- awa hari ko ndartugol tun si no gollora nii ko no le hino gollora nii on dyaraama. mi arto yay fii mawdho hodho ngon si pullo on dyabhii.
Author: sununubah
dyui
bary bala boke no bakana baka boke eppa oo baka no bakini
US Changes Definition for High Blood Pressure
In this photo taken April 11, 2013, Liz DeRouen gets her blood pressure checked by medical assistant Jacklyn Stra at the Sonoma County Indian Health Project in Santa Rosa, California.
From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.
Recently, two leading heart organizations changed the definition of what it means to have high blood pressure. Because of this change, the number of Americans with high blood pressure jumped from 32 percent to 46 percent.
Doctors at the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology now classify anyone with a blood pressure reading of 130 over 80 as having high blood pressure.
Before, the cutoffs for high blood pressure had been a top number of 140 and a lower number of 90.
Health experts at the website Science Daily say blood pressure is defined by two numbers. The top number, called systolic, represents the force with which your heart pumps blood into the blood vessels. The bottom, called diastolic, is a measure of the resistance to the blood flow in the body’s blood vessels.
The American Heart Association says the new guidelines are designed to help people take steps to control their blood pressure earlier. High blood pressure can cause heart disease and stroke – the two leading causes of death in the world.
The new guidelines set blood pressures in these categories:
- Normal Blood Pressure: Under 120 over 80
- Elevated Blood Pressure: Top number 120-129 and bottom number less than 80
- High Blood Pressure / Stage 1: Top number of 130-139 or bottom number 80-89
- High Blood Pressure / Stage 2: Top number at least 140 or bottom number at least 90
High blood pressure around the world
A 2016 study by the World Health Organization and hundreds of scientists found that the number of people in the world with high blood pressure had reached 1.13 billion.
However, the study defined high blood pressure as 140 over 90. Should they adopt the new guidelines, the number of people with high blood pressure worldwide will most likely increase.
Scientists at Imperial College London led the study and looked at blood pressure measurements from nearly 20 million people from the years 1975 to 2015.
In this study, they found that the number of people with high blood pressure nearly doubled in 40 years.
Researchers found that over half of the world’s adults with high blood pressure lived in Asia. Around 226 million people in China have high blood pressure, along with 200 million in India.
This study also found that in 2015 people in South Korea, the USA and Canada had the lowest high blood pressure rates in the world. With the new U.S. guidelines, the U.S. ranking in the world could change.
The researchers from Imperial College London published their findings from the study in the January 2017 edition of the medical journal The Lancet.
Does this mean more medication is necessary?
Health experts are warning people to not rush to medication to lower their high blood pressure. They advise that there are many lifestyle changes a person can make to effectively keep their blood pressure at a healthy level.
Regular exercise and losing weight can lower your blood pressure. In some people, making changes in diet can make a big difference. Eating more fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, nuts and seeds can help. Eating less sodium and drinking less alcohol can also help.
And that’s the Health & Lifestyle report
The film “Casablanca” is one of the most famous American movies of all time.
At the end of the film, the actor Humphrey Bogart says a heartbreaking farewell to the woman he loves.
Bergman: But what about us?
Bogart: We’ll always have Paris.
Besides affecting one’s emotions, this movie scene can teach you a lot about English grammar. It can show you how English speakers use adverbs in a sentence.
In our program today, we explore a single word: always. We will discover why Bogart said his famous line the way he did.
Do not worry. Unlike the ending of “Casablanca,” we will not leave you in tears!
Adverbs and Movability
In other Everyday Grammar stories, we explored adverbs.
Adverbs are words that change the meaning of a verb, adjective, or sentence. They are often used to show time, place, or a way of doing things.
Adverbs are often movable. They can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence.
Consider these examples:
Occasionally I eat seafood.
I occasionally eat seafood.
I eat seafood occasionally.
In this example, the adverb occasionally appears in three different places in the sentence. The placement of the adverb does not change the meaning. All three sentences have the same meaning. Most English speakers would not think it strange if you used any one of these sentences.
Always is not as movable
What about the adverb always?
In general, the adverb always is not as movable as other kinds of adverbs – like the word occasionally.
You will not often hear an English speaker use always at the beginning or the end of a sentence.
Most often, you will hear always in the middle of the sentence, before the verb it is modifying.
In some cases, you might hear it at the beginning of a sentence – when giving an order or command, for example.*
Or you might hear it at the end of a sentence, but usually only in an artistic setting: a poetry reading or a musical performance, for example.
But the central point is this: in speaking and in writing, always does not move its position as often as other adverbs.
So, if you were to take our example sentence, “I eat seafood,” and use the adverb always, you could say, “I always eat seafood.”
Always generally is found after “BE” verbs and auxiliary verbs, but before other verbs.
You will find this structure in many popular films. Consider this famous line from “A Streetcar Named Desire:”
“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
In the example, always appears after the auxiliary verb, have, and just before the main verb, depended.
This same idea is true of Bogart’s famous line from “Casablanca,”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
“We’ll” is a short way to say, “we will.” Always appears after the auxiliary verb, will, and before the main verb, have.
Emphasized always
You might think that our story about the word always ends here, but it does not!
English speakers can also change the meaning of always.
When you hear or read the adverb always in its usual position, before the verb it is modifying. It generally has the meaning of habitually.
However, sometimes you will hear English speakers emphasize the word always.
In this case, the meaning of the sentence has changed. Think back to our example sentence: “I always eat seafood.”
This sentence means that you usually eat seafood – perhaps when you go to a restaurant.
If the speaker says, “I ALWAYS eat seafood,” with the emphasis on the word “always,” then the speaker is expressing annoyance. Perhaps the speaker is angry that another person – a close friend, for example – did not remember they like to eat seafood when they go out to dinner.
Here is another example: you hear a child say, “My father always works late on Thursdays.” This sentence uses the adverb always to express a habitual or common action.
However, if you hear the child say, “My dad ALWAYS works late on Thursdays,” then you know that the child is unhappy with the father’s work schedule.
What can you do?
So, now you know that if Bogart had used the emphasized always in the film Casablanca, the ending of the film would have been very different.
The next time you are listening or speaking, try to pay attention to the placement of the word always. Then, try to identify if it is emphasized or not. This will help you understand the speaker’s feelings.
Remember: English does not always communicate meaning through grammar. Emphasis plays an important role in showing the meaning of a sentence.
With practice, you, too, will be able to use always like a native speaker!
Why US College Students Cheat and How to Fight It
Why US College Students Cheat and How to Fight It
People sit outside at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where dozens of students were investigated for cheating in 2012 after school officials discovered evidence they may have wrongly shared answers or plagiarized on a final exam.
Everyone who has been a student has probably experienced something like this:
It is the night before a big test in one of your most difficult classes. You tried your best to study all the information you think will be included in the test. But you are still worried that you have not studied hard enough.
If you fail the test, you will likely fail the class. You start to worry so much that you start thinking about doing something you know is wrong. You think about writing some of the information you think will be on the test on a little piece of paper and hiding it in your clothing.
You think, “Will my teacher really be able to see what I am doing? And in the end, does doing this harm anyone?”
Eric Anderman says he has known many young people who have had these or similar thoughts in his teaching career. It began when he was a high school teacher, where he witnessed many students cheating in his classes.
Eric Anderman, head of the department of educational studies at the Ohio State University.
Now Anderman works at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He is a professor of educational psychology and head of the Department of Educational Studies at Ohio State.
