John Hersey's "The Child Buyer" an unforgettable read

If one is a gambler, the safest wager in my opinion would be that any woman, of any age, would remember her first big red heart box of chocolates or bouquet received from an admirer on Valentine's Day. Many things are forgotten as time slips by, but not the joy of a special valentine aimed at the heart. And, likewise, lives there a man with heart so old who does not remember the joy of being worthy maybe for the first time in his romantic life.

In the rural school I attended we often shared homemade valentines, and also recognized the birthdays of George Washington, whose Gilbert Stuart's portrait hung on the wall, and had our respect for being the father of our country, and honest Abe Lincoln who could split rails and served the country well during the Civil War. Meanwhile, with spring on the horizon, it was time for the big Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues to be delivered on the RFD. My sister and I would shop through the wish-book and hope by Easter there might be a new pair of patent leather shoes in the mail. Shoe boxes had a very special smell of leather.

Above all, however, school and the importance of the three Rs went on as usual and discipline remained backed by parents who respected the teacher. A whipping at school might very well receive the same at home. Recess and the games we played were important.

Many years later enrolled in a graduate class for the teaching of the exceptional child the instructor was much impressed with "Barbie" as a useful toy, but many in the class, including me, took issue and voiced the opinion that a large discarded cardboard box had a better chance of stimulating imagination than "Barbie." However, there might have been a bit of prejudice since we in the class were long removed from our first valentine and were showing signs of the middle age slide.

Required reading included "The Child Buyer" by John Hersey, 1960, in which a 10 year old boy, Barry Rudd, with a high IQ maybe found in one out of 500,000, was being sought by the government for a defense project. He was to be bought with the parents consent.

"He could at the age of 10 tell you the family, genus, species and sub-species of every bird and every living thing you could imagine. " He wanted to be a taxonomist and at the time he was being questioned was trying to track down the order of the Holothurioridea, the sea cucumber.

His parents, after receiving a 21 inch screen TV, airplane luggage, the mother a mink bed jacket, magazine subscriptions and other upper middle class stuff agreed to sell the boy who would spend the rest of his life in isolation for the use of his brain.

Many failed education policies were included in the book. In the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test given every three years "The United States ranked 30th in mathematics, 20th in science and 14th in reading. (The Christian Science Monitor).

The Course of "Common Core" is still on hold.

W.E.B. DuBois said "of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental."

Whatever may come, Valentine's Day should always be one a person likes to remember.