Guys write years after graduating from Steel Balls University and tell me how often my Mother’s Quote has helped them in business and life. The Quote enables most who hear it to save a lot of time and energy.

She was a teacher of reading in Appalachia.

In the days before the HANDICAPPER GENERAL made everyone equal by outlawing IQ tests, teachers knew the IQ of everyone in the class. As an aside, for those who think Appalachian Stereotypes are not based in fact, the highest IQ she ever saw in 24 years of teaching was 114.

IQ tests were outlawed because it was PROVEN SCIENTIFICALLY that when the teacher knew ahead of time that Debbie was smart and Darlene was stupid the teacher didn’t spend the same amount of time with Darlene. Therefore, the HANDICAPPER GENERAL concluded that if there were no IQ test scores, everyone would receive the EQUAL amount of time from the teacher. And then . . . well that’s where my Mom’s Quote comes in.

For her family to survive, Mom had to quit school in the 7th grade in 1926 to stay home and cook and clean with her older sister Frances. They raised the other seven Irish Catholic children. When I turned 10 in 1950 she began studying for the GED high school diploma. She passed it in 1952 with the highest score ever in the entire dang county. In 1954 she graduated from Clarion State Teachers College. She began working on her Masters while teaching full time elementary classes. By 1964 she had a PhD and was driving back and forth to Buffalo University to take Continuing Education classes for reading specialists.

When she was near the end of her journey on this side, we’d often discuss how to solve the problems of the country. We were discussing the ban on IQs. She said:

At Buffalo, every summer they would have the LATEST, SCIENTIFIC, GREATEST NON-DISCRIMINATING, NEW METHOD OF TEACHING READING. I would learn it and then in the fall I would use it.

In 24 years of teaching, no matter which method I used, the smart ones got it and the stupid ones didn’t.

Let me know how that fact makes your life a bit easier.

Aloha, RDS