Jerry Axelrod was a longtime educator, spending decades in classrooms with the School District of Philadelphia, Community College of Philadelphia and Penn State Abington.
Every so many years, Axelrod noticed that his students seemed to know less than the young people who came before them. In general, they seemed to care less, and some didn’t know it would be a good idea to bring a pencil on the first day of class.
So, he decided to write a book, titled The Too-Late Learner’s Guide to Lost School Learning.
The author describes the 77-page book, released last year and available through Amazon or at the Abington Township Public Library, as a spoof of middle-aged people who have forgotten (or most likely never really learned) what they were taught in high school.
“I make it as easy, in an unembarrassing way, as possible,” he said.
Axelrod, 78, is a Southwest Philadelphia native who graduated from Bartram High School. He has a degree in secondary education from Penn State and a master’s in secondary education and reading education from Temple.
During his professional career, he was a reading specialist, administrative assistant and adjunct professor of English composition. He lived in the Somerton section of Northeast Philadelphia until moving to Huntingdon Valley in 1986.
Axelrod and his wife, Miriam, have been married 50 years. They have an adult son and daughter, who are both lawyers; four grandsons, ages 8, 9, 10 and 11; and two cats.
Axelrod enjoys reading non-fiction. He checks out the index and reads what interests him.
“I’m the only human in the world who does that,” he joked.
As for The Too-Late Learner’s Guide to Lost School Learning, it features a series of exercises to fill in educational gaps. Readers will learn proper use of periods, semicolons, commas, capitalization, lowercase words, verbs, apostrophes, jargon, proverbs and their meaning, pronouns to start a sentence, spelling and invisible words such as “could of.”
Is it “judgment” or “judgement?”
Would it be OK for the largest South American country to call itself “Brazil of America?”
There’s a section on VIP sayings and what they really meant to say, such as when Gerald Ford quipped, “If Lincoln were alive today, he’d roll over in his grave.”
Readers will see the sayings of Casey Stengel and Mark Twain, and complete an exercise on the Hare and the Tortoise.
“I’ve written hundreds of exercises,” Axelrod said. “The answers are on the page. It’s independent, self-competition. They have to come up with the right combination. They don’t have to be embarrassed. I use a lot of humor in it. I put jokes in there.”
The author intends for the book to be thought provoking, recalling a student once telling him, “Mr. Axelrod, your questions are painful.”
Axelrod said the book is for the general public, specifically anyone who is still interested in learning. He would like to reach people who have no interest in the Emancipation Proclamation or Gettysburg Address or who don’t know Thomas Jefferson or think the Allies won the “Silver War” or enjoy spending time in the “Atlantis” Ocean or fear being diagnosed with “All Climbers” disease.
“I want them to learn things they never had an interest in,” Axelrod said.
Axelrod is nearing completion of a second book, a 180-pager with similar subject matter, but no title yet. And there’s more.
“I’m writing a second, third and fourth book,” he said.
Axelrod has plenty of material at the ready.
“These are my future books,” he said, showing off some 200 pages of copy in a binder. ••
To buy The Too-Late Learner’s Guide to Lost School Learning, go to amazon.com. The book comes with a free addendum. To receive the addendum, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Jerry Axelrod, 467 Wingate Road, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.
