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   Paul Gordon

   Posted November 22, 2011 at 11:14 AM

   I have perused your website with interest. I have many fond memories of Nova. I attended from 1977 though 1980-81. It seems everything is status quo, the administrators are trying to push to have things change to provide for their needs such as staff and money. I am not implying they do not care about the student base, merely that they do so from a different point of view than the Language Arts instructor might. There will always be those who would like more structure, more staff, less student control, and in turn those who would see the school run entirely by students with no structure whatsoever.

   I am of the opinion that this struggle or balance is what has kept Nova alive. There were times that it was on life support, I have never stopped watching it. I used to call Elaine on a regular basis just to check in, and when I was in town I would come to the school. The names changed, the pants got baggier, and haircuts different but in the eyes of the students I saw myself and the other ghosts of students past that roam the halls of Nova. I was a horrible student at Nova. I was always on the edge of not doing quite enough. I was out of town a lot and in many cases if the rules were followed I would have been taken out of Nova. But, I had to work. I left home at thirteen to escape alcoholism, drug addiction and abuse that had gone on since I could remember. I traveled with a carnival for a while and then Ringling Bros. Circus, always returning to Seattle. I was intent on getting some kind of education and I found Nova. I was allowed to be enrolled despite my age being a little under what it was supposed to be at that time. A few other rules were broken as well, but having heard my story and what was going on in my life, Elaine believed it was my only chance at any kind of education.

   I attended when I could, I learned as much as I could. I did not complete the work as I should have to provide any kind of proof or documentation of what I had done. There is one thing that provided me the chance to be successful at my education. My escape from the time I was six-years-old was reading. I read and read. Often a book a day, this continued all of my early years though laying my hands on that amount of books was difficult until I discovered the library. Once I found the library I felt released from the chains of many things, not the least of which was the oppression of my learning and encouragement of my ignorance from those around me who felt threatened as I continued to learn more about life and that around me. I had the means to learn anything about anything that I desired. That is a freedom that is unparalleled, and one right that is rarely taken from anyone in the United States. I learned a lot at Nova, I learned that there was a place where someone cared if I succeeded, succeeded inside of myself not on a piece of paper. It was important to the staff to have some statistics to turn in, to show progress, and yet they continued to teach me guide me despite my lack of providing this to them. I did participate deeply in the processes of running the school, I had an interest in seeing if the student input and participation was bullshit or not. It was partially. We were sometimes stifled by the staff on certain points an nudged to a direction they were more comfortable with. I, the quiet yet outspoken one, would fight for what I believed. Red faces and loud words were not uncommon, good decision were also not uncommon. They seemed to go together like the oars to a row boat, this propelled and helped to steer us in the right direction.

   I loathed the Language Arts department, I found it tedious and boring. I had read most of what they had and more. Doing exercises to prove to them I had seemed counter productive. In the time that it took me to prove I had read and understood something I could read two or three more books. Math I as week in, horribly weak and I had long since identified weaknesses in myself and vowed to work on them. I worked hard at the math, it was difficult for me and I did not like to be in front of others not knowing something. I could not learn like they wanted me to. I refused to do a problem if I did not understand or could not learn the reasons or the process. To simply learn how to do a particular problem seemed a waste because there was always another slightly different, and if I learned the pattern, the reason, and how it worked I could then solve any with the same pattern or process. I was bullheaded about this. If a squared times b squared equals c squared, then there must be a reason and a way to prove it. Elaine taught me individually and brought me some more advanced books to look at that had the answers to my nagging questions. And I learned and sopped up the knowledge. I also made some friends mostly the staff versus other students, I was odd in some ways I was a fifteen year old boy with the experiences and life of someone twenty five. I did not identify with many of the students but the diversity provided a place that felt safe and I could stay invisible if I felt I needed to, but listened to when it felt important.