Anderman says cheating happens just as much at the college level as it does in high school.
In fact, the International Center for Academic Integrity found that a majority of American college students cheat. In 2015, over 71,000 university students were asked about cheating. About 68 percent of them admitted to doing so at least once.
Anderman has been studying why students cheat and the ways in which they do it for over 20 years. His most recent research, published in September, provides interesting information about when students believe cheating is acceptable.
His research involved a little over 400 students at two large research universities in the United States. They were asked about cheating. The study found that the students said it is most acceptable to cheat in classes they disliked. And the classes where students felt cheating was acceptable were often subjects like mathematics and science.
Anderman notes that it is difficult to say what makes students like or dislike a class. It could be the subject or the personality of the professor. And in the end, it is always up to the student to make the decision whether or not to cheat.
However, Anderman argues that college professors can design their classes in a way that reduces students’ desire to cheat. Students feel cheating is less acceptable in classes that focus on learning how to do something instead of memorizing information, he says.
“If you think about it,” he told VOA, “it makes logical sense if a class is set up so that you have to demonstrate mastery … of the content, cheating’s not going to buy you anything. A flipside of that is … a focus on testing. And so when a student goes in a class, and … all they think about or all they hear about is testing … and ‘If you don’t do well on the test, you’ll never move on to the second level’ … they cheat more often.”
So, Anderman says, when a math test is given to students, teachers should not test whether or not they have memorized the necessary formulas. Students might be so worried about recalling the formulas that they feel the need to cheat in order to succeed.
The more students cheat, the more their understanding of the subject will weaken, Anderman says. Instead, he suggests that the professor could provide the math formulas to the students and test whether or not they know how to use them to solve complex problems.
After all, Anderman argues, in the real world, many professionals use computer programs that already possess the formulas. It is up to the professionals to know how to use the formulas and their knowledge of the subject to solve the problems presented to them.
Anderman says professors should do their best to explain why they are passionateabout a given issue and why students might need such knowledge in the future. That way the students themselves will feel more connected to what they are learning.
David Rettinger, professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington and member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.
Yet David Rettinger suggests that even with a connection to the material, there is still more to the fight against cheating. Rettinger is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is also one of the heads of the International Center for Academic Integrity.
Rettinger says cheating is so difficult to prevent, in part, because of the examples students see in the world around them.
“Cheating is deeply ingrained in our culture,” he told VOA. “And when students look to politics, they look to business, and … they see dishonesty being rewarded, it’s very difficult for those of us in higher education to make an argument that they should do things the right way.”
That is why Rettinger believes professors need to clearly explain the rules about cheating. For example, actions such as plagiarism — copying the work of others — will likely get a student expelled from any college or university in the U.S.
Understanding these rules can often be especially difficult for international students, Rettinger says. The education systems in some countries do not place the same importance on individual work or presenting creative ideas in writing projects, for example. So some international students may be cheating without even knowing they are doing so.
But most of all, Rettinger argues, professors should explain that finding cheating acceptable can cause problems for students well after college.
“You can, perhaps, get a job by cheating,” he said. “But you’re not going to keep that job. Over time it’s going to become clear to the people you work with that you don’t really know what you’re doing. And so the knowledge that you claim to have isn’t going to present itself, and they’re going to be looking for someone who can actually do the things you say you can do.
Verbs and Infinitives
peechThe 1977 movie Star Wars is an American classic, with many memorable lines and characters. At one point in the film, the character C-3PO says the following words:
“We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.”
Today, we are going to explore that statement. We are not talking about the meaning behind the statement. Instead, we will study the sentence’s grammar.
In particular, we are going to explore verb + infinitive combinations. “Seem to be” — the words you heard in the movie — is one such example.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
Infinitives and Gerunds
An infinitive is the basic form of the verb. Sometimes it has the word “to” in front of it. In the sentence “I like to study grammar,” the words “to study” are an infinitive.
A gerund is the form of a verb that ends in –ing. It acts like a noun. For example, in the sentence “Learning English is fun,” the word “learning” is a gerund.
Why are we talking about infinitives and gerunds?
Some verbs can be followed by an infinitive or a gerund. Knowing when to use an infinitive and when to use a gerund is difficult. However, the good news is this: verb + infinitive combinations are more common than verb + gerund combinations.*
Moreover, in everyday speech, verbs from four basic groups are often followed by infinitives. These basic patterns can help you learn the hundreds of specific verb + infinitive combinations.
We will now give you examples of three of these basic meaning groups. We will tell you the most common verbs from these groups that you will hear in everyday speech. We will also give you famous examples from American popular culture.
#1 Expressing want or need
Infinitives commonly follow verbs that express want or need. Common examples include the verbs want, like, hope, need and wish.
What do these verb + infinitive combinations sound like in everyday situations? Let’s listen to the following conversation:
1: Do you want to see a movie this afternoon?
2: I would like to see a movie, but I don’t want to be indoors this afternoon – it’s so beautiful outside.
1: How about this evening?
2: That sounds great. I can’t stay up late, though, because I need to get up early tomorrow morning.
In the conversation, you heard several examples of verb + an infinitive: “want to see,” “like to be,” and “need to get up.”
American popular culture also gives you more examples of how these structures sound. The 1997 romantic comedy film As Good As It Gets gives you one example:
“You make me want to be a better man.”
Here, actor Jack Nicholson uses the infinitive “to be” after the verb “want.”
#2 Expressing Effort
Infinitives often follow verbs that suggest effort. Common examples include the verbs attempt, fail, manage and try.
You can hear examples of these structures in the following conversation about school. Imagine you hear two students speaking with each other. One student did well on a test, and the other student did not do very well:
1: I managed to get an A on the test!
2. Well, I tried to pass the test…
1: Oh! I’m sorry, you didn’t do well?
2: Don’t worry about it – I’ll do better next time. Hey, do you want to play videogames tomorrow?
Here, the speakers used many past tense verbs, “managed” and “tried,” for example. Even though the speakers used the past tense, they still used infinitives after the main verb.
We hope you do not play videogames instead of studying!
American popular culture has many examples of try + an infinitive. Consider these lines from the classic American horror film, The Silence of the Lambs. Here, the fictional Dr. Lecter talks about killing a person:
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
In the example, Dr. Lecter uses the infinitive “to test” after the verb “tried.”
#3 “Seem” verbs
Infinitives also often follow verbs that are similar to the verb “seem.” Common examples include the verbs seem, appear, and tend.
Let’s listen to how speakers use these verbs in an everyday situation. Imagine a happy spouse returns home from a day at the office:
1: You seem to be happy with yourself!
2: I tend to smile when I get good news…
1: Really? What’s the news?
2: I got a promotion!
You just heard two examples of a verb + infinitive combination: “seem to be” and “tend to smile.”
You might have also noticed that the words from the film Star Wars also fit into this group:
“We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.”
What can you do?
The next time you are watching TV or speaking with an American, try to listen for examples of verb + infinitive. Ask yourself the basic meaning of the verb. Does it fit into one of the groups we talked about today?
Gerunds and infinitives are difficult to learn. But with study and practice, you will master them.
How can you do this? Try to use them as often as you can
common
In 1963, President John Kennedy gave a famous speech at American University. In the speech, Kennedy said the following lines:
“Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”
Today’s report is not about global problems. Nor is it about human destiny. Instead, it is about something much more exciting: transition words.
What are transitions?
