The Wonderful Blog Which You ve Never Seen

I grew up reading sports stories and playing hockey. So what better subject matter for my first foray into the children’s lit genre? “Good luck selling it,” a publisher told me when I showed him the manuscript. “Boys don’t read.”

Boys don’t read? That was the first I’d heard of it, and I have a five-year old son. I began to research the subject - and sure enough, I found out he was absolutely right. Once boys hit eight or nine years old, they stop reading.

Entire forests have been sacrificed in a bewildering array of reports on the subject. Educators tell us that boys are dropping out of arts courses as soon as they can. In testing of primary school children, girls consistently outperform boys in reading and writing tests by a wide margin. This is consistent with international results: The same finding was reached in a recent study of 36 countries. Business leaders are beginning to take notice, complaining that recent university graduates often lack basic literacy skills. Some 50 percent of all high school aged boys consider themselves non-readers!

These same studies make it clear, if it was not already, that reading is an essential life skill. In a 2004 Canadian government report, reading is described as “the search for deeper meaning” that enables children “to refine, extend, and reflect on their thinking” and will “result in high levels of learning.” Boys who read often get higher grades in school, and they are less anxious about schoolwork. And perhaps most significant of all, boys who read turn into men who read.

Most literacy experts have zeroed in on one culprit: technology. There is too much television, MSN, computers, video games, the Internet, Gameboy, and ipod. These mediums are winning the battle for the hearts, eyes and ears of our boys. The solution is equally clear - boys must be presented with books that strike them as equally meaningful and interesting as those other mediums.

We understand the problem. We have identified the culprit. We have a solution. So why haven’t we reversed the trend? To put it bluntly, why is reading something girls do?

Before writing my novel, I took a few trips to bookstores to check out the competition. At first, I was greatly encouraged: There was no competition. Virtually every book was for girls. The depth and range of these girl-oriented novels was impressive, and as a father of a 10-year old girl, I was pleased. The few selections geared toward boys were non-fiction sports books - either biographical accounts of athletes or a catalogue of statistics. Small wonder boys don’t read - there is nothing for them to read.

A vicious cycle needs to be broken. Boys do not read, so publishers do not publish books for them, and writers write for girls. Boys continue not reading because there is nothing of interest to them, which only encourages publishers and writers to avoid that market.

I want my son to read. I want him to be like my daughter, who will ignore several calls for dinner to finish a chapter, or will secretly turn on her nightlight to finish a book. I have a small cache of classics for him. But after we get through Tom Sawyer, what will he read?

More to the point, will he read at all - or just turn on the computer?

David Skuy is the author of “Off the Crossbar,” a sports novel for boys. You can visit his website at http://www.charliejoyce.com He is a popular lecturer, speaking to kids and parent groups on the importance of literacy and sports for children.

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Having an outstanding memory is generally considered to be a great gift and a talent we should all work hard to develop. Brain researchers believe that we never actually forget anything, and that everything we encounter in our lives is retained, even if it doesn’t register with us consciously. It’s not our memories that are less than perfect, but our ability to recall the stored information.

Some people just seem to be able to recall anything on demand. Other people - me included - sometimes ‘forget’ important things, but seem to be able to recall the most irrelevant facts about TV shows, films, songs, bands, books and other trivia, often dating from childhood, at will.

Unless you are one of those lucky people who never seem to ‘forget’ anything, you would probably like to improve your recall. One of the most simple and effective things you can do is to never say ‘my memory is terrible’ or ‘I can’t remember’ or ‘It’s gone’ because that’s just like telling your subconscious mind not to bother looking for the answer. Instead, try saying ‘it will come to me in a minute’ and if you believe it will and confidently expect it to, it almost certainly will, often when you least expect in and are otherwise occupied. This has probably happened to you before, and with practice, you’ll be amazed at how effective this simple technique can be.

However, this week I’m not actually talking about how to improve your memory, in fact almost the opposite.

There are times that it’s much better to be able to quickly forget.

Do you realise, how good we are at quickly forgetting (or removing thoughts and feelings from our conscious minds) can have a direct impact on our ability to perform at our best? It can also affect our mental and physical health.

I’m not talking about being able to forget things we read, see, learn, or important facts encounter during our business or personal lives. I’m talking about how easily we can recover and forget the negative affects we all inevitably suffer from setbacks, letdowns and disappointments.

Some people can carry negative feelings towards another person because of some incident or other, for incredible lengths of time. Trivial incidents can build to unbelievable proportions. Mountains can certainly be made out of molehills. Close friends and members of the same family can become enemies. There are people who spend so much time thinking about how much they dislike someone that it becomes a major part of their life. They often even forget the original incident but the feelings remain.

The other person may not even be aware of the extreme feeling directed towards them. The sad fact is, in these cases, it’s the person carrying the negative feelings that suffers. They can even make themselves sick in any number of ways, and they’ll probably hold the other person responsible.

I like to think, or at least hope, that these scenarios are the exception rather than the rule. But it’s worth thinking about how quickly we recover from things, and to try to increase these abilities

Are you still upset about a minor incident or disagreement with your partner, a friend or a work colleague, hours, or even days, after the event? Do you replay the incident over and over in your head and can’t forget about it?

Many people are even harsher on themselves. It’s possible to spend so much time mentally beating ourselves up over something, that it totally prevents us from moving forward.

Obviously it depends on how serious the incident is, or how serious we consider it to be. Sometimes we just have to try to be more tolerant and less demanding. But there’s no doubt that replaying and rehashing negative events and feelings is destructive and pointless and will do us no good at all.

Think about it, if you went to a movie and didn’t enjoy it at all, would you keep going back to see it over and over? Yet this is exactly what we can all too easily do in our minds.

Sometimes we may not be able to totally forget, but at the very least we do need to be able to forgive and move on, whether it’s someone else or ourselves. I know this can be easier said than done and that pride and all sorts of other emotions can be involved. Sometimes a frank conversation or complete break may be the only solution.

There are no set rules, except that taking some action is infinitely preferable to just letting things fester and doing nothing! Otherwise we can waste vast amounts of time and energy, or set ourselves up for future regrets.

‘Life’s too short’ may be a tired old clich

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So many times in life we would like to try something new. Like a new sport, different style haircut, changing clothing or loosing weight. But are afraid to try because of the criticism we might receive from others because of our change. Over time we have been brainwashed into believing other people’s opinions and think they hold more weight then our own feelings. We don not want to be judged. If you want to break old habits you must not be controlled by outside people. You must have inner control.

This is your life!

There is nothing wrong with a little criticism. You just have to be able to decipher between the truths. Listen for it. Ask yourself if there is any truth to what someone is saying. Do they know what they are talking about? If you feel they are after careful consideration then use their feedback to improve. If your intuition tells you they are full of it then disregard it! Be true to your self and only accept opinions that hold truths!

Don’t be afraid to have criticisms of your self. But make sure they are your own opinions and not someone else’s. If you don not like something about yourself then change it. Always look to improve.

Sometimes our own criticisms are tainted. This goes back to being brainwashed. Others have fed us information over the years that might have be tainted and have altered our thoughts over the years. Since we were not trying to decipher between the truth, our thoughts have turned into a messy desk where you can not find the paper you want. It is time to clean up the mess of criticism and restructure. This is the only way you will be able to change you habits and better your life.

Seth Francis is the owner of
http://www.breakyourhabits.com Learn the true steps needed to
Break any Habit in only 21 days. With the help of Personal
coach Lee Milteer, Seth is able to bring you a comprehensive
program to help you dig deep into your inner self and release
your habits from with in, while reprogramming your mind.
Copyright 2006 SPF Enterprises

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