The Terrible Need for Change
It’s disturbing to me that constructive discussion and meetings with positive agendas are, in too many places, being replaced by destruction of property of innocent people in order to be noticed in the media. That will not win sympathy or understanding from those in power. There is a middle ground where change is necessary and can benefit everyone, but blind and pompous destruction is not the answer. It gets attention but really only fans the flames of rage on both sides. There are better ways to win allies.
Change is absolutely needed, but it won’t happen overnight, and certainly won’t happen by tearing down every monument or other symbol that smacks of controversy on one side or the other. Resentment on both sides is being intensified. We change history by civil discussion and understanding each other’s needs and shared history, not by trying to erase them. We need history at times to remind ourselves not to repeat it. Injustice is still rampant and felt most by minorities, who have waited too long for change and compassion. It’s not difficult to understand the fury and exasperation of the oppressed, but forcing that anger upon innocent people doesn’t help to eradicate it. Determination is only increased on both sides, instead of finding middle ground for compassion and real change for everyone’s benefit. Turning our nation into a war zone is simply not the solution. It’s only making things even worse than before. JB
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
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