I believe in was seventh grade when the experiment began.

I’m certain there was a professor, the inventor, who sat in an office clad with raised panel mahogany walls who believed he was advancing a generation, and if the stakes were lower you could chalk it up as an interesting study in mass education, but it set many on a backward path. As I consider it now, it seems more “little c” communism style instruction than US.

The device was named appropriately: The Controlled Reader.

The setting: A class of approximately thirty pupils all reading at different levels of proficiency, and a teacher who was less than enthusiastic with his chosen occupation and who was less than skilled in the art of keeping order.

Each day the mechanical beast was rolled to its station and a screen was pulled down from its spring loaded cylindrical housing. The man at the switch might give title of the day’s story or not, then initiate projection. After the metal encased devise was turned on our leader would return to his desk and generally lay low only screaming occasionally in effort to rein in the confused, the lost, and the bored.

In the meantime our trusty Reader pushed on, humming and clicking its way from line to line. On the silver sheet hanging in front of old-school blackboard a narrow range of moving light revealed two to three words, progressing from right to left, down the page, sentence by sentence. All was black except for the small area of print momentarily illuminated. One dare not fall behind or test at composition’s end was difficult to pass. There was no restart or do-over so best not to blink or rub dry eyes in darkened room. The pace was preset and no student was to touch the electric task master.

I mention pace. How does one choose the rate for a large class of students…average, below average, above average? Below average would have been my selection as I never was a fast consumer of the written word. I received no blue star as did the outstanding performers back in first grade when first I learned of academic competition. Until then, my idea of competition happened on the pitch or diamond or asphalt covered court. Unfortunately for me and other lab rats, above average was generally the choice.

Each day as the time neared for another session I would grow nervous and tell myself I could do it, like that little engine we’ve read about. Sadly I always fell behind, lost the thread, and scored poorly when sheets loaded with questions were handed out once the lights were again turned on. I wasn’t the only exasperated Guinea pig as paper airplanes would frequently take flight—launched by those that had given up.

My mother, who happened to be an exceptional English teacher, thought this modern training method a farce and would rail at length at the nameless buffoon who could conceive of such a thing. If it were not for mom I don’t know where I would have landed—she saw to it I learned to read.

I’m still not the fastest words per minute guy, but I navigated my way through college, acquired challenging positions in corporate America, and so on. All the latter thanks to the skills God equipped me with, my parent’s love, those teachers who saw something worth saving, and the efforts of the many I’ve met and worked with.

I try in earnest to see the best in all things, though I find it difficult to see value in the hours spent in that dimly lit room—I did learn how to fold and fly a proper paper plane.