School House Rock

“As your body grows bigger
Your mind grows flowered
It's great to learn
Because knowledge is power!”
School House Rock Theme Song

“A library card is good to have, you can never have too much ID.” 

  Stephen King,

 Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

Of the countless great gifts that my parents granted their number-two son, a pair of things stands paramount in my mind: my very own library card, and my adoration for learning.

My folks were subtle, lead-by-example parents. Each read well over one hundred books per year, every year, without fail; and did so conspicuously. Trips to the library were singular “just you and me” events, worthy of an ice cream cone afterward. With reading came great power, was their unspoken lesson. Learning, like breathing, is living.

Each book I read earned me their undying and adoring praise. However, reading was neither an expectation, nor a burden placed upon me. I willingly and avidly read… mostly to give back to them in measure. I chose. I read eighty books per year in a child’s mimicry born of tribute. Always have, and always will. The most effective parenting is often the sneakiest kind.

Two loving and recurring joshes from my youth frequently come to mind:

• “He might not be good looking, or even terribly bright… but that child is
damned well read.”

• “Never underestimate the value of not overestimating how much you know.”

Obviously, my parents also treasured humility… but you can’t get a free wallet card for that.

The key to flourishing as a pharmacist might nest in two simple sentiments: a love for learning, and an awareness of how little one knows relative to how much more ever remains to be learned. This can mean the difference between living as a pharmacist, or working as a pharmacist.

Toward that end I bear praise for some modern tools that celebrate reading and learning. I am a reader of all things paper and ink, an ink-stained wretch, a product of my age. Reading will always be there. However, I am also open and adaptive. I have ushered the following web-based products into my life, initially to help me learn… and then they eventually grafted to me along the way:

• Goodreads.com: is a social networking site for people who love to read. It is a clever conceptual hybrid of, say… LinkedIn and Netflix. The website allows users to organize reading lists and reading habits, make friends and contacts with other like-minded avid readers, rate and review books, and evolve a unique reader profile based upon personal tastes and preferences. Book recommendations can be generated by the website based upon a personalized user profile, or can be solicited from friends on the site.

• FreeCE.com: is an excellent web-based learning site that provides live continuing education webinars for pharmacists. Access is via a low annual subscription fee of less than one hundred bucks per year. Members are able to consume as many live webinars as they please for just that one low price; an all-you-can-eat buffet of higher learning, an intellectual smorgasbord. All live webinars are archived for later consumption to be viewed at some later date by those members who missed them. Programs are approved for continuing education credit. Program topics are diverse and professionally applicable, and all programs are of the highest quality.

• Coursera.com: is new and unique. This website offers an interactive forum through which professional educators from all walks of life can offer free educational webinars to willing persons interested in becoming students. For a reasonable price of under fifty bucks per year; students can even earn certificates of accomplishment for all completed coursework, and build a documented transcript of educational accomplishments. The variety of the coursework, and the credentials of the educators are impressive. Free education for the masses.

Alloying clever learning tools like the three described above, with the enduring power of a library card, can guarantee that a key to the schoolhouse door will always be available to those who seek entry. Undoubtedly, other brilliant websites and tools exist that can offer the same assurances. You are invited to share your favorites in the comments section below; the reading and learning websites that you hold dear to your heart.

How comforting is it to hope that the bouquets we daily craft of our thoughts even as we age and grow, can exist courtesy of an endless harvest of fresh new blossoms? Time spent reading and learning only bumpers the crop. It’s great to learn, because knowledge is power. School is always in session.

Now... let’s sing along: “Conjunction junction, what’s your function?”

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