Influence, a double-edged sword

This came up as a conversation on facebook today. A peek into the past. Seems like half the influences in life are the ones you have to overcome rather than ones that help you along.

Originally published by The Adult Side of Tumbler

Tim Jones In both my junior and senior years I was told I could not join the creative writing class.

Jan Williams Simone Don't you wish you could go back in time and bring one of your books to class? Or articles? Or your blog? Or your newspaper work? Etc.

Tim Jones As far as I know I am the only one from that class who has had anything published, except for one fellow who may have published some music.

Lara Simone Bhasin The American public school system is not a monolith. It is quite diverse and will function better if it is allowed to stay that way, rather than being overly controlled by the federal government.

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Jan Williams Simone I agree but this is about BAD TEACHERS. Not sure what the solution is...

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Lara Simone Bhasin Okay well I was responding to the last line of the post

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Tim Jones My complaint is more with guidance counselors. I showed something I had written to the teacher of that creative writing class and he said I should be in there. No one ever did anything about it, though.

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Jan Williams Simone You saw what I wrote about my brother after he skipped a grade? That was a problem with the teacher. The only solution I can think of is for parents to intervene on their kids' behalf.

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Tim Jones The problem there was bigger than one writing class and neither I nor my parents realized what was wrong until almost graduation. I had changed schools between freshman and sophomore years and never got very high grades. As a result I was put into a put into a program one level short of vocational. Late in my senior year when the national test scores started coming in, the guidance counselor called me into his office and essentially blamed me for not telling him I was intelligent.

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Jan Williams Simone :(

Tim Jones Part of the problem in the 50s was when the Russians put up Sputnik it scared the hell out of people and all the emphasis was put on science and math for a few years.

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Jan Williams Simone Just because science and math were being emphasized doesn't explain why YOU could not be in creative writing. Seems like pure incompetence to me.

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Tim Jones Overall the humanities were discouraged

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Jan Williams Simone That reversed when I was in high school. In fact, I was in my high school's first humanities class, which was for only a select group of us, chosen by the teaching team (English and social studies).

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Tim Jones That was the era of the only student revolution in American history and you had them scared lol.

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Jan Williams Simone Ha

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Jan Williams Simone The previous class fought for it but they didn't get to participate. Other people always did the fighting for me, LOL. Including my brother....

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Tim Jones I can only hope his experience with me taught that guidance counselor a lesson and took more time with other kids who came along.

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Jan Williams Simone That is a sad story.

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Tim Jones Well, you can't let the past rule your life and I am sure I'm not the only one who faced discouragement for seeking an artistic life. I was able to overcome it for the most part.

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Jan Williams Simone Tim Jones , definitely.

This whole exchange may seem a little self-serving, like oh poor me, but I guess all experience leads you where you eventually arrive or at least pass through. I can't blame my lack of production on this for sure, except in this sense. This kind of negative influence from several directions, including the school, my family and almost everyone else in my life, was discouraging enough that I did not commit to writing until several years after moving from school out into the world, losing what for many writers are the most productive years, if not for actual publications, for learning the craft and, too, experiencing what you want to write about. I finally got to the experiencing and eventually writing but I always thought I came to it late. So it goes.

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