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Jerry Stanley

4.1/5 ( ratings)
“I’ve learned there’s no such thing as wasted writing or bad writing. All writing leads to better writing.”

Jerry Stanley is the author of several highly praised books for young readers, including Children of the Dust Bowl, winner of the Orbis Pictus Award; I Am an American, an ALA Notable Book; and Hurry Freedom, a National Book Award nominee and winner of the Orbis Pictus Award. He is a former professor of history at California State University.

Being a writer is one of the great achievements of my life. As a teenager growing up in Detroit, Michigan, I hated school, all my teachers, and learning in general. When I was expelled from high school at the age of seventeen for fighting, I had passed two units—one in woodshop and one in gym. In bidding me farewell, my counselor fired his last shot at my self’-esteem: “Stanley,” he said, “you’re so dumb you couldn’t finish school even if you tried.”

It has taken a lot to prove him wrong. I joined the Air Force to get away from home and after a few years started taking correspondence courses through the mail. During the day I drove bulldozers and forklifts, and at night I learned how to write a complete sentence. I was twenty-one when I finally received my diploma from high school, which was somewhere near the base but which I never saw or visited. I was playing drums in a rock-’n’-roll band when I left the service and enrolled in junior college. This was the turning point in my life: not what I learned there, but getting the nerve to enroll.

I was the model insecure student, as hardly a day passed without my remembering, “Stanley, you’re so dumb. . . .” I can look back now with amusement and laughter at some of the things I did. For example, when I was registering on the first day, standing in a long line to get past this one station, a woman asked, “What do you think your major will be?” I had no idea of what she meant by “major,” but the girl in front of me said “English” and that got her through, so I said “English” too. A month or so later, while talking about the upcoming midterm , the teacher said, “Blue books are required. You can’t take the midterm without a blue book.” I spent nearly an hour in the library looking for the blue books—in the card catalog under blue, in the periodicals—until a kind reference librarian told me, without snickering, that they were in the bookstore. Though amusing now, when these things happened to me, they were proof that I would be found out: I don’t belong here.

Fearing failure, I became an overachiever. I overstudied every subject, and wrote and rewrote each term paper before finally relinquishing it. But I still lived in doubt from one grade report to the next. Making the dean’s list, graduating from junior college with honors, and being invited to join an honor society all gave me tremendous confidence—for about a day, before the old demon of self-defeat reemerged. Nevertheless, I made my second big decision and enrolled in a state university. At least I now knew what a major was, and I proclaimed “History,” but the most enduring memory of my first few weeks there was learning how to spell university .

When it became clear that I would get my bachelor’s degree cum laude, I vowed to continue my education until they kicked me out or until there were no other degrees to earn, whichever came first. This was the easiest decision because it came last and not because I had unshakable confidence in my ability to do graduate work. Looking back, I now see that I was not ready for school when my counselor committed that great crime against me by calling me stupid. The hardest decision was the first time I tried to prove him wrong by enrolling in junior college and showing up for my first class quite literally trembling in my chair.

Before the university said that’s it, I earned a Ph.D. and a Phi Beta Ka

Jerry Stanley

4.1/5 ( ratings)
“I’ve learned there’s no such thing as wasted writing or bad writing. All writing leads to better writing.”

Jerry Stanley is the author of several highly praised books for young readers, including Children of the Dust Bowl, winner of the Orbis Pictus Award; I Am an American, an ALA Notable Book; and Hurry Freedom, a National Book Award nominee and winner of the Orbis Pictus Award. He is a former professor of history at California State University.

Being a writer is one of the great achievements of my life. As a teenager growing up in Detroit, Michigan, I hated school, all my teachers, and learning in general. When I was expelled from high school at the age of seventeen for fighting, I had passed two units—one in woodshop and one in gym. In bidding me farewell, my counselor fired his last shot at my self’-esteem: “Stanley,” he said, “you’re so dumb you couldn’t finish school even if you tried.”

It has taken a lot to prove him wrong. I joined the Air Force to get away from home and after a few years started taking correspondence courses through the mail. During the day I drove bulldozers and forklifts, and at night I learned how to write a complete sentence. I was twenty-one when I finally received my diploma from high school, which was somewhere near the base but which I never saw or visited. I was playing drums in a rock-’n’-roll band when I left the service and enrolled in junior college. This was the turning point in my life: not what I learned there, but getting the nerve to enroll.

I was the model insecure student, as hardly a day passed without my remembering, “Stanley, you’re so dumb. . . .” I can look back now with amusement and laughter at some of the things I did. For example, when I was registering on the first day, standing in a long line to get past this one station, a woman asked, “What do you think your major will be?” I had no idea of what she meant by “major,” but the girl in front of me said “English” and that got her through, so I said “English” too. A month or so later, while talking about the upcoming midterm , the teacher said, “Blue books are required. You can’t take the midterm without a blue book.” I spent nearly an hour in the library looking for the blue books—in the card catalog under blue, in the periodicals—until a kind reference librarian told me, without snickering, that they were in the bookstore. Though amusing now, when these things happened to me, they were proof that I would be found out: I don’t belong here.

Fearing failure, I became an overachiever. I overstudied every subject, and wrote and rewrote each term paper before finally relinquishing it. But I still lived in doubt from one grade report to the next. Making the dean’s list, graduating from junior college with honors, and being invited to join an honor society all gave me tremendous confidence—for about a day, before the old demon of self-defeat reemerged. Nevertheless, I made my second big decision and enrolled in a state university. At least I now knew what a major was, and I proclaimed “History,” but the most enduring memory of my first few weeks there was learning how to spell university .

When it became clear that I would get my bachelor’s degree cum laude, I vowed to continue my education until they kicked me out or until there were no other degrees to earn, whichever came first. This was the easiest decision because it came last and not because I had unshakable confidence in my ability to do graduate work. Looking back, I now see that I was not ready for school when my counselor committed that great crime against me by calling me stupid. The hardest decision was the first time I tried to prove him wrong by enrolling in junior college and showing up for my first class quite literally trembling in my chair.

Before the university said that’s it, I earned a Ph.D. and a Phi Beta Ka

Books from Jerry Stanley

Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

4.1/5 ( ratings)

I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Big Annie of Calumet: A True Story of the Industrial Revolution

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Digger: The Tragic Fate of the California Indians from the Missions to the Gold Rush

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Frontier Merchants: Lionel & Barron Jacobs and the Jewish Pioneers Who Settled the West

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Cowboys & Longhorns: A Portrait of the Long Drive

3.7/5 ( ratings)
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