Transitions are words that show relationships between ideas. According to grammar experts Susan Conrad and Douglas Biber, transitions are most common in academicwriting.
These transition words have different uses. They can suggest that a result, clarification, or example is coming. We will now look at each of these uses in greater detail.
#1 Expressing a result
Transition words that show a result include therefore and thus.
The words you heard at the beginning of this report give you one example of therefore:
“Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man.”
In the quote, the word therefore connects two statements: “Our problems are manmade” and “they [our problems] can be solved by mankind.”
The word therefore suggests “for that reason” or “because of that…”
Thus has a similar meaning. Academic writers often use it as a way to show a summary or conclusion. You might read a paragraph that begins with the words “Thus, we conclude that…”
In this case, the word thus is referring to ideas or arguments presented earlier in the written work.
In general, the writer is saying that the reasons already presented lead them to their conclusion.
#2 Restating or clarifying an idea
A second use of transitions is to restate or clarify ideas. Common examples include in other words and i.e.
Consider this example from a past Everyday Grammar program:
“Adverbials can appear at different places in a sentence. In other words, they are movable.”
In the example, the second sentence restates and clarifies the idea that comes in the first sentence. This added example helps to make the point more memorable and easier to understand.
I.e. can also restate or clarify an idea. Writers often use it in parenthetical statements or phrases.
The Everyday Grammar writer could have written the following words:
“Adverbials can appear at different places in a sentence (i.e. they are movable).
This sentence has a similar meaning to the first sentence, although it is different stylistically.
#3 Giving an example
A final group of transition words show that the writer is about to provide an example. Common words include for example and for instance.
Consider how President Ronald Reagan uses for example in his address to the United Nations in 1988:
“That is why when human rights progress is made, the United Nations grows stronger-and the United States is glad of it. Following a 2-year effort led by the United States, for example, the U.N. Human Rights Commission took a major step toward ending the double standards and cynicism that had characterized too much of its past.”
Reagan’s second sentence, although lengthy, supports the point that he makes in the first sentence. This is a useful pattern to use both in writing and formal speaking.
Movability
The transitions we have discussed today can appear at different places in a sentence.*
This movability is important to understand for students of writing.
Think back to Reagan’s speech. He used for example in the middle of his sentence.
“Following a 2-year effort led by the United States, for example, the U.N. Human Rights Commission took a major step toward ending the double standards and cynicism that had characterized too much of its past.”
Reagan could have used for example at another place in the sentence – the very beginning, for one.
Such a sentence would have sounded like this:
“For example, following a 2-year effort led by the United States, the U.N. Human Rights Commission took a major step toward ending the double standards and cynicism that had characterized too much of its past.”
Do not use transitions too often
Now that you have learned about transitions, you should practice using them.
However, do not use them too often. Your reader or listener might lose interest if you use too many transitions.
Also, you should be careful about using the transitions we have talked about today while speaking. They are polite and acceptable; however, they can make you sound very formal.
With time and practice, you will learn how and when to use transitions correctly.
And now, it is time for us to transition to the end of our report.
what it taks part 2
00:00:02 OPRAH WINFREY: “Hattie Mae, this child is gifted,” and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
00:00:08 ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don’t take it, you may never have another chance.
00:00:14 LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.
00:00:19 DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.
00:00:32 CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I’m going to love my life. Decide.”
00:00:35 JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they’re going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.
00:00:40 JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don’t look for, you don’t plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.
00:00:52 ALICE WINKLER: This is What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement’s recorded collection. On this episode, we bring you the second part of our conversation with Oprah Winfrey. It was recorded in 1991 by the Academy of Achievement. If you haven’t heard Part One, you might want to go back and take a listen first, but to recap, Oprah described her early childhood in Mississippi, her precocious ability to speak in public, her multiple traumas of rape and molestation, and the life lesson she finally learned and feels is her greatest success, the ability to say no.
00:01:30 Now onto the stories of her life in broadcasting, with wisdom, humor, and inspiration sprinkled throughout. It is Oprah, after all.
00:01:39 OPRAH WINFREY: Who really did give me the break? Well, there were several people. I was one of two students picked from each state in 1971 to go to the White House Conference on Youth. I don’t know who sponsored it, but there was this big White House Conference on Youth, and they picked two people from each state all around the world, and so you were put in this whole big convention with all these people from all over the world.
00:02:00 Well, I was being interviewed by a local radio station, and a year later — this was — I was 17 at this time — there was a contest being sponsored in town called the Miss Fire Prevention Contest, and the guy who’d interviewed me at the radio station — his name was John Heidelberg — remembered me. He thought — he just remembered that I’d given him a nice interview and I was a kid, and they needed a teenager, so he said, “Why — what about that girl that was here last year?”
00:02:30 Yes. And so I was all of a sudden representing this radio station in the Miss Fire Prevention Contest, where all you had to do is walk, parade around in an evening gown, answer some questions about your life. You know, it was just — it was one of those little, teeny, tiny beauty pageants. Well, nobody expected me to win the pageant because we were still Negroes at the time, and — I’ve been colored, Negro, black, now I’m African American. So we’re still Negroes, and I was the only Negro in a pageant of all red-haired girls, and it’s the Miss Fire Prevention Contest, so the Lord knows I’m not going to win, so I was very relaxed about it.
00:03:05 I thought, “Well, I got a new gown, and this is great.” So when it came time for the question-and-answer period, they asked, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” And one girl said, “If I had a million dollars, I’d buy my mom a Frigidaire, my dad a truck.” Someone else, if they had a million dollars, they’d buy their brother Bubba a motorcycle “because he’s always wanted one,” and they’d give it to the poor. And I said — all totally relaxed because I’m not going to win anyway — “If I had a million dollars, I would be a spending fool. I’m not quite sure what I would spend it on, but I would spend, spend, spend. Spending fool.”
00:03:41 Well, I ended up winning, and there was another question about what I would like to do with my life, my career. Well, everybody wanted to be a nurse or a teacher, and I made this big speech about broadcast journalism, mainly because I had seen Barbara Walters that morning on The Today Show. So I thought, “Now, see, what can I be? I can’t be a nurse. Can’t be a teacher because that’s what they were,” so I said I wanted to be a broadcast journalist because I believed in the truth, was interested in proclaiming the truth to the world.
00:04:10 Now, I won the contest. Well, what a shock, Negro me! And that was the beginning of my broadcasting career, because when I went back to the radio station to pick up my Longines watch and my digital clock, they asked me would I like to hear my voice on tape. They said, “Would you like to hear your voice on tape?” Just sort of as a little treat for me. “Come here, and let’s listen to your voice now,” and I started to read. Now I’ve been reading since I was three. They couldn’t believe how well I read, and I was hired there.
00:04:37 Somebody said, “Sit down and read,” and they said, “Come hear this girl read,” and then someone else — and before I knew it, there were four guys standing in the room listening to me read, and I was hired, 17 years old, in radio. At the time, I was still a senior, so I had to only work after school, so I’d finish, get there by 3:30, and I’d do on-the-air newscasts. Well, all my friends just hated me because they’re cutting grass.
00:05:00 And my sophomore year in college, someone heard me on the radio and said, “We heard you on the radio. Would you be interested in working in television?” And I turned them down three times, and the third time… I had a college professor; I said, “They keep calling me to be on television, and I know if I do television I’ll never finish school.” So he said, “Don’t you know that’s why people go to school? So that somebody can keep calling them. You nitwit.”
