Owego Rotary Club Rotateller

Al questioned us on less popular Presidents such as Martin Van Buren and Calvin Coolidge

Carolyn announced that Bob Butterfield passed away. He had a daughter and granddaughter who were exchange students and he served the Club as both president and secretary.

TEAM TRIVIA:

Matt announced that the competition will be at 7:00 PM on Friday, March 2. Linda and I look forward to participating.

PROGRAM:

Sharon has been bringing excellent programs to us this month. She introduced Georgianna Horvath from Literacy Volunteers of Broome/Tioga. (Please note that Orv is a contributor and that Maria Dixson and is on the Board. I believe that Susan English is a former Board member.)

Georgianna spoke well and started with the Mission Statement of Literacy Volunteers. Georgianna made a strong plea for volunteers. She went over the need and talked about the extensive programs. 62 of 119 who are currently being served have English as a second language. The estimated figure of people who are not functionally literate in NYS (5th grade level) is 19%. Two things that she did not mention is that people need to understand that it is likely that they can improve their reading even though they were not successful in the past. In addition to the high demands placed on reading in our culture for employment, it is also important for us to have an informed electorate with out type of government.

As Steve and I were discussing after the meeting, there are many reasons why people may not have achieved functional literacy. It is well-accepted that English is the most difficult of the Romantic languages to learn to read. One reason for this is what is called poor “orthographic transparency”, i.e., the code of our language is not simple or consistent as it is in Italian and Spanish. Also, to become an effective (sufficiently fast) reader, the timing required in the brain and networking of brain areas is overwhelming. Research is just starting to tell us more about this. Since phonics is so important, it has been the focus of research and remediation for the last three decades, but the realization that even more is involved is spreading.

Schools are currently expecting children to read in Kindergarten. While I appreciate the emphasis on reading, I think that this is misdirected and increases failures. Please excuse my soap box.

50/50 Fred Strauss

On the topic of reading, Maria Dixson recommended: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers her Father’s War, by Louise Steinman. Coincidentally, we watched “Flags of our Fathers” this weekend. I think that it is important that we do not let the horror of war fade away, but as someone who avoids reading some of the bad news, I can understand when people do not want to read books like this. The following are two excerpts which I feel communicate an important part of her message.

How does one transform a "sweet and peace-loving" man into a soldier, someone who is expected to kill? Most WW II GIs were civilians hustled from dry goods stores in the Bronx, farms in Tennessee, mines in Colorado, banks in St. Louis. What happened to them when they encountered gruesome combat against the Japanese in the swamps and jungles of the Pacific Islands? What enabled them to kill other human beings? And, just as important, what psychological scars did they bear after they returned home?

The churning motors of the troop ship carried United States Army Private Norman Steinman, serial number 32983436, age twenty-eight, to a latitude farther south than he had ever ventured. Farther from my mother, pregnant with my sister, their first child. Farther from the future he had imagined before the war. Farther from the self he inhabited and could never return to, farther from the person his children would never meet.

Like most Americans, my father knew no Japanese personally. He knew little, if anything, about Japanese culture. Japanese films were unknown in America, Japanese literature largely untranslated. Not until 1953 was there a major exhibition of Japanese art in the United States. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Japan was as mysterious for most Americans as it had been when Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853. What my father knew about the Japanese he'd absorbed from wartime propaganda, or learned from bitter combat.

Rotary Club of Owego, NY

GUESTS:

MUSIC:

FINES:

TEAM TRIVIA:

PROGRAM:

50/50 Fred Strauss

Rotateller Rotary Club of Owego, NY
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Gary Williams, Editor