John Slade
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Hello Jack Willard,
Thank you for your letter. You have two callings, Jack: habitat rehabilitation and clean energy batteries. Good for you!
I suggest some online research into companies and organizations which are working with advanced batteries. Do not limit yourself geographically as you search. Consider Europe, especially northern Europe, where so much is happening now. (America is still bumbling along without government support and with huge resistance from the oil and coal companies.) Japan would be closer to home for you. Look for a company that would help you to continue your education while you work. You sound like a person who would greatly enjoy spending the day with a team of vibrant professionals.
Please keep me posted, Jack, on your progress. -
Hello Sean Rooney,
Thank you for your long and thoughtful letter. I am 66 and deeply glad that I was in college in California from 1967 to 1973, when people were truly engaged in the big challenges, from the war in Viet Nam to the first Earth Day in 1971.
You are absolutely right that we had leaders, primarily in the Civil Rights Movement, but also in the American Indian Movement, Women’s Liberation, Black Power, and the early Earth Day movement. The days were rich and vibrant, whereas now, America is limp.
As a teacher of English (PhD in literature, Stanford, 1974), I left the dreary American classrooms to teach first in the Caribbean, then in Norway and Russia. What a vibrant difference! I worked with students who were motivated, polite, aware of the world.
Now I am just polishing a novel written not for the American audience, but for the young generation around the world. The two main characters are both 16 years old: Johan Erik, a Norwegian boy who lives in a fishing village on an island north of the polar circle, and Rashida, a Syrian girl who has fled the war in Syria and is now a refugee in Norway. They look at our world today with the eyes of two highly motivated 16-year-olds. I hope to reach the young generation in Russia, in China, in Brazil, in Syria; the Americans will be the last to bother looking at such a story.
Thank you again for your letter, Sean. If you ever have the opportunity, spend a couple of weeks in Norway: it is a different planet, and your soul will be profoundly refreshed. the same is true of Ireland in the field of clean energy; little Ireland is one of the countries leading the world in wind turbines. -
Hello Earl,
You are absolutely right, that young people must see the challenges as exciting opportunities. I am just finishing a novel in which two sixteen-year-olds view the world with their young eyes. They are honest about the challenges, but immensely excited about the opportunities. Johan Erik, a boy who lives on an island above the polar circle in Northern Norway (where I have lived) has been out on his grandfather’s fishing boat since he was a little kid. He is very aware of the melting polar ice cap and other changes in the northern sea. Rashida, a girl who fled the war in Syria with her mother and brother, becomes a refugee in Norway, in the same village. Like Johan Erik, she is passionate about wanting to build a better world. The find each other, and the story takes off.
I have been a teacher of English in the United States, the Caribbean, Norway and Russia, and have deep faith in the young generation (and little faith in my own generation).
Take a look at http://www.johnsladebooks.com especially the YouTubes, “Who is John Slade?” You will find the positive guy that you so rightly asked for in your comment.
Thank you, Earl. -
Hello Ezra,
I have looked at your website and am glad to tell you that I visited the Occupy site in New York while it was still flourishing. I was heartened. I went to college in California during the vibrant period, 1967-1973, when Occupy movements were everywhere.
Your thought in your post is exactly right: “to start an educational revolution somewhere else in the world.” I am a teacher who has taught in the United States, the Caribbean, Norway (including on the tundra with the Sami reindeer people), and Russia. I would encourage you to read about the educational system in Finland, and even to visit Finland if you can. They are decades ahead of us, with extremely successful schools.
Keep speaking, Ezra. Your country needs your voice. -
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Hello Claudia,
Thank you very much for your thoughts. You are exactly right about working with students.
As an author, I write for students and their generation. I weave research into fiction, with young characters in various places around the world. With these books, I hope to reach beyond one classroom. When this global generation responds together and acts together, the world will leap forward and become a much better place.
You might look at “Climate Change and the Oceans” at http://www.johnsladebooks.com All of the characters are at first young: a teenage girl, a student in New York, a veteran just back from the war in Iraq, a young mother from the Maldive Islands. We then meet them twenty years later in a changing world.
Thank you, Claudia. I am very grateful for your thoughts.
Cordially, John
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Hello Bryan,
Thank you for roaring. I write to you from northern Norway and can hear you across the sea in England.
Every great movement began when people themselves disrupted the flow of daily life. Gandhi encouraged people to use their spinning wheels and make their own clothing, rather than buy material from England. The American Civil Rights movement poured out of a church and marched up the street. The war in Viet Nam was stopped by thousand of people who marched.
At some point, your generation will say, “Enough with oil. Enough with coal. We want clean energy, and the jobs that come abundantly with clean energy.” You will pour out into the streets, and only electric and hybrid cars will be allowed to pass on that day. So it begins.
Thank you, Bryan. Please keep roaring. Your country is building offshore wind turbines in great quantities, and that is excellent.
Very grateful for your thoughts, John
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