For example, when I was registering on the first day, standing in a long line to get past this one station, a woman asked, “What do you think your major will be?” I had no idea of what she meant by “major,” but the girl in front of me said “English” and that got her through, so I said “English” (whatever that was) too.

I was the model insecure student, as hardly a day passed without my remembering, “Stanley, you’re so dumb.” I can look back now with amusement and laughter at some of the things I did. This was the turning point in my life: not what I learned there, but getting the nerve to enroll. I was playing drums in a rock-’n’-roll band when I left the service and enrolled in junior college. I was twenty-one when I finally received my diploma from high school, which was somewhere near the base but which I never saw or visited. During the day I drove bulldozers and forklifts, and at night I learned how to write a complete sentence. I joined the Air Force to get away from home and after a few years started taking correspondence courses through the mail. In bidding me farewell, my counselor fired his last shot at my self’-esteem: “Stanley,” he said, “you’re so dumb you couldn’t finish school even if you tried.” When I was expelled from high school at the age of seventeen for fighting, I had passed two units-one in woodshop and one in gym. As a teenager growing up in Detroit, Michigan, I hated school, all my teachers, and learning in general. He is a former professor of history at California State University.īeing a writer is one of the great achievements of my life. Jerry Stanley is the author of several highly praised books for young readers, including Children of the Dust Bowl, winner of the Orbis Pictus Award I Am an American, an ALA Notable Book and Hurry Freedom, a National Book Award nominee and winner of the Orbis Pictus Award. Urn:isbn:0517597861 Scandate 20100618014823 Scanner .“I’ve learned there’s no such thing as wasted writing or bad writing. OL2752468W Page-progression lr Page_number_confidence 86.21 Pages 120 Ppi 400 Related-external-id urn:isbn:0517885514 Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 17:06:05 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA119917 Camera Canon 5D City New York Curatestate approved DonorĪlibris Edition 1st Scholastic print.

I am an american by jerry stanley