   I am going to jump ahead now. I did eventually fade out of Nova. I did not process any of my ninth grade credits because it would have been counter productive. I was switched to the three year plan. That is how it worked then I have no idea how it is now. So during my time at Nova I received .5 total credits from Drivers Education. I attended for over three years, when was not fishing in Alaska or traveling with Ringling Bros. Circus. But, I learned, I was given knowledge unselfishly from the staff. At that time it was Mark, Bobbi, David, Greg, Elaine, they were my friends and my knights in shinning armor. Their expectations of me were that I learn, that I not waste time that might be given to other students who did want to learn. In turn I showed them respect and worked hard when I was there to help in anyway to keep Nova viable and open. It seemed like we had emergencies nearly every year that might close us down. We all worked hard to make sure that did not happen. Now where did this all take me? I hate rhetorical questions and just used one.

   I took a GED and enrolled in Seattle Central Community College where after four quarters I had a 4.0 GPA. I read the book for two days before I took the GED and scored in the nineties on everything. I was called by the University of Washington after the four quarters and offered a place there which was somehow “arranged” because I had noHigh School Diploma, I had no Associates Degree, but I signed papers they handed me and attended for almost five years with them paying for it all. They had wanted me to write, to write a lot to publish but I was not going to be pushed to do anything that I did not want to. I took the amount of English courses that I had signed to take but I was in learning heaven. I lived in the libraries where there were more books than I could believe and some were open twenty four hours. I tutored and tried to help those who struggled. And I learned. I learned Fisheries Science, I learned Oceanography, Speech Communications, and Biology. I learned a lot they did not really want to teach me. I learned more in the library than I ever learned in the classes. I firmly believed that no one had anything worth while to write, to share or to give to others until they were at least thirty years old. I would not waste my time or a readers time by trying to publish anything before then. I really doubted I would ever do anything like that anyway. I write to get rid of voices that plague me. To be rid of the words that swirl and twirl in my head and try to get me to arrange them and play with them to add images and make them sound right. I am coerced sometimes to even write poetry and I dislike it immensely so to fight back I will only write in rhymes in most cases just to piss everyone off who thinks that you must be obscure and out of sync to be a poet. I don’t care, I laugh when someone tells me the rules of rhymes that I learned over and over in College and I remind them that rules are not very effective in writing, only to the extent that it provides a better experience and understanding to the reader. More importantly, has it relieved you, the writer of some burden? Have you provided something unique to someone.? Did it teach you anything? Was there a discovery for you?

   Writing without learning is akin to flying without wings. Surprise people with your insights, they are in there you just have to let them out. Follow the rules to learn them then once you do break them as much as you can. Pay less attention to commas and periods and more to compound and complex sentences and which flows better. Do not forget the simple sentences, they, when used properly scream at a reader. My writing takes me over I do not direct it, it directs me. Like now, I have gone off on a tangent and gotten way off of my original subject, I would sooner quiet the sounds of the waves at the ocean than stop my fingers when it takes over. In here, there is a message, maybe for you maybe for me. We only have to find it. The beginning of one piece I am doing probably sums up best why I must write:

   Decision

   Chapter 1

   This will be another lame ass attempt
   A share of my feelings at a certain time or event
   It never will work I try and I try
   I cannot just quit and I’m not really sure why

   I put at the top a Chapter 1 at the start
   Because to do what I’m trying will take all of my heart
   To share such real and such deep seated feelings
   May take many days, with pauses for healing

   Like voices of a crazy it plays in my head
   Images conjured, words meant to be read
   Over and over moving the words all around
   It never will stop until I write it all down

   Then as I read and stare at the paper
   I shake my head hard and have a look at it later
   The words are all there maybe missing a few
   Or in the wrong order, and too many too

   A quandary for writers they need a good vent
   I’ve read of some others who say it’s God sent
   I am not so sure that I agree with that thought
   If it was from God I should find perfect a lot

   So here I go I will try on more time
   I don’t think that perfect will ever be mine
   This particular event, I may not be worthy to tell
   To share it imperfectly is my own word kind of hell