00:05:28 So I went and I interviewed for the job, and Chris Clark gave me the job. I interviewed for the job in television. Never — I’ve never even been behind-the-scenes of television. I was 19 at the time, so I decided to pretend to be Barbara Walters because that’s how I’d gotten into this in the first place. So I sat there pretending, with Barbara in my head, did everything I thought she would do, and I was hired. It was amazing.
00:05:53 GAIL EICHENTHAL: Funny, you don’t look like Barbara Walters.
00:05:55 OPRAH WINFREY: I don’t look like Barbara!
00:05:56 ALICE WINKLER: That other voice you hear belongs to Gail Eichenthal, who did this interview with Oprah for the Academy of Achievement. Gail followed up by asking whether Oprah felt she’d faced a lot of racism or sexism in her career.
00:06:10 OPRAH WINFREY: I would have to say that I, for the most part, have not been, as far as I know, affected. I — as a matter of fact, it was because of the riots of the ’70s that, I think, they were looking for minorities. They were trying to fulfill all of their quotas in programs, and so I was hired as a token and had to take the heat from my college classmates. I went to an all-black college, with them calling me a token, and I used to say, “Yeah, but I’m a paid token.”
00:06:40 And I recognized that — and at the time, I didn’t even know it was a pun. I was thinking, “Yeah, but they pay — yeah, they pay me,” and was very defensive about it because I’ve always had to live with the notion of other black people saying, “Oh,” for any amount of success that you achieve, they say, “Oh, you’re trying to be white. You’re trying to talk white. You’re trying to be white,” and so forth, which is such a ridiculous notion to me, since you look in the mirror every morning and you’re black, there’s a black face in your reflection.
00:07:11 So I, you know, had to live with that whole thing of, you know, trying to — and it was very uncomfortable for me at first because when I first started as a broadcaster, I was 19, very insecure, thrown into television, pretending to be Barbara Walters, looking nothing like her, and still going to college. So I do all my classes in the morning, from eight to one, and in the afternoon I work from two to ten, and did the six o’clock news, and would stay up and study and all that stuff, you know, until one-, two-, or three o’clock in the morning, and then just start the routine all over again.
00:07:45 And my classmates were so jealous of me that I remember, like, taking my little $115 paycheck and — at the time I thought it was really a lot, but taking $115 and trying to appease them. I would, like, any time anybody needed money, I was always offering, “Oh, you need ten dollars?” Or taking them out for pizza, ordering pizza for the class and things like that, trying to — that whole disease to please.
00:08:09 That’s where it was the worst for me, I think, because I wanted to be accepted by them and could not be because, first of all, I didn’t have the time. They wanted me to pledge, and I didn’t have the time to pledge. I was — I didn’t have the time to be a part of all the other college activities or a part of that whole lifestyle, and it was very difficult for me socially. Really, one of the worst times in my life because I was trying to fit in, in school, and be a part of that culture, but also trying to build a career in television.
00:08:37 ALICE WINKLER: That career would build with jobs as a reporter on local TV and radio, and then as host of a Chicago TV talk show. By the time it went national, it seemed to most of America her career was just exploding out of nowhere. She had also, by the way, just been nominated the year before for an Academy Award for playing Sofia in the movie version of The Color Purple. It was her first movie role, and the film was directed by Steven Spielberg. Oprah says her sudden fame was just an illusion.
00:09:08 OPRAH WINFREY: My first Easter speech in the Kosciusko Baptist Church at the age of three-and-a-half was the beginning, and every other speech, every other book I read, every other time I spoke in public was a building block, so that by the time I first sat down to audition in front of a television camera and somebody says, “Read this,” what allowed me to read it so comfortably and be so at ease with myself at that time was the fact that I’d been doing it awhile.
00:09:39 If I’d never read a book or I’d never spoken in public before, I would have been traumatized by it. So the fact that we went on the air with the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 nationally, and people would say, “Oh, but you’re — God, you’re so comfortable in front of the camera. You can be yourself.” Well, it’s because I’ve been being myself since I was 19, and I would not have been able to be as comfortable with myself had I not made mistakes on the air and been allowed to make mistakes on the air and understand that it doesn’t matter.
00:10:14 You know, I — there’s no such thing to me as an embarrassing moment, no such thing. If I tripped and fell, if my bra strap showed, if my slip fell off, if I fell flat on my face, there’s no such thing as an embarrassing moment because I know that there is not a moment that I could possibly experience on the air that somebody else hasn’t already experienced. So when it happens, you say, “Oh, my slip fell off,” and it’s no big deal.
00:10:39 I mean, like, I was on TV the other day and somebody says, “Oh, Oprah, you have a run.” Have you not seen a run before in your life? Well, I get them too. Let me tell you. So, I mean, see, I can’t be embarrassed. I can’t be embarrassed. Now when I first started out, that was not true because I was under the — I was pretending to be somebody I was not. I was pretending to be Barbara Walters, so I’d go to a news conference, and I was more interested in how I phrased the question and how eloquent the question sounded as opposed to listening to the answer.
00:11:11 I was so — which always happens when you’re interested in impressing people instead of doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and it took me awhile. It took me messing up on the air, on — during a live newscast. I was doing a list of foreign countries, and I — there were all these foreign names, and then Canada was thrown in, and I called Canada “Cuh-nah-da,” and I got so tickled that I called — I go, “That wasn’t Cuh-nah-da. That was Canada. Excuse me. That wasn’t Canada. That wasn’t Cuh-nah-da. That was Canada.”
00:11:39 And then I started laughing. Well, it was — it became the first real moment I ever had, and the news director later said to me, “Well, if you do that then you should keep going. You shouldn’t correct yourself and let people know.” Well, I know, well, who’s ever heard of Cuh-nah-da? So that was, for me, the beginning of realizing that, oh, you can laugh at yourself, and you can make a mistake, and it’s not the end of the world. You don’t have to be perfect.
00:12:04 Biggest lesson for me for television. Didn’t matter. “Oh, sorry. Bra strap’s showing.”
00:12:08 ALICE WINKLER: But Oprah’s newfound desire to be herself wasn’t a big hit with news management, that and her reluctance to thrust a mike into the faces of people in crisis just for a story.
00:12:20 OPRAH WINFREY: I only came to co-host a talk show because I had failed at news, and I was going to be fired, and the news director was paying me 22,000 a year. God only knows what my co-anchor was making. But — was paying me 22,000 a year, and they thought they were paying me too much money to only just do news stories, and so I had been taken off the six o’clock news and was put on the early morning, like, five-thirty cut-ins, and they tried to convince me at the time — they said, “You know, you are — you’re so good that you need your own time period, so we’re going to give you five minutes at five-thirty in the morning.”
00:13:03 And I was devastated because up until that point I had sort of cruised. I really hadn’t thought a lot about my life or the direction it was taking. I just — because I had happened into television, happened into radio, sort of happenstanced. I don’t believe in luck. I think luck is preparation meeting opportunity, but I felt like I had somewhat prepared myself, but that I had happenstanced into it.
00:13:30 So I thought, okay, I was working in Nashville, and so I moved to Baltimore, and now I’ll do this for a while, and then I don’t know what I’ll do. And so when I was called in and put on the edge of being fired and certainly demoted and knew that firing was only a couple weeks away, I was, like, devastated. I was 22 and, I mean, embarrassed by the whole thing because I’d never failed before.
