Hello, Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Marlene Selsman and I was a teacher in the LAUSD school system. I probably would have still been a teacher, had they not assigned me to a school in the heart of Watts, where every day was a life and death struggle. Though I did manage to teach my kids how to read, and consequently became a READING SPECIALIST. In 1970, on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, I was shot at by students from the school that shared our back fence, John Muir Jr. High. And a new group was forming in a bldg. down the block, the Black Panthers. So as their avowed enemy, " whitey", I had a target on me. So, unfortunately, I had to quit, but I never wanted to quit teaching, ( I so enjoy watching someone learn something, it brightens their day, and consequently, mine). But I get the most satisfaction from being one-on-one with a student, and I think they do too. And because I was an actress, I do different voices, and encourage them to join me..all the while, they're reading.