A Talk with William Bowman Piper, Children’s Author

Children love stories. You can tell a child the most incongruous, incredible, outlandish story, and he will eat it up. That’s a good thing, of course. Children need the kind of contact storytelling offers: one person talking to another, two people sharing ideas (real or incredible), and the conspiracy of a private insight.

Most important, perhaps, is the sharing of language: one person offering a word to another, asking “Is this the right one?”, trying for another or agreeing on a word, and pinning down one’s vision finally with exactly the right expressions. The joy of that connection is almost unequaled. And what’s more, your child never forgets.

Research overwhelmingly demonstrates the positive effect that parental involvement has on children’s academic achievement and with computers fast becoming a permanent fixture in the classroom, it is becoming increasingly important for parents to stay abreast of the latest technology advances. According to a recent poll, 3 out of 10 Texans still do not use a computer and some of these may have children in school. To bridge this digital divide, The Technology Opportunity Institute (TTOI) provides hands-on technology education, training and professional development to students, parents and unemployed adults, and promotes improving families’ quality of life by giving them the tools they need to succeed in today’s technology-based society.

TTOI is committed to providing quality programs that meet the needs of the participants it serves. Since inception, TTOI has conducted more than 300 training classes and has impacted more than 10,000 underserved youth, their parents, and unemployed/underemployed adults through its computer and Internet education and training and professional development initiatives.

By Dwight Edwards, author, speaker, and the High Performance Coach at River Oaks Country Club

Up at 6:30 – to school by 8 – to work by 8:30 – first meeting at 9 – two morning appointments – a working lunch – pick up the kids from school – tennis lessons at 5 – dinner at 7 – homework – bing ... boing ... bing.

Ever feel like your life is a never-ending pinball game; continually bouncing back and forth from activity to activity, deadline to deadline, meeting to meeting, crisis to crisis? When was the last time you took a couple of hours off to simply rest, recharge, and reflect? Or is that even a category these days?

Perhaps the word that best describes many of our lives is frenetic. Fast moving, hard charging, rest challenged ... was life really meant to be lived at such a dizzying pace? And what is the cost of this mad frenzy? Or, in the words of T.S. Eliot, “Where is the Life we have lost in living?”

Interestingly, the word frenetic comes from a Greek word (phrenitikos) which means “inflammation of the mind” or “delirious”. And therein lies the great danger of our warp-speed lifestyles. In the midst of the madness of our daily routines it becomes desperately easy to lose touch with reality – i.e. the reality of what matters most in life. We become delirious from the feverish, frantic pace we keep; and thus our sensitivity to matters of supreme importance is greatly and tragically diminished.