00:13:54 And it was that failure that led to the talk show. Because they had no place else to put me, they put me on a talk show one morning, and the — I’m telling you, the hour — I interviewed — my very first interview was the Carvel Ice Cream Man and Benny from All My Children. Never forget it. And I came off the air thinking, “This is what I should have been doing,” because it was like breathing to me, like breathing. You just talk.
00:14:21 ALICE WINKLER: It came easy and struck a remarkable chord with audiences and guests, who opened up to her, just as she opened up to them. The press, however, was occasionally a little less forgiving, but Oprah told interviewer Gail Eichenthal that her critics have helped her to get better.
00:14:39 OPRAH WINFREY: Now I take criticism very seriously. There have been — I can’t say that I’m one of those people who does not read criticism, because I do, and if someone criticizes something and it strikes a nerve with me, I will then move to correct it. I mean, I have written critics who have said things that I thought were very valid. Recently someone criticized us for airing a show on mothers who had gone through postpartum depression and had killed their children, and they were saying that the show should not have aired in the afternoon because there were children watching.
00:15:11 And I have — I mean, I absolutely agree with that. I think that’s a very valid point. We should have considered that. That’s one of the things I did not think about. I’m thinking that I’m going to help all these mothers who are going through this, but that person was absolutely right, and I’ve reached a level of maturity in this work myself. There was a time when I first started out that I would say I was far more exploitive. You just put a person on for the purpose of having — I wouldn’t do that anymore.
00:15:34 I was in the middle of a show with some white supremacist skinheads, Klu Klux Klan members, and in the middle of that show I just had a flash. I thought, “This is doing nobody any good. Nobody. This is — ” I mean, and I had rationalized the show by saying, “Oh, people need to know that these kinds of people are out here.” I won’t do it anymore. I just won’t do it. There are certain things — I won’t do Satanism of any kind, any kind of Satan worship, I won’t do — I no longer want to give a platform to racists. I just don’t, because I think no good can come of it.
00:16:07 And so if you don’t know that it exists, I’m sorry, you won’t hear it here. But that’s growth for me. I did a show — I taped a show last year with a guy who was a mass murderer who killed 80 people, and I did the whole interview, and I had the families on of some of the people he killed. In the middle of it I thought, “I shouldn’t be doing this. This is not going to help anybody. It’s a voyeuristic look at a serial killer, but what good is it going to do anybody?” And we didn’t air it.
00:16:34 GAIL EICHENTHAL: You obviously are in the public eye, and in a way that most people cannot relate to, and I’m just wondering how you’ve adjusted to that, to the fact that when Oprah sneezes, it’s usually printed in People magazine, you know, or whatever…
00:16:48 OPRAH WINFREY: Oh, it’s certainly “Oprah Eats a Piece of Bacon.” I don’t know about sneezing, but if she eats a piece of bacon, it’s an — I think I’ve adjusted pretty well. I think I’m really — actually I’m probably one of the most balanced people I know to live under such a microscope, I think. And I think that you have to put it all in perspective and understand who you really are, and who I really am is not some person who’s, you know, just on television every day.
00:17:12 That is something that I do, and what I think is important is for people to — not to look at my life or anybody else’s life, particularly celebrities, because I think adoration is unhealthy. And, you know, when you look at the list of people that students choose to admire in this country, I think that there are so many people who do such incredible things! Incredible things. I mean, I was — you know, last year I met the guy who split the neutrons in two, and they do things, you think, “My God.”
00:17:12 They do things to atoms that you can’t even pronounce, and I think, “Well, you know, wouldn’t it be wonderful if those kinds of people got publicity. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we paid attention to some of the more humanitarian things that are going on. Things that are really of value,” and I think just because, you know, you can do a video and you can dance really well or you can sit on a talk show and you can talk to people, that is not necessarily to be held in the highest of esteem, you know, because that isn’t what makes life meaningful. It really is not.
00:18:17 GAIL EICHENTHAL: What characteristics do you think are most important for having a fulfilling life? And I’m not going to say successful because I really don’t mean financially successful. But I mean a fulfilling life, successful life, in a profession.
00:18:30 OPRAH WINFREY: I think the most important thing to get ahead falls back to what I truly believe in, and then that is the ability to seek truth in your life. You can be pursuing a profession because your parents say it’s the best thing. You can be pursuing a profession because you think you’ll make a lot of money. You can be pursuing a profession because you think you’re going to get a lot of attention. None of that will do you any good if you’re not being honest with yourself, and the honesty comes from — your natural-born instinct will tell you when you’re doing something, whether or not this feels right.
00:19:01 You feel a sense of accomplishment and a fulfillment and worthiness to the world in such a way that you know you’re doing the right thing. You don’t have to ask anybody. When you’re doing the right thing you don’t have to say, “Do you think this is okay?” It’s like — and it works on every level, whether or not you’re going to a party or you’re choosing a dress or you’re choosing a friend. If you ever have to say, “Do you think this is okay?” — chances are it is not, because that’s your instinct trying to get you to ask yourself that question: “Maybe this isn’t okay?”
00:19:35 And so from the very first day I did my very first talk show, I felt — I knew it. I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt the same thing about acting, too, only I was so terrified that it was a little more difficult for me.
00:19:52 GAIL EICHENTHAL: What’s the turn-on for you in acting?
00:19:55 OPRAH WINFREY: For me, the turn-on is the ability to express another person’s life. I think if you can internalize and then manifest externally the essence of another being, that is the ultimate in understanding. What it takes to take somebody else’s life, make it your own, and put it out there is the ultimate — you understand things about people that you could never imagine. You — it’s like, almost for a while getting to live somebody else’s life.
00:20:33 The most powerful scene in The Color Purple, for me, was the scene where Sofia walks through the cornfield and proclaims herself to Celie, defines and proclaims herself, where she says, “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my cousins. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my uncles, but I ain’t never thought I had to fight in my own house.”
00:21:00 I did that scene in one take because it was the essence, I thought, of my life. And very liberating to live it through Sofia because, at the time that I spoke it, I wasn’t there yet, because what she is saying is, “I fought people all my life, and I’m not going to fight in my own house anymore, in my own space anymore. I’m going to have what I deserve.” And it’s taken me awhile to get to where Sofia was, but it was so liberating.
00:21:34 It was all, I think, a part of the process of growth for me to recognize it can be done.
00:21:40 ALICE WINKLER: And the person who gave Oprah that opportunity to act for the first time, to embody characters, and to continue her process of healing from childhood trauma, was none other than Quincy Jones, music and film producer extraordinaire.
00:21:56 OPRAH WINFREY: Quincy Jones discovered me, and it’s so interesting to me because when I was working as a television newswoman in Baltimore — and, really, all I wanted to do was be an actress, but I was doing television, and I felt at the time, “Well, I can’t quit this job because this is what everybody else wants to do, and if I quit this job, what am I going to do?” And I was going to a speech coach at the time that the station had sent me to.
00:22:24 They — you know, they — the broadcasting school, they sent everybody to the same woman, and I was telling her, “You know, I really don’t want to do this. What I really want to do is act.” And she says, “My dear, you don’t want to act because if you wanted to act you’d be doing it. What you want to be, my dear, is a star, because if you wanted to act, you’d be waiting tables in New York. You’d be — ” and I thought, “Now why am I going to wait tables if I’m already working in TV?” So I said, “Well, what I think is going to happen is I will be discovered, because I want it so badly somebody’s going to have to discover me.”
