43. Bootie Zimmer: The Underground HIstory of American
Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Bootie
Zimmer
The miracle woman who taught me to read was my mother,
Bootie. Bootie never got a college
degree, but nobody despaired about that because daily life went right along
then without too many college
graduates. Here was Bootie's scientific method: she would hold me on her lap and read to me while she
ran her
finger under the words. That was it, except to read always with a lively expression in her voice
and eyes, to answer my questions, and from time to time to give me some
practice with different letter sounds. One thing more is important. For a long time we would
sing, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H,
I, J, K, LMNOP..." and so on, every single day. We learned to love
each letter. She would read tough
stories as well as easy ones. Truth is, I don't think she could readily tell
the difference any more than I
could. The books had some pictures but only a few; words made up the center of attention.
Pictures have nothing at all to do with learning to love reading, except too many of them will
pretty much guarantee that it never happens.
Over fifty years ago my mother Bootie Zimmer chose to teach
me to read well. She had no
degrees, no government salary, no outside encouragement, yet her private choice
to make me a reader was my
passport to a good and adventurous life. Bootie, the daughter of a Bavarian printer, said
"Nuts!" to the Prussian system. She voted for her own right to decide, and for that I will always be
in her debt. She gave me a love of language and it didn't cost much. Anybody could have the same, if schooling
hadn't abandoned its duty so
flagrantly.
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