An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at

An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at 88.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. This is a story about words and a woman who understood the power of words properly used to motivate adolescents, some of the toughest customers on earth. It is the story of Holly Hickler, proud to be a teacher, exhilarated by the challenges of her profession, a model to the less committed, who are legion.

Words, words, and ocean of words.

If you are a word person (as I confess I am) you will be sad upon reading this article that you never knew Holly Hickler. The minute I read her obituary in The Boston Globe (July 31, 2011), I was so saddened... I wanted to know her... and I wanted the world to know her, too. Words, you see, even words in an obituary, can make you feel so; words can do anything, convey anything, rouse anything, exult anything, change anything, remove anything, love anything, revolt anything...

... but you must know the words, have them not just in your head, but in your fingertips; words must be your constant companions. They must intrigue you, mystify you, bring you to your knees with grief, carry your prayers to God, and then, doubling back, conjure love from indifference... then ask your too late mate when she will be home for dinner.

Holly Hickler loved words, every word; she loved the sound of them, the textures, the complicated words and the simple words which proved upon reflection to be the most complicated of all: heaven, love, death, God, forever.

Mischievous, this mother could with laughter and purpose confound her children by reciting at any time or place a sprig of Frost on an autumn day:

""Summer was past and the day was past. Sombre clouds in the west were massed. Out on the porch's sagging floor Leaves got up in a coil and hissed...."

( from "Bereft" by Robert Frost, 1874-1963)

Or this written by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844-1889) in 1877, but not published until 1918.

"GLORY be to God for dappled things -- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow: For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings:..."

( from the poem "Pied Beauty").

Poems like these, even simple seeming Frost, are hard to read... harder to understand... and that would have suited Mrs. Hickler just fine. Such words, in such order, forced the surly, withdrawn, moody, often aggravating adolescents (either school delivered or borne by her) to stop, read the words clearly, sharply, for words must be heard; then look up the definitions... recite them again with greater clarity both of recitation and of meaning... then again and again, transforming brain cells into repositories of words, to be yours forever, shared only when you wish to touch a human heart or uplift, if only for a minute, some weary passerby in need of the comfort of the right word right delivered.

Her life.

Born Helen, in Philadelphia, her mother, Jean Miller Schloss, was fashion coordinator for Gimbels Department Store, and her father Edwin Schloss, a cellist who played chamber music with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a home of culture, the arts, and of sensitivities to music... literature... and, always, to words.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 with a major in English, she worked on women's magazines and publishing for a time and interviewed authors on television in New York City. Unfortunately (and tellingly) her greatest achievement in these years was not the stunning prose she wrote and published (for she did neither), but rather the fact she survived the crash of a B-25 aircraft which plunged into the Empire State Building in July, 1945 while she was working. But she survived...

In 1946, she married Courtland Yardley White III, her former writing professor. They had twins, Peter and Kate. Mr. White died of tuberculosis in January, 1950. That September she married Frederick Dunlap Hickler, an architect. They had three children. When their oldest child left for college, Mrs. Hickler started teaching at the progressive Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts. Here her vocation for teaching became evident to all.

Sympathetic, loving, strict standards.

Unwary students often misread Mrs. Hickler's educational approach, to their peril. She was kind, empathetic, even loving towards her students, but this did not mean any diminution of the high standards she expected students to meet. As Bonny Musinsky, a fellow teacher at the school for 17 years, said, "when it comes to grading, she was no push-over. If they didn't measure up -- with all her love and caring -- she would give them a C."

The writer's eye.

Writers are a probing, observant, perceptive, invasive kind of people. They never merely glance and are the masters of minute detail and of actually seeing a thing. No one can write effective prose without these skills. Mrs. Hickler made it a point to foster this ability which she used to good effect in her 1981 book co-authored with Cambridge psychiatrist John Mack. It was titled "Vivienne: The Life and Suicide of an Adolescent Girl", and focused on the impersonal attitude of teachers in meeting the needs of teen-agers. No one ever accused Mrs. Hickler of such misunderstanding and dereliction and that is why she was such an effective, impacting, and always memorable instructor.

