Lights Out! Four Days and counting...

My Dream
It is times like these that seem to draw out the best in me. While waiting out Hurricane Sandy, I have been spending my time getting all fired up about my life and the realization that I need to make some serious changes. I really would like to be my own boss and have a small business with a number of employees.
My dream is to have an after school homework center, where students of all ages, would come and get the help they needed from qualified staff. I would, however, insist that they all learn to complete homework using technology. All homework would be completed using a computer. My students would learn touch typing and achieve proficiency standards. All my students would be proficient in using spreadsheets and data base programming to enter and manipulate data. My college bound students would be tech savvy and ready for college. My students would learn problem solving skills and be challenged daily to come up with creative solutions. My students would not just be struggling students, but all students, from students with special needs to honor students. My student would be your child and every child.
There are highly skilled teachers and IT techs out there with no work. There is a multitude of hard workers out there for support staff. Most of all, there are students, of all shapes, sizes and skill levels, who would need the type of services a company like mine could provide. Who am I to think that I could accomplish this enormous feat! I am an occupational therapist, that’s who! Occupational therapists concentrate on the skills to get the job done.
The Presidential Election is only one week away. I happened to be on Facebook about a week ago. Someone commented on needing manufacturing jobs in the community and how one candidate over another might get manufacturing jobs back in her community. I happen to feel that the resolution to our problems is in our future and not our past. I feel that in order to build a stable economy we have to teach our children to develop problem solving skills and new technologies. The mindset of “Made in the USA” is returning stronger than ever. We just can’t rely on bringing back jobs and technologies that were outsourced. We need to develop new technologies and manufacturing procedures for American workers. Never outsource again.
My response to her includes a grand idea of creating bubbles to cover each of our homes with Hurricane Sandy bearing down on us. We could watch the storm but it would never affect us. We could harness that wind and water energy and provide power to our homes, schools and businesses.
I personally feel that Americans are smart and creative. Could our children come up with new ideas, technologies and manufacturing procedures to create such a device? I believe that they can. Our jobs, right now, would be to create an environment for learning and problem solving. My job would be to find young and young at heart, innovative educators who can excite and engage students enough to become this creative. Students who could develop new construction techniques, building homes that can morph into protective domes with a never ending clean energy power supply so that the power never goes out again.
Meteorologists, like Bill Evans and Lee Goldberg, would be announcing with excitement, “Domes Up!” We would never again be afraid of a Sandy or a Long Island Express. We would relish them. That is my dream.