Finding My Way: A Memoir by Jerry Morton

An exploration of the rational for doing what we do when we are trying to introduce new strategies to make the world a better place.

Podcast 89, "Learning the Culture," provides examples of the importance of valuing the uniqueness of every subculture we encounter. In the case of the sub-cultural issues within the educational cooperative's school systems, it was critically important that I and the graduate assistants understand and honor their sub-cultural processes in accomplishing our common goals of assisting children within the educational setting.

Podcast 88, "Humor in the Stress," relates the high degree of stress the providers of the psychological services encountered due to the lack of understanding of the new 1973 special education law. This lack of preparedness to implement the law produced a great deal of misunderstanding and fear in the minds of many educators. The educational cooperative's service providers were the change agents for the school systems. The role of a change agent is a stressful one. We developed strategies to reduce that stress.

Podcast 87, "Startling Revelations," reveals some of the things I learned about the cooperative after my employment began in July 1973. I was surprised by the reactions of a school system's staff members when I made my first in-service presentation concerning the implementation of the new special education law. There were funding issues in the beginning. It seems there were always funding issues.

Podcast 86, "Getting Started," finds me reviewing my past experiences that had prepared me for my role of creating and implementing the psychological services delivery model for the cooperative's member school systems. This entailed delivering the bulk of the services through the use of senior doctorial level graduate students in school psychology and providing them with an in-depth understanding of the new special education laws of 1973. They needed this information in order to fulfill their role in the law's implementation and in providing in-service training to the teaching staff within their assigned school systems.

Podcast 85, "The First Task," relates unexpected difficulties I had to face with the educational cooperative in my new role as its Director of Psychological and Educational Services during the beginning days of July 1973

"Employed" relates how the Little Tennessee Valley Educational Cooperative employed me and what I learned concerning the creation and mission of the cooperative (LTVEC) in the summer of 1973.

Welcome to season three of the podcast series, "Finding My Way," by Jerry Morton. Season three begins with several stories about my early years with the Little Tennessee Valley Educational Cooperative. Podcast 83, "Finding Employment After Graduation," relates my search for employment in anticipation of completing the training as a Ph.D. school psychologist in the summer of 1973.

Podcast 82, "A Water Tower Adventure," is an account of a college prank in the spring of 1963, that became more consequential than planned.

Podcast 76, "Catching an Error," is an account of an observation I made of interactions between children with serious disabilities enrolled in a birth-to-three year old program, One child in the program became my teacher. I think the year was 1989.

Podcast 81, "A Dental Story," is an account of my childhood dental experiences, the adventures of my capped front tooth and the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth while in the army.

Podcast 80, "Courage Comes to Town," is an account of a special happening during the Knoxville, Tennessee's 1982 World's Fair. By chance, Jerry witnessed a display of courage by the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra.

Podcast 79, "Prader Willi," is a story about the committed efforts of professional service providers working together to create and implement life-changing strategies in assisting someone with Prader Willi syndrome

Podcast 78, "The Other Side," is a story about assisting an elderly woman at a large store. She is very gracious, sweet and kind as she accepts my assistance. Unintentionally, she presents me with one of life's important lessons.

Podcast 77, "Raise the Hood," is an account of obtaining a used Ford Falcon to drive back and forth between our Tennessee home and the university. The car had a manual transmission that took me a while to master. The Falcon taught me a lot about maintaining your vehicle.

Podcast 75, "Stuck and Unstuck," relates events I observed and was involved in that demonstrated the strength of one's beliefs when making decisions or interpreting the behaviors of others. These interactions took place during my time at an alternative school. I estimate that these events happened around 1990.

Podcast 74, "If You Believe It," relates how one's belief system often determines the way we interpret the meaning of agreed upon facts. A student suspended from his public school for a long period of time explains why he thinks he was suspended while he was attending an alternative school around 1989.

Podcast 73, "A Lot Going On," is an account from the 1970-1971 school year. It was my second year of working as a school psychologist in St. Petersburg, Florida's inner city schools and their second year of school integration. I was very busy testing children; assisting teachers to improve their classroom management skills, implementing new strategies such as developmental play activities for teachers working with behavioral problem children and socially isolated students. I needed to address some personal issues as well.

Podcast 72, "Neither Did I," is an account from the 1979-1971 school year in St. Petersburg, Florida, in which my interventions appeared to fail to produce the desired results. This was my second year of being a school psychologist. It was also the second year of the school system's integration plan. This year, black and white children were to attend school together. The previous year, the school staff had been integrated but not the student body. I was providing services to my seven formerly all black schools. I was frequently called upon to provide assistance in managing behavioral issues. Not all of my intervention strategies worked as I expected. Please note that I have used pseudonyms instead of real names in this story.

Podcast 71, "Struggling to Understand" is an account of encountering an unusual attempt by my school system to integrate one of my formally all black elementary schools during its second year of integration. The 1970-1971 school year found the elementary school mixing black and white children together for the first time. There were problems.