I would like to use some of the materials which you have published on the web in a multi-media project for an education class at Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO. I have attached a copy of the description of the assignment. This is a class for people who are going to be high school teachers. I am going to be a Spanish teacher myself. What we are trying to determine are the answers to basically two questions:

1. What was it, exactly, that allowed you to overcome the limitations of your disability, condition, or exceptionality, whatever you want to call it, and to succeed in life? Was there a teacher, a person, family, or assistive technology which you found particularly helpful or inspiring?

2. What can we do, as teachers, to make our classrooms more accessible to people like yourself?

I noticed that you have done some rock music. Is there a music video somewhere on the site that I could use? If you are agreeable, I may have some more questions to ask. Thank you for any help you may want to provide.

Thank you.

Earle Horton
P.S. I remember you from the Brotherhood of the Spirit community. That was a long time ago. I regret missing the Renaissance Community mailing list conversations, but I got a copy of the Archives from Stephen Wolfson and read them later. What an odd bunch of people we were.

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hi, Earle! Interesting class.

Well, I was lucky. My Mom and grandma didn’t believe the doctors who said I didn’t have any IQ and should be institutionalized. Instead Mom pushed me into life. When schools wouldn’t take me, Mom taught me at home, but made sure I was in the boy Scouts, etc. and when I did attend school, I was lucky because for the most part I had Teachers with high expectations without limiting pictures, who pushed me. So I had high expectations without limiting pictures. So as Teachers, have high expectations without limiting pictures of all of your students. [lose “people like yourself ” picture.]

I write about this in my ART OF A SHAMAN [see http://www.eroplay.com/Cave/ArtShaman/artsham.html ]. And for an overview of my work, check out http://www.eroplay.com/Cave/shaman.html . If you don’t care about me singing nude, there are a lot of videos of our jams up there. If you want me singing dressed, we can put a video up. When do you need it by?

One of the things going for me was I am the kind that things come easy to. I am flexible. I don’t care about what is “normal, ” what’s “the right way.” I just play!

Please ask me more questions!

Oh, I just wrote this when my favorite teacher died:

I probably had a history class with him. But what is stuck in my mind is his World Cultures class. We sat in a circle so we all could see one another, talk directly to one another on an equal basis … not like in the regular row seating. We did learn about the World Cultures, and therefore diversity. But there was much more going on in the class. Mr. Haight got us to listen to one another, to reveal what we really felt and thought … not in a debating environment where you had to defend yourself … but in an environment of exploring. So the shy kids had the same access as the whiz kids. Mr. Haight created this environment with a warm chuckling humor and high expectations. I probably ripped off a lot of his style. I hope I did!

I wasn’t one of the shy kids. I was an opinionated big mouth. But I communicated by a head pointer and letter board. [I also typed with the pointer.] I only invented the head pointer a few months before I entered the class. But because of the environment, I could fully engage in the discussions.

When Ruth, John and I with a couple of other weird kids started a political club, Mr. Haight was our adviser. And when we wanted to print our own underground paper, he printed it on the school’s mimeograph machine. He talked in my defense when my radical political opinions in my column in the school paper got me in to hot water. Back then the disabled weren’t supposed to be radical or even political, just religious! But Mr. Haight didn’t see me as a disabled student, but as a passionate kid with something to contribute.

Really it was the two years that what was the Fifties transformed into what was the Sixties. And I think Mr. Haight did a lot of that transforming! This is obvious within his classroom. But I remember my mother and I going to his house for a study group about Vietnam. I also remember us and him on the picket line about the Vietnam War in Redlands! This was before it was fashionable anywhere … but in Redlands of all places!

Now fast forward to the early eighties … I ran into him in San Francisco. He was tickled at how my life had turned out, how I was a director, how I had relationships, etc. For awhile he was thinking of “investing” in my first film. But in the end he decided to use his money to take a bike tour around Europe with his wife. This made perfect sense to me. I learned how to make love with life from Mr. Haight!

Frank Moore
1/7/2010