Letters

NEA Today, Feb 1999

War and Remembrance

I'm humbled and thankful that teacher Tom Clark and his students are researching and recording the stories of Indiana soldiers who lost their lives in World War II (People, January). Surely they, and the soldiers they are researching, deserve a place in the history books.

Reading the story brought to mind a day at the end of World War II, when I was a young girl living in the Bronx. Those living on our street decided to celebrate with a block party. A Gold Star mother asked us to please reconsider, since her family had lost its only son.

The adults on our block went ahead with the party that warm evening in the 1940s. Looking back over the years, I've never felt it was the right decision and have often wished that I could find that grieving family and tell them so.

The incident-my first experience with the terrible toll that war takes-put a face and a story behind the numbers, and I've never forgotten it.

Barbara Joan Grubman

Woodland Hills, California

Life's Too Short

The goal of public school should be, as Janette Gerdes writes, to educate children "so they may enjoy full, happy, and productive lives" (Debate, January). To narrow one's education to fit a targeted job market eliminates a vast variety of opportunities in the schools.

There's so much to learn in humanities, sciences, and history classes that helps mold life choices and decisions. There's so much to learn