Writer's block.

I can guess, but cannot confirm, that one of the great sadnesses of this productive life was her own difficulties with writing words and slender published oeuvre. It must have been maddening, discouraging, irritating at the very least. So much so, that at age 75 she took a class to overcome writer's block. In due course, she wrote again. It was prose remembers Deborah Carr of Wellesley, a member of the group, about her "youth in an artsy, intellectual family in Philadelphia which she told in a voice that sounded as young as Holly was at heart." Unfortunately, it was not published... but this article, which will be read by thousands, will help keep green the memory of Holly Hickler, and her message that words matter, good writing matters, and that both are essential in the complicated business of human communication.

Infuriatingly, this is something far too many school districts have not grasped, which is one reason SAT reading scores have sunk to a record low with the class of 2011. In this connection, Wayne Camara, College Board vice president of research, mused, "We're looking and wondering if more efforts in English and reading and writing would benefit students."

Having read this article, just what do you think Holly Hickler's resounding response would have been? Or what yours should be, now that she has gone?

Then go to any search engine to find the recording by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia of Tshaikovsky's Variations on a Roccoco Theme. Holly would have loved it.... and so will you.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.

Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.com.

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9/11, closure, and an important new book by Professor Nancy Berns.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note.  This is a story about death and remembrance, one of the most difficult of subjects; universal reality for every human... but one we approach with the utmost diffidence, wanting to make the troubling matter which touches upon our own mortality short, clean,crisp, so that the experience is sanitized and efficient. We want to treat it as a  management problem not as profound unsettling event. We want closure... and we want it as soon and as effortlessly as possible.
But death and remembrance do not work that way... it is not a management problem; it is about our own oblivion, and it must be treated with the high seriousness it deserves.
That's why I have selected revered Mozart's "Requiem Mass in D minor" (K. 626) for the musical accompaniment for today's article. It is the precise sound needed to help you consider the matter of eternity, including your own. You will find it in any search engine. Allow yourself to be touched by this masterpiece unfinished at his death, which the Master left in 1791 for his encounter with God. It will help us with ours and help the loved ones who must deal, in due course, with our own passing.
How a new book by Professor Nancy Berns can help.
Drake University associate professor of sociology Nancy Berns has just published a work which may perhaps become seminal, offering as it does vital insights into the prevailing American way of grief, remembrance and the matter of "closure." Her book is titled "Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us," and it comes just as the nation faces another agonizing bout of remembrance on the never-must-be-forgotten events which fall under the name "9/11".
Her subject is important, timely, and of the greatest significance to every one of us: is closure a desirable objective, or is it another illustration of our national disinclination to deal with subjects at once difficult, distasteful, and perhaps irresolvable? Let's start with a definition of "closure," "that which closes or shuts down."
It's easy to see why real everyday people want death and its aftermath to be an "over ASAP" matter. We live in a culture which not only values but obsessives over the need for youth, beauty and boundless health and which sees in age and the weight of enfeebling years the markers of debility, always measuring by how much is gone and how much may remain. Death thus becomes not just an event but the event which deprives us of everything... and gives the hot potato of your death and disposal to people who want to pass it on immediately and get back to life.  For such people (for all they may have loved us) the concept of "closure" is absolutely essential because it gives them the right to forget and forget as fast as possible. This is especially true where the fatalities have been significant... as they can be in wars, natural disasters and traumatizing outrages like 9/11.
