Covering the business of education and training

The Vietnam conflict was quickly escalating into a war at the time as well. Two years after the assassination, American troops were sent to Vietnam. I vaguely remember seeing this on the news between cartoon watching on Saturday mornings. “We interrupt this program for a special announcement…”

    By the time I was eleven, I had other things on my mind: prejudice, discrimination, confrontation, humiliation, indifference… These words were dollar words to an eleven year old in the ‘60s. If I spelled them all correctly on the weekly test, my dad said he would give me a dollar. On the playground and in back offices of the teachers’ meeting rooms, however, those words took on significance beyond the three to five syllables I needed to sound them out. They were real feelings that people harbored, sometimes flaunted, learned or were taught. When they were lived out, those actions drove wedges between parents and kids who otherwise got along quite well with one another. I learned that could happen firsthand.