00:22:54 And she said, “You just dream. You dream. You’re a dreamer.” So when it happened, I called her up. I said, “You will not believe this! I got discovered!” And it really was a discovery. It’s like one of those Lana Turner stories, only it wasn’t a drugstore. He was in his hotel room, saw me on TV. It was unbelievable. So the interesting thing about that is that I truly believe that thoughts are the greatest vehicle to change, power, and success in the world.
00:23:28 Everything begins with thoughts. I mean, the chairs that we’re sitting in, the room that we’re in, all started because somebody thought it. So I thought up The Color Purple for myself. I know this is going to sound strange to you. I read the book. I got so many copies of that book. I passed the book around to everybody I knew. If I was on the bus I’d pass it out to people. And when I heard that there was going to be a movie, I started talking it up for myself. I didn’t know Quincy Jones or Steven Spielberg or how on earth I would get in this movie.
00:24:01 I’d never acted in my life, but I felt it so intensely that I had to be a part of that movie. I just — I really do believe I created it for myself.
00:24:10 ALICE WINKLER: After spending so much time listening to this interview with Oprah, it is not hard to believe that she willed herself into a part in The Color Purple, that she willed herself into becoming the preeminent talk show host of all time, and everything that came after for her: the studio, the magazine, the TV network, and the tremendous wealth. Oprah Winfrey is one of the wealthiest people in America. Yet still, she said…
00:24:37 OPRAH WINFREY: What other people view as successful is not what my idea of success is, and I don’t mean to belittle it at all. I think it’s really nice to be able to have nice things. What material success does is provide you with the ability, I think, to concentrate on other things that really matter, and that is being able to make a difference not only in your own life but also in other people’s lives. That’s really all it’s good for. It’s because you don’t — you no longer have to focus your attention on how you’re going to pay your car note and whether or not you’re going to sign your last name so that when the check gets there, they can send it back to you, and you can say, “Oh, forgot to sign it.”
00:25:13 You know, you don’t have to play those games anymore, so you really have the time and the attention to focus on other things. And the big question for me in my life is, now that I have achieved some material success, is what do I do with it? How do I use this to make a difference?
00:25:32 GAIL EICHENTHAL: And?
00:25:33 OPRAH WINFREY: And, for me, education is about the most important thing, because that was — that is what liberated me. Education is what liberated me. The ability to read saved my life. I would have been an entirely different person had I not been taught to read when I was, at an early age. My entire life experience, my ability to believe in myself, and even in my darkest moments of sexual abuse and being physically abused and so forth, I knew there was another way.
00:26:11 I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I’d read about it. I’d read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being, and so it saved my life. So that’s why I now focus my attention on trying to do the same thing for other people.
00:26:37 ALICE WINKLER: Oprah Winfrey talking to the Academy of Achievement in 1991. Thank you for listening. Next time you find yourself looking for a shot of inspiration or some great life stories from another towering figure, visit us again. I’m Alice Winkler. This is What It Takes. And I can’t resist leaving you with one last little clip of Oprah talking about one of her favorite things. Who knows? I just like to think maybe it’s where the idea for her famous segment started.
00:27:12 OPRAH WINFREY: I love bubbles. Now that’s the one big luxury I’ve given myself, is that now that I’ve attained some material success, I will use an entire half a bottle of bubble bath at one time, and I’m really particular about the kind of bubbles too. Like, I don’t want the kind that drip down off of your arm, poor quality bubbles. I like the kind that covers your arm and stays
what it taks
00:00:02 OPRAH WINFREY: “Hattie Mae, this child is gifted,” and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
00:00:08 ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don’t take it, you may never have another chance.
00:00:14 LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.
00:00:19 DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.
00:00:32 CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I’m going to love my life. Decide.”
00:00:35 JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they’re going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.
00:00:40 JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don’t look for, you don’t plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.
00:00:52 ALICE WINKLER: Welcome to another episode of What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement’s recorded collection. I’m Alice Winkler. On every episode of What It Takes, we play you a revealing conversation with someone who has literally changed the world, and mind you, a lot of people say literally these days when they mean figuratively, but I mean literally, literally. The Academy of Achievement has been recording these conversations for decades to document the extraordinary lives of people like Bill Gates, Alan Shepard, and Hank Aaron, but mostly to show that all of us can learn what it takes to do a little better, aim a little higher.
00:01:33 There is arguably no one alive who has built a bigger empire of inspiration than Oprah Winfrey, or, since America’s on a first-name basis with her, Oprah.
00:01:45 OPRAH WINFREY: Billy is grieving, and we, you know, Phil has compassion for him, and that’s okay that he’s grieving.
00:01:50 MALE VOICE: Yeah, I think it’s important for his mom, Sherry, to know that it’s okay if — for him to be sad. I mean, something tremendous has happened in his life, and he deserves that.
00:02:00 ALICE WINKLER: Gail Eichenthal sat down with Oprah for the Academy of Achievement in 1991. It was five years into her groundbreaking talk show and many years before the production company, the magazine, or the television network. Gail started by asking Oprah if she’d had any clue she’d one day make it so big.
00:02:19 OPRAH WINFREY: As a young child I had a vision not of what I wanted to accomplish, but I knew that my current circumstances — I was raised on a farm with my grandmother for the first six years of my life. I knew somehow that my life would be different and it would be better. I never had a clear-cut vision of what it was I would be doing.
00:02:43 I just always felt somehow — or I remember absolutely physically feeling it at around four years old. I remember standing on the back porch. It was a screened-in porch, and my grandmother was boiling clothes, because, you know, during the — at that time, we didn’t have washing machines, and so people would, you know, physically boil clothes in a great big iron pot, and she was boiling clothes and poking them down, and I was watching her from the back porch, and I was four years old, and I remember thinking, “My life won’t be like this.”
00:03:14 “My life won’t be like this. It will be better,” and it wasn’t from a place of arrogance. It was just a place of knowing that things could be different for me somehow. I don’t know what made me think that.
00:03:26 GAIL EICHENTHAL: Did you ever consider any other career besides talking, broadcasting, and acting?
00:03:30 OPRAH WINFREY: I always wanted to be an actress, for most of my adolescent and adult life. My father didn’t want me to be because his idea of what an actress was, was one of these, you know, lewd women, and, “How are you going to take care of your life?” So I always wanted to be an actress, and have taken, I think, a roundabout way to get there, because I still don’t feel fulfilled as an actress. I still feel like, okay, once I’m — now I own my own studio and all this, but I’m thinking, “I did all of this just to be an actress. I just want to be able to act.”
00:04:10 For a while, I wanted to be a schoolteacher. In the fourth grade, Mrs. Duncan was my greatest inspiration. In the fourth grade is when I first began to believe in myself. I, for the first time, believed that I could do almost anything. I felt I was the queen bee. I felt I could control the world. I was going to be a missionary. I was going to Costa Rica. I was going to — I used to collect money on the playground for — to take to church on Sundays, from all the other kids.
00:04:43 And at the time in schools, we had devotions, and I would sit, and I would listen to everything the preacher said on Sunday and go back to school on Monday morning and beg Mrs. Duncan to please let me do the devotion, just sort of repeat the sermon. So in the fourth grade, I was called “Preacher.” Kids used to poke fun at me all the time, but it didn’t bother me because I was so inspired at the time, and a lot of it was because of Mrs. Duncan. Mrs. Duncan, Mrs. Duncan.