Images of 9/11
9/11 seared the national memory with images profound, haunting, horrifying, indelible. Each of us, all of us, have been bothered and afflicted by these images which in an instant altered our consciousness and diminished our securities.  We close our eyes and will it otherwise but these images abide with us forever, the residue of carnage. We attempt to make sense of the senseless by creating statistics, for that is easier than remembering the victims, those blown to Kingdom Come mid-air and those on whom the debris and the bodies fell, eliminating lives in a cascade of unimaginable flames.
65 percent of the victims were between 31 and 50 years old.
76 percent of those killed were men.
64 percent of the dead were married.
72 percent had at least one dependent.
Nearly 39 percent made at least $100,000 a year.
Statistics give a kind of distance -- and closure.
9/11 oppresses us, not merely because of the original event, but because we want to "move on",  into a world where the impact of this tragedy lessons and gives us peace... without guilt; closure, with finality.
Here's where the deeper insights of Professor Berns come in.
She argues, and I think rightly, that closure is a concept born  n our speed-driven culture. It is an appealing idea because it offers a definitive end to our suffering or grief and thereby offers an acceptable basis for starting a new life chapter where there is no sorrow, guilt, or anger. An invention of Gestalt psychology, this concept is now a cultural commonplace in every area of national life. But the fact that this notion is widely cited and believed does not make it real or true, merely convenient.
Thus we do a grave disservice to the dead, to ourselves, and to what we should rather do to reaffirm our humanity and gain the benefits that come from celebrating the dead... and letting them abide, much loved, never forgotten, as vital as our brain can make them and recall.
Thus, grief is not bad. It is not some set destination, to be concluded at a certain time and in a certain manner. It is not something that must necessarily end, or which by ending, brings peace and serenity.
Grief is not like an illness which can and should be ended with the right pill or prescription. It is highly personal and cannot be regulated, regimented, erased by rules or reason. And so it is difficult for all and most want an early exit, a strategy that does not soothe or lesson the pain. Thus the pain continues, to the growing frustration and irritation of others who, grieving differently or not grieving at all, have "moved on".
Things were different 100 years ago.
Just a century ago, people grieved quite differently; no doubt in part because they had more time and the pace of life was leisurely compared to our own. When people died, at home more often than not, strands of hair would be carefully cut, then annotated in copperplate hand and dispatched to relatives and a few special friends who loved the deceased. Some would be placed in or made into keepsakes, brooches, lockets with pictures. No one rushed the matter of grief... and social mores dictated a liberal amount of time, how long and in what way black should be worn, and the degree of reserve and retirement from society. No one vexed you by telling you to "move on, get closure."
And no one should say so today. As we age, the ranks of our dear departed increase until, at the last, they undoubtedly outnumber the living. But the dead remain with us, too, and should for to forget them is to diminish ourselves. The intensity of that grief will wane... but the fact and meaning of that grief cannot.
And so I'll end on this personal note. I have before me a letter from my mother dated Monday, November 18, 1985 and begins "My very dear son...." I would recognize the careful writing anywhere. This is how it opens "your letter came Saturday and I've been answering it ever since and throwing away the pages. I would so like to hold you and comfort you and 'make the world go away'".
I no longer remember the incident which provoked this response, but in every word I see her... and feel her love. And so I grieve anew for her death... and rejoice again that she abides with me and so long as I remain she remains and must be grasped and treasured accordingly. There is pain in this course... but there is solace,too... and to give up the one is to lose the other. And that would never do.

