A special request
If you successfully did it on your own, spending $0 on me
Well, congratulations. YOU are the reason I did this.
If you got what you needed from me - for free - I want you to help someone else the way I have helped you. Find a way to do it for free, preferably in a medium that will last forever - like writing, or videos, something that lives on a server or in a community center or something that you don't have to pay for. Or, maybe you have to teach it 1-1 or 1-2 or whatever....in all cases, ask those who learn from you, to teach their skills to others.
Much of what we need has been commodified. Even our healthcare. Even our making a living. And literacy - after years of teaching children struggling with literacy, I can tell you this for certain - 100% of the children I helped with reading only needed someone to spend time with them individually and go at a pace they could handle, with the patience we all deserve. Yeah, phonics and the stuff I borrowed from other systems helped, but what those kids really needed was time and persistence and someone to make the offer repeatedly with encouragement.
So if you think you don't have any skills to teach anyone, take an intentional look at what you know, and figure out what you can offer. Maybe it's only time and patience. Or maybe you can teach someone the skills that will keep them out of the doctors office, or help them make money* easier, or to help them with the basics of literacy. Or can you help someone learn to be more patient with others? Or to empathize? That would be huge.
If we do this for each other, our world will become a community, and will cease to be a marketplace where failure is expected and is the student's fault.
That's why i offered what I have freely - to create the kind of change only we can create.
Congratulations for taking advantage of my offerings, and I'm really happy and proud of you for being persistent and doing it yourself. Now, do you not feel the same responsibility that I feel?
One caveat - in all cases, make sure they really do want your help. Never teach someone who is not asking to be taught. It becomes a form of judgement among other things.