00:05:09 And we did a show not too long ago, and I had favorite teachers on. I just broke down because, first of all, it was the first time I realized Mrs. Duncan had a name other than Mrs. Duncan. You know, your teachers never have names. But her name’s Mary! I couldn’t believe it.
00:05:22 ALICE WINKLER: And maybe you won’t believe it, but Oprah’s first name was actually supposed to be Orpah.
00:05:28 OPRAH WINFREY: Well, I was born, as I said, in rural Mississippi in 1954, and I was born at home, and there were not a lot of educated people around, and my name had been chosen from the Bible. My Aunt Ida had chosen the name, but people didn’t know how to pronounce it, so it went down as Orpah on my birth certificate, but they put the p before the r in every place else other than the birth certificate. So on the birth certificate, it is Orpah, but then it got translated to Oprah, and so here we are.
00:06:04 But that’s great because Oprah spells Harpo backwards. I don’t know what Orpah spells.
00:06:09 ALICE WINKLER: It seems appropriate somehow that Oprah ended up with a singular name, even if by mistake. Her singular talents started to show when she was practically still a toddler, speaking in public at an age when the rest of us are still learning to talk. It was her grandmother who recognized her gifts, the grandmother who raised her.
00:06:30 OPRAH WINFREY: I came to live with my grandmother because I was a child born out of wedlock, and my mother moved to the North. She’s a part of that great migration to the North in the late ’50s, and I was left with my grandmother, like so many other black youngsters were, left to be taken care of by their grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles, and I was one of those children. It actually, probably, saved my life.
00:06:55 It is the reason why I am where I am today, because my grandmother gave me the foundation for success that I was allowed to continue to build upon. My grandmother taught me to read, and that opened the door to all kinds of possibilities for me, and had I not been with my grandmother and been with my mother, struggling in the North, you know, moving from apartment to apartment, I probably would not have had the foundation that I had.
00:07:22 So I was allowed to grow up in Mississippi for the first six years of my life, and allowed to feel somewhat special. Because I was a precocious child, I guess, by any standards now. I was taught to read at an early age, and by the time I was three, I was reciting speeches in the church. And they put me up on the program, and they’d say, “And little Mistress Winfrey will render a recitation.”
00:07:48 And I would do, “Jesus rose on Easter Day. Hallelujah, hallelujah, all the angels did proclaim,” and all the sisters sitting in the front row would fan themselves and turn to my grandmother and say, “Hattie Mae, this child is gifted,” and I heard that enough that I started to believe it: “Maybe I am!” I didn’t even know what “gifted” meant, but I just thought it meant that I was special, and so any time people came over I’d recite. I’d recite Bible verses and poetry.
00:08:15 I did all of James Weldon Johnson’s sermons. He has a series of seven sermons, beginning with “The Creation” and ending with “Judgment.” I used to do them for churches all over the city of Nashville. I’ve spoken at every church in Nashville at some point in my life, I think, and you sort of get known for that. Other people were known for singing. I was known for talking. By the time I was seven, I was doing Invictus by William Ernest Henley.
00:08:41 “Out of the night that covers me, black as a pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods there be for my unconquerable soul,” and at the time, I was saying — I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I’d do all the motions: “Out of the night that covers me,” and people would say, “Ooh, that child can speak!” And so that’s — you know, you — whatever you do a lot of, you get good at doing it, and that’s just about how this whole broadcasting career started for me.
00:09:07 ALICE WINKLER: It was all going pretty well for young Oprah, considering she was being raised without her parents in Mississippi, but then she moved north to be reunited with her mother in Chicago and things took a turn.
00:09:20 OPRAH WINFREY: And if you had asked me at the time if we were poor, I probably would have said no, because when you are living it and you don’t know anything else, you think that’s the way life is. And I was raped when I was nine by a cousin, and never told anybody until I was in my late twenties. Not only was I raped by a cousin… I was raped by a cousin, and then later sexually molested by a friend of the family, and then by an uncle. It was just an ongoing continuous thing, so much so that I started to think, you know, “This is the way life is.”
00:09:57 And not until, I’d say, a year ago did I release the shame from myself, because I was in the middle of an interview with a woman named Trudy Chase, who has multiple personalities and was severely abused as a child.
00:10:18 TRUDY CHASE: Each one of us went through some pretty deep garbage, and this is our opportunity, has been our opportunity for a while, to explore each other. Do you know…
00:10:29 OPRAH WINFREY: Do you feel like you lost whoever you would have been that day you were raped at two years old?
00:10:35 TRUDY CHASE: Well, she is no more. No more.
00:10:41 OPRAH WINFREY: And I think it was on that day that, I mean, for the first time, I recognized that I was not to blame, because I was a — I became a sexually promiscuous teenager, promiscuous and rebellious, and did everything I could get away with, including faking a robbery in my house one time. I remember, you know, stomping the glasses in the floor and putting myself in the hospital and acting out the whole scene, and I used to pull all kinds of pranks — ran away from home — and as a result of that got myself into a lot of trouble and believed that I was responsible for it.
00:11:18 It wasn’t until I was 36 years old — thirty-six — that I connected the fact, oh, that’s why I was that way. I always blamed myself, even though, intellectually, I would say to other kids — I would speak to people and say, “Oh, the child is never to blame. You’re never responsible for molestation in your life.” I still believed I was responsible somehow, that I was a bad girl and just released it in the middle…
00:11:46 And so it happened on the air, as so many things happen for me. It happened on the air in the middle of somebody else’s experience. And so I thought I was going to have a breakdown on television, and I said, you know, “Stop, stop. You’ve got to stop rolling cameras.” And they didn’t, and so I sort of got myself through it, but it was really quite traumatic for me.
00:12:06 “The real Trudy Chase underwent years of therapy, and most of that therapy — stop — was videotaped because Trudy says that she wanted others to someday be able to understand that they are not alone in their abuse.”
00:12:33 My openness is the reason why I did not do so well as a news reporter, because I used to go on assignments and be so open that I would say to people at fires and they’d lost their children, “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me.” Well, then you go back to the newsroom, and the news director, “What do you mean they didn’t have to talk to you?” I’d say, “But she just lost her child, and, you know, I just felt so bad.”
00:12:55 So I didn’t do very well. I was too — absolutely too involved. I’d go to funerals of people and not go in. I wouldn’t want to talk to them and disturb them. Cry on the air.
00:13:05 ALICE WINKLER: But, of course, it was her overwhelming empathy that allowed Oprah Winfrey to become “Oprah.” She just needed to find the format that fit. On her talk show, she perfected a new kind of confessional, therapeutic television, and television hasn’t been the same since.
00:13:23 OPRAH WINFREY: When I was growing up, especially in the third and fourth grade, I always wanted to be a minister and preach and be a missionary, and then for a while, after Mrs. Duncan’s fourth grade class, I wanted to be a fourth grade teacher, and I think, in many ways, that I have been able to fulfill all of that. I feel that my show is a ministry. We just don’t take up a collection, and I feel that it is a teaching tool without preaching to people about it.
00:13:47 I really do. That is my intent. That is my intent, and the greatest thing about what I do, for me, is that I’m in a position to change people’s lives. It is the most incredible platform for influence that you could imagine, and it’s something that I hold in great esteem and take full responsibility for. I mean, I do every show in prayer, not down on my knees praying, but I do it in sort of, before every show, a mental meditation in order to get the correct message across because you’re dealing with millions of people every day, and it’s very easy for something to be misinterpreted.