   One part of it’s perfect, once very near me
   The “it” that is perfect, is not an it but a she
   Perfect at nothing but perfect for me
   But then I lost sight of what I wanted to be

   This is already very had to write down
   Admitting it all in emotions I’ll drown
   I cannot avoid it, remember the head thing
   Playing over and over, until I could scream
   (to be continued)

   I had my oldest son died two years ago and I went back to the streets for two year, the dark and dank streets, I had been shoving down my writing for years intent on successes in business. I was successful at that. I ran large home building companies, companies that build 4-600 homes a year. I controlled those companies and was offered the sky to do it. I was prior to that a national consultant to those and larger companies. They hung on my every word because I was effective in my choices for them. From their business processes to their software and networks I made their decisions for them and they followed them. I was self taught in networking and software. I had my writing from my reading and from the U of W. But I had my life skills, my drive, my belief in human nature, my math skills, and my people skills from Nova. I had my half of a credit, I could prove I attended. I went to Nova and that is where I received my education, any who dispute that can come see me and discuss it with the guy who took care of himself and stayed alive as a teenager on the streets, in the carnival and circus and as a fisherman in Alaska. I made it out of the streets alive and I am back on the track of life again. This time I am writing, writing a lot, I have to if I want to stay sane and to stay well. You see I was out on the streets again but this time I was out there with a chip on my shoulder and a lack of care about myself. My son had died and I lost my mind for a time. It was as if I blanked out everything from the time I was 13 until the time I hit the streets. I have the scar of 47 staples on my scalp, and still put the man with the baseball bat down after the beating he snuck up and gave me as he tried to rob our place. I have no idea what his outcome was from the two by four that caved the side of his head that was held in my hands. At the time I did not care, I was in survival mode. I saw where I would have been without Nova, that place I was at, when I did not care about myself or who I hurt. That would have been me without Nova. I need to wrap this up. I have a couple of thoughts for your quandary about changes and to answer the parent who wished there was more structure and for Mark, who you should not be too hard on he is trying to do his job and to help to keep Nova viable in the manor he knows how to and believes is best. But fight him too, he will need it to keep balance. I imagine he will respect you for it if you bring succinct and well researched ideas and thoughts to the table so he can feel comfortable enough to change his position. I vote no on more structure, rather provide the structure as an option for those who find they need it. When they discover they need it. If you had tried to structure me I would have left. I later structured myself in order to accomplish some goals my coordinator and I had identified. I set up the times and the classes and created my own structure. Allow the students to do that and learn from it. If some need mores structure and rules help them develop them for themselves and define the consequences of not performing, let it be their idea or you may lose a Paul Gordon to the streets or worse.
   I have not researched this new name they have out there, my guess is that it is a negative. Realistically new names are used for control or change towards control. I have seen nothing that defines it in anyway clearly on your site. Would you purchase any life changing item without a clear description and price ? If no one has defined it clearly then it is only a thought not a concept yet. Let someone else test it. Nova is tested, your still here, I’m still here. There is much to boast about within the walls. I will miss the old building. I did some memorable things there and some you do not want to know about. I do not know how things run there now but the thing that were most important to me were:

   1. Participating in the committees I believe we had to be on two at all times I was on SMC Systems management and , and I don’t remember the second one but it was a light load one once a month or something.
   2. Having the staff focused on my learning above all else. That means above the paperwork and all of that. That was for me, others perhaps that paperwork was important for their success. So in summary treat the students, each student, as an individual. He or she will not tell you everything, but they will provide clues, when they do keep it to your self sharing such things is difficult and private. We don’t want to talk about it or discuss it we simply want you to know it so you can understand us better. When and if we do we will tell you we want to discuss it.

   3. I was treated with respect, but was held to certain expectations. These expectations revolved around respect and manors. What I gave to that is what was returned. If I chose to be loud and rude then that is how I was dealt with back if necessary.

