line jobs in Detroit and a culture of poverty that molds generations. All of that — environmental concerns, the departure of those with knowledge and skills and the impact on those left behind — instructed me about complexity and cemented my skepticism about corporations and the common good.

I ended up teaching in the North Country because I hiked in the Adirondacks. My hiking guru was Colin Fletcher, who wrote "The Man Who Walked Through Time." The "time" of the title is the geology/chronology visible on the walls of the Grand Canyon that Fletcher hiked from end to end. Fletcher writes what he learns — about himself, about hiking, about the Grand Canyon.

Fletcher wrote about the striations on the rocks he walked between and his own limitations; he described his surroundings and himself. He reminded me to pay attention to my own surroundings but realize they won't change my inadequacies.

These three books moved the furniture around in my head and changed my mental world. At the reunion we'll talk about what we learned in high school and from whom. But, probably like most people, I learned a lot from strangers who wrote books I read on my own.

Jerry McGovern, the Press-Republican's coordinator of Newspapers-in-Education, taught in New York state's public schools, and now teaches in the Communication Department of Plattsburgh State. He can be reached at gmcgovern@pressrepublican.com or 565-4126.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
McGovern