Sarasota Herald Tribune

The Professor Checks In: Writing and Hearing Sleigh Bells in Toronto

Rich Brooks

The Professor is on the phone. He is telling me about the latest addition to his line of products designed to lift college students from the doldrums of mediocrity.

It's a video that accompanies his books about writing essays and term papers and getting good grades on exams and tests. Bernie Gaidosch teaches writing at Brown College in Toronto. His declared mission is to help students improve their writing and study skills.

He's hit radio stations in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago.

Now it's my turn. Calling upon my skills as a reporter and interviewer, I subtly steer the conversation toward a topic that is certain to grab my readers.

"How's the weather up there?" I ask.

I already know the answer.

From reading the weather page, I can see that Toronto is cold, windy and snow is probably dusting the sidewalks.

"It's cold, windy, and snow is dusting the sidewalks," responds the Professor.

"Gee, here it's about 75, with a slight breeze under a clear sky," I say. "How do you get to work? Do you have a dog sled?"

I imagine the Professor wincing while trying to warm himself over a fire in his office. He is wearing mukluks and stamping his feet to fend off the frostbite. In my mind's eye, I can see him ordering a student to stoke the fire.

"Throw on that copy of 'War and Peace.' The English department will never miss it," he says to the student in my imaginary conversation.

He ignores my question, and maneuvers the topic back to writing.

"Students are suffering. But they don't know it," he says. "Students don't know how to write, and they don't know how to study."

Schools aren't entirely to blame for the lack of writing skills. Nor is the problem confined to students.

A story by the New York Times points the finger at text messaging, a feature of many cellular phones in which callers break down words and sentences to a few letters with no punctuation.

Corporations are paying the price. The Times reports that businesses are spending as much as $3.1 billion yearly to teach employees remedial writing.

Part of the Professor's message is that clear writing has applications at school and work. By pressing universally accepted concepts, he hopes to head off the problem before his charges start maiming the language at the corporate level.

And students who have trouble writing and studying aren't likely to wade through his books. That's why he produced a video to accompany the text.

A generation raised on television and computers understands "the screen."

"The video uses their own medium to motivate them," he says. There are no explosions, scantily clad actors or special effects on the video, which is free with the books. Go to www.profsecrets.com. But it does have some straightforward advice.

"It's a road map -- a set of instructions so that kids can get fired up and be successful in school," says he.

I sense that the interview is getting away from me. So I deftly steer him toward a timelier subject.

"Being so close to the North Pole, I bet you can hear the bells on Santa's sleigh," I intone.

Over the phone I can hear the Professor sigh deeply, as if he were wondering what I did with all the money my parents gave me for college tuition.

"Actually, we're just north of Buffalo ...," he says.

He hammers a point about education being the "most valuable key to success," and then politely tells me he has to go to a class.

Yeah, right, I think to myself. He probably has to feed his dogs.

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