   4. Time was taken for me to talk to the staff. I chose who, and they would talk as long as I needed if we got into something deep they swung their arm and metaphorically cleared their desk (we had couches) I more than once was there past six or seven with a staff member.

   5. Rules are a guide, this is mostly for Mark, I do not know him but my guess is in his position he prefers more black and white than gray. The Nova students are gray, they are not black and white, or weren’t in my days there. We were all swaying to and fro like a thin pole in the wind.

   6. I was allowed to express myself in any manor that did not interfere with others. This was for attention, to stand out. Remember withdrawing is a passive way to try to do what others do with spiked hair and saggy pants or whatever it is this year. We might have needed that elsewhere. In my case I needed to be invisible. You weren’t surprised by How I looked or didn’t’ show it but, if I looked funny I was laughed at, if looked scary that is what was said. Don’t send me out of there looking funny and not tell me, it hurts. If someone is obese telling them bullshit about being a few pounds overweight might help to kill them. “You are obese and killing yourself, if you don’t work to change that you are going to die. “ The truth is the truth and they already know this, and they know when your not being honest. When you are they remember and you have lost them.

   7. From Orwell break any of these rules rather than do anything down right barbaric. I may not have it word for word but the point is there.

   Pleas accept my apologies ahead of time for this writing. I was purely a brain dump, a first draft and I have no time right now to do the 57 re writes I would normally do to still have it be imperfect and horrible, at least in my minds it would be. I have yet to say “This is done there is nothing I can do to make it better.” I do not know if I ever will. I do know that it will be perfect, it will be just as it is supposed to be,, when I am dead. However I know I advance my first drafts are very rough, lack imagery and often worn out metaphors and all the classic mistakes.

   I will leave one last thing for now, it is a summary of sorts about the past two years:

   Poppytalk

   An exciting trip of happiness,
   A ruse of flower buds
   On a train, with too few stops
   A wreaking smell above

   The smell of death of others
   That die along the way
   Masked by flower nectar
   Few will walk away

   Hearing happy people
   The new rider will be taught
   He finds himself drawn into it
   It’s all just poppytalk

   Avoiding all the windows
   No one wants to see
   Out there is the truth
   The sad realities

   As time slips by unnoticed
   Seduced into the fold
   A peek out of the windows
   Cause shivers, of the cold

   Payment is required
   Futile struggle will ensue
   One by one the “never wills”
   Are done to pay the dues

   Trip of hidden nightmares
   Few stops along the way
   Insanity, the iron doors
   Are stops that pause the pay

   One more stop, that’s hidden
   Just one before the last
   The only hope for any
   Get off before it’s past

   Those that jump have hope
   Truth is most won’t stay
   The lure of the trip they had
   Pulling them away

   Destiny for those that hang
   They stay until the end
   Those who left, are working hard
   For any chance to mend

   Higher than the twins once stood
   The track composed of lies
   Demise the destination
   They keep on getting high

   Millions watched in horror
   When two towers fell
   The riders of the train don’t know
   They are in that kind of hell

   Those that love the riders
   Watch in horror too
   With guarded care they watch
   Riders fates will match the two

   Help no longer possible
   Watched with pain and love
   Only one can save them
   Most don’t hear the One above

   Choices now removed from them
   Fate controls their ride
   Sadly it’s a quiet thing
   And most just let it slide

   Riders who, reach the end
   Find themselves alone
   No one there to give a care
   Too late to get back home

   If any left that love them
   Ones who hoped and tried
   Watch with tears of anguished hearts
   The Conductor joins the ride

   The Conductor, loves his children
   Though some do go astray
   Tears roll down His cheeks
   On their darkest day

   The decision has been made
   A rider hearing Him this time
   The voice of all authority
   The Conductor starts to shine

   With a fathers voice
   He summons, through the shine
   Another rider off to ever, hearing:
   “End of the line!”

   P.G.

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