I Know I Am Not Supposed to Say This... but I'll Say It Anyway." - Hardcover

Feagler, Dick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1886228523 ISBN 13: 9781886228528

Publisher: Gray & Co, 2001

Synopsis

“Once we all believed in something called common sense,” writes Dick Feagler. “These days common sense is often regarded as a subversive activity.”

That would make Feagler one of Cleveland’s leading subversives, for his widely read newspaper columns regularly flout political correctness in favor of a simpler, more old-fashioned pursuit of the truth.

And he is no late-awakening reactionary. Feagler has been writing eye-opening columns with the same direct style now for three decades—since long before the concept of political correctness arrived on the scene.

Collected here are 129 of Feagler’s sharpest recent columns, originally published between fall 1998 and summer 2001. Whether the topic is politics or pop music, nostalgia or narcotics, Feagler aims straight and his words tend to strike right on target. Which explains why his columns are frequent fodder for Clevelanders’ daily water-cooler conversations. And why he infuriates so many of his critics. And why he hears so often from readers who say, “You tell it like it is—I might have said that myself.”

Feagler doesn’t see a lot of art to his success.

“I lay no claim to ‘telling it like it is,’” he writes. “I tell it like I think it is—or ought to be. But in an age when commentators tend to pull their punches, telling it like you think it is wins you some points.”

It has also won Dick Feagler a lot of regular readers.

About this title

About the Author

Dick Feagler is a featured columnist for The Plain Dealer and host of the weekly interview program Feagler & Friends on WVIZ-TV25.

A native of Cleveland, he graduated from John Adams High School and Ohio University. Following service in the Army and a stint with the Sandusky Register, he signed on with the Cleveland Press in 1963 as a general assignment reporter. His feature column ran in the Press from 1970 until the paper’s demise in 1982. Throughout the 1980s, Feagler’s columns ran in many northern Ohio newspapers, including the Akron Beacon Journal, the Willoughby News-Herald, the Lorain Journal, the Painesville Telegraph, and the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram.

In 1993, Feagler signed on with The Plain Dealer, where his columns continue to appear.

Dick Feagler’s other media roles have included news commentaries for WKYC-TV3 and WEWS-TV5. He served as a senior editor for Cleveland Magazine and contributing editor for Corporate Cleveland. He has appeared on NBC’s Today and Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow, and many of his commentaries have aired on National Public Radio.

Earlier columns have been collected in two previous books: Feagler’s Cleveland and “Did you read Feagler today?”.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Harsh Lessons

Some people say these columns are simplistic. And they re right. These columns are as simple as I can make them. They yearn to speak the simple truth. At this hard task, I fail more often than I succeed.

Today s is as simple as I can make it. What inspired it was a front-page story the other day headlined State exams last straw for 4th-grade teachers.

The story said that many teachers want to stop teaching the fourth grade because of the Ohio Proficiency Test that fourth-graders are required to take.

A professor was quoted as saying: I ve dealt with teachers who have seen kids cry or throw up before they take that test. But they can t speak out because they fear retaliation.

Has it really come to this? Are we in some jackbooted educational police state where children vomit at the thought of a test and teachers quake and worry about reprisals. All that? Here in Ohio?

I don t believe it. Here s what I do believe, put as plainly as I can put it:

Why do kids go to school?

To learn stuff.

Who decides what stuff they ought to learn?

Experts.

How do the experts decide what to teach the kids?

They try to teach what it takes to be an enlightened and functional member of a broad society.

How do the experts know if the kids are learning anything?

They give the kids tests. In school, you have to take tests. That s what school is about.

But what if kids cry or throw up before their tests?

Part of the test is pulling yourself together to take the test.

Isn t that harsh? Yes, but life is harsh.

Isn t it true that different tests ought to be given to different kids, depending on their socioeconomic status?

No. Because if you short-change kids, it will catch up to them later on. They ll feel swindled and they should.

But what about kids from poor or broken homes. Shouldn t special allowances be made for them on test scores?

No. Because school has one purpose. And that is to teach. School is not a foster home, and the purpose of school is not for some teacher to play surrogate mom or pop for one year and pass a kid along.

So, do you agree with proficiency tests?

Of course. That s what you do in school. You take proficiency tests. To see if you are proficient.

And you re against the teachers who want to stop teaching fourth grade because of the tests?

I d rather not say.

Huh? Why?

Because I love teachers. Because I think they are among the most noble creatures on the face of the Earth. Because, looking back a long way, I owe whatever I am to Cleveland public school teachers.

So you think they ought to hang in there and teach the test?

Yes. Because if the test doesn t come in the fourth grade, it will come sooner or later, down the line in life. And when it comes, the kid facing it will look back and say, Thank God, my teacher got me ready for this. And he or she will bless the teacher s name. And that ain t a bad career goal. Is it?

August 24, 2000

Copyright © Dick Feagler. All rights reserved. This text may not be reproduced in any form or manner without written permission of Gray & Company, Publishers.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gray & Co
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1886228523
• ISBN 13: 9781886228528
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Osborne Richard J.