Which is why we must not seek closure but rather understanding that grief is the way we keep our beloved and honored dead in our lives... world without end, for ever and ever... amen.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com</a>.
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Too busy? Need extra time? Then it's time for your 'NEVER DO' list!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
We all know the importance of "to do" lists, that is lists where you write down what you need to do and when you need to do it. You DO have such lists, don't you? They are essential for maximum efficiency and focus.
Well, this is a recommendation to start drawing up and living by items on your "never do" list, a list that becomes absolutely necessary as  you see your opportunities and tasks expanding exponentially and your time remaining inflexible and limited.
Time is infuriatingly limited
Face it. Since you were born, no one has been able to figure out how to get more than 24 hours in a day. Generations of trained, often brilliant, scientists have come and gone... yet we have the same amount of time as the Caesars with no change in sight. Bummer.
Thus instead of wishing we had more time, the challenge becomes making better use of the time we have. Inspired allocation of time becomes the goal... and this includes the all-important "never do" list.
The residual pull of "do it yourself".
If your upbringing was anything like mine, you were constantly admonished: "if you want it done right, do it yourself."
Without detracting from the wisdom of this remark, I must tell you this in all seriousness: quite simply you cannot do it all yourself... and to achieve increasing success you must make the determination and live by it... that that which can be done by others, must be done by others; this is the only way  you can perfect your ability to make money and mastermind the growth and expansion of your empire.
Start today. What task(s) can you stop doing at once?
Review what you did yesterday, everything you did. Write it down. It is time to see where you currently invest your time... and to stop doing at least 1 of the items currently being done by you. Now, when I say write down EVERYTHING you did....I do mean EVERYTHING. The goal is freeing up time... which means a total review of what you now do for yourself.
Looking at what you do
This list will include items like these
* household tasks like laundry, food shopping and preparation, taking care of pets
* time you spend with children and elderly parents
* running errands (list every one  you must do)
* driving and upkeep of your vehicles.
Be thorough, be exhaustive, be honest!
Selecting the first item to be done by others
Remember, the amount of time is rigidly fixed. What you personally do... and what you delegate to others to do is not. Now is the time to start this crucial delegation.
Household help
Busy people, important people, people with lots of things to do... and the desire to advance... almost all have household help and so must you.
Hire your help (recommendations from friends help). Then train them to meet your exacting standards and to create the lifestyle of ease and efficiency that you require as a  necessary condition for your own success.
Now, I'm not saying it's not possible to live without household help. What I am saying is that if you want the maximum amount of free time that you can devote to getting on and getting richer, then you MUST have household help. That help is a crucial factor in your success.
Training such people in what you require is essential. You'll need a "to do" list for them, and you'll need to monitor carefully what they do and how they do it. Allowing them to get on with the job of helping and serving you will yield a huge dividend in time and a general feeling of contentment and satisfaction.
A driver
If you're like most people you spend a spectacular amount of time in and around your vehicles. This is time better spent in advancing your economic well- being and comfort. In short, you require a driver.
Drivers can be used for a myriad of purposes, from running errands to making an evening out comfortable and efficient.  If you've never had such help before, you can hardly imagine how liberating it is to acquire and use it... and how promptly you become accustomed to its many advantages. And the cherry on the cake, of course, is that it frees up a huge volume of time, time you can better use for other purposes.
A word of recognition
My own driver is Aime Joseph, a man of efficiency and concern, who with his charming wife Mercedes, take care of me and mine. Indeed, so popular is Mr. Joseph, that when my relatives visit they always ask whether he will be picking them up at the air port. An affirmative answer cheers them immensely. I am glad to attest to his virtues... and to the essential services he delivers, services which have given me both leisure and the time required for enhanced business profits and a better, more serene existence.
A word of advice: slow and steady wins the race
The first problem to overcome will be accepting the need for help to free up time. Then there is the matter of cost. You'll say that you don't have the money to delegate life's essential tasks to others. That's rubbish. You simply need to be sure that you can generate the necessary money from your business and that this money is greater than the cost of the assistance you are acquiring. If it is, no problem.
But don't go mad... before you add additional help to your expense ledger, always make sure you can generate the income to pay for it. Once you are sure, proceed. This means moving ahead with all due deliberation. Help is great, help is essential, help gives you the better life... but you must be able to pay for it.
Now begin. You are about to stop doing one essential task after another, tasks you may have done for a lifetime but which you cannot afford to do yourself any more. Why? Because you truly know and intend to live by the fundamental truth that is Benjamin Franklin's famous line: "time is money." Indeed it is... and now, with all your new and vital help, you are about to liberate a great deal of that time and reap the very substantial benefits that come when you do!

About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant is the author of 18 best-selling books. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer <a href="http://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com</a>.

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