00:14:35 And so my intention is always, regardless of what the show is, whether it’s about sibling rivalry or wife battering or children of divorce, for people to see within each show that you are responsible for your life, that although there may be tragedy in your life, there’s always a possibility to triumph. Doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, and that the ability to triumph begins with you, always. Always.
00:15:01 ALICE WINKLER: When interviewer Gail Eichenthal asked Oprah in this conversation, in 1991, how aware she was of her own triumph, her own courage, this is what she said.
00:15:11 OPRAH WINFREY: The interesting thing about it is, if you were telling me my life story and it was about somebody else, I’d say, “Oh, how courageous.” It’s very difficult for me to give myself that credit. I mean, it’s very difficult for me to even see myself as successful because I still see myself as in the process of becoming successful. To me, successful is getting to the point where you are absolutely comfortable with yourself, and it does not matter how many things you have acquired.
00:15:44 The ability to learn to say no and not to feel guilty about it, to me, is about the greatest success I have achieved. The fact that I have, you know, in the public’s eye done whatever is fine. It’s all a part of a process for growing for me, but to me, to have the kind of internal strength and internal courage it takes to say, “No, I will not let you treat me this way,” is what success is all about. “I will not be treated this way. I demand only the best for myself.”
00:16:14 ALICE WINKLER: One of Oprah’s greatest wishes, she said, was that through her work she could teach young people how to learn this life lesson a little faster than she learned it.
00:16:23 OPRAH WINFREY: Because it’s painful, because you keep repeating it over and over and over until you get it right, and what I found is that every time you have to repeat the lesson, it gets worse because it’s — you know, it’s — I call it God trying to get your attention, the universe trying to get your attention. So we didn’t get your attention the first time, so we’re going to have to hit you a little harder this time. Any major problem you encounter, it always started out as a whisper. By the time it gets to be a storm, you have been — you’ve had a pebble knock you upside the head.
00:16:52 You had a brick. You had a brick wall. You had the house fall down, and before you know it, you’re in the eye of the storm, but long before you’re in the eye of the storm you’ve had many warnings, like little clues. So now my goal in life is to not have to hit the eye of the storm, is to catch it in a whisper, to get it the first time. And getting it comes from understanding your — I think the thing — the one thing that has allowed me to certainly achieve both material success and spiritual success is the ability to listen to my instinct.
00:17:27 I call it my inner voice. It doesn’t matter what you call it — nature, instinct, higher power. But the ability to understand the difference between what your heart is saying and what your head is saying — I now always go with the heart, even when my head is saying, “Oh, but this is the rational thing. This is really what you shoulddo.” I always go with that little feeling, the feeling. I am where I am today because I have allowed myself to listen to my feelings, and to validate them.
00:18:03 ALICE WINKLER: Oprah Winfrey told so many fantastic stories in this 1991 interview about how, more precisely, she got where she did, including how she won the Miss Fire Prevention Contest when she was a teenager, even though the deck was clearly stacked against her. That win led to her first job in broadcasting, but digest all the Oprah wisdom you’ve heard so far because the rest is coming in our next podcast. There was just too much good stuff with the Queen of Talk to fit into a single episode. This is What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement. I’m Alice Winkler
your opinion
Should English Teachers Explore Cultural Topics in Class?
A multicultural group meets in Malaysia
For VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report.
If you are standing in front of an iceberg, it might look like the largest thing you’ve ever seen. But, you’re still only seeing the small part above the water. About 90 percent of the iceberg is below the water. The same idea relates to culture, explains Amy Melendez.
Melendez teaches English and trains English educators in the Washington, DC area. She works at a number of schools, including Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University.
She says many students – and teachers – mistakenly think culture is just the things that are easy to see, like food, music, clothing and holidays. But, she says most culture is represented in what cannot be seen: people’s expectations, beliefs and values.
So, she brings lessons about this into the classroom. She teaches learners how to understand and value cultural differences and communicate more effectively with people from other cultures.
Like Melendez, Michelle Stabler-Havener is an English educator who has taught intercultural communication. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City.
Michelle Stabler-Havener teaches English language instructors in the TESOL Certificate Program at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Both Melendez and Stabler-Havener explain that the subject of cultural understanding is a natural fit in language teaching. They note that language and culture are inseparable: words and expressions have cultural origins.
They also say cultural tolerance helps learners feel safe in the classroom. Stabler-Havener explains:
“In other words, they don’t have to worry that people are going to criticize who they are or the things that they value most and believe in…this gives students the freedom to focus their energy on learning the language without having to be so concerned that these things that are so important to them are going to be questioned.”
Out of the comfort zone
Ironically, providing this sense of safety often involves exploring subjects that pull learners out of their comfort zones. One tool both Melendez and Stabler-Havener find especially useful in the classroom is critical incidents.
A critical incident is a short description of a situation in which a misunderstanding or conflict took place between people. The problem may be caused by cultural differences or some kind of communication failure. It is the students’ job to discover what happened and why. And, they are asked to come up with as many reasons as possible – other than reasons based on stereotypes.
Melendez gives an example of a critical incident she has used from a book called Tips for Teaching Culture*.
“You have two students who are working on a project. And, the student is supposed to be sharing the book with the other student. And, it’s time for one of the students to leave for class. And, the older student who had checked out the book grabs the book, gets up and leaves because it’s time for him to go to his next class. The other student – he’s left a little bewildered (thinking) ‘Why is leaving? Why is he taking the book?’ You know, ‘We were sharing this book.’ In another part of the incident, too, with that one, the younger student had come late.”
Another favorite tool of Melendez is digital storytelling. Digital stories are short movies that combine photos, video, animation, sound, music and words. Melendez says digital stories encourage healthy conversations around cultural myths.
Insook Yeo, a former student of Amy Melendez, shares her cultural experiences about her time in Turkey through a digital story.
For example, last summer, she trained a group of Panamanian teachers. Through one teacher’s digital story, she learned that the person believed Americans were cold, emotionless people. This led to a productive class discussion about cultural differences in how people greet one another and their ideas about personal space.
“I think a lot of intolerance comes from the unknown. So, trying to make the unknown known, I think, is really important, even in a language classroom.”
As many teachers know, classrooms can be unpredictable. At any given time, a student may say something to accidentally hurt or embarrass another student from a different culture.
To lessen this problem, Melendez has her students vote on rules for shared respect. And, they are asked to follow these rules throughout the course.
Stabler-Havener says students can also practice respect by the way they use the language. For example, they can express possibility by saying, “Maybe this is what is happening” instead of saying, “This is true for every person in this culture.” And, they can show respect for others’ opinions with language like, “I see your point but…” rather than “As we well know…”
To teach or not to teach
Before exploring sensitive cultural subjects with a class, Melendez and Stabler-Havener say teachers can spend time examining their own cultural biases.
Melendez says uneasy situations or subjects will probably arise in class whether or not English language teachers decide to explore the iceberg of culture. And, if a teacher chooses avoidance, they may be left unprepared.
She says a website called Tolerance.org offers some useful resources for teachers, including web-based trainings.
Stabler-Havener says, in addition, teachers can go hear experts speak about intercultural communication.
She adds that it is a good idea for teachers to decide before teaching a class whether they will share their own opinions with students about sensitive topics.
“Are the students who disagree with you going to feel somehow maybe disempowered or concerned that, because they don’t share your opinion on a topic that might affect them in the class?”
And that’s the Education Report.
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