Many of my peers may remember our elementary school years as being filled with teacher’s lesson plans that were composed primarily of exercises that would teach us the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. In my opinion, those skills, along with learning how to read a map and type, have allowed our generation a formula for success. Looking back, I wish I had stayed enrolled in my shorthand class, instead of dropping it on my third day of 8th grade. I just didn’t understand how in the heck all of those little marks on a piece of paper would ever be useful. Boy, was I wrong. I think of that class, and my decision to drop it, every time I attend a council meeting or event where I need to take extensive notes. Being forced to write things out in longhand has been my punishment.
Going back to the topic of early education and reading, I remember sitting in one of my Signal Hill Elementary School classrooms in what our teacher called a reading circle. She would separate the class into four or five different circles, putting students together who shared the same level of reading abilities. In my group, we were all quite adept at not only reading silently to ourselves, but reading aloud as well. I believe the others in my circle were Eddie Sandsteadt, Terri Hastings, Keith Larsen and either Danny Wilson (my crush) or Brandt Authier.
Time after time, we finished our reading assignments earlier than the other groups, so to keep from being bored, we decided to turn our books over and see if we could learn to read upside down. At first, our teacher wasn’t too keen with the idea, but she later relented and decided as long as we were learning, she didn’t care how we went about achieving that goal.
Over the years, I sure have been happy that I learned to do the upside-down reading thing. I relish the fact that I don’t have to peer over a person’s shoulder to see what he or she is reading, I can just glance over and read it from a topsy-turvy viewpoint. That ability has been especially helpful when trying to go over a written document with another person when seated facing the person. Sitting side-by side when conversing with another person isn’t always practical and sometimes can be a little awkward when dealing with a colleague or client.
What brought all of this to mind was a recent posting that I read on my Facebook account. In a boxed graphic, words were printed upside down with the accompanying caption challenging the viewer to see if he or she could indeed read words turned upside down. One of the comments posted about this graphic was from a retired newspaper man who shared his experiences of having to read words turned on their heads in order to get the paper ready to be type-set and printed. I will share his words with our readers next week. I think you will enjoy his explanations of how things were done, as I used to call it, “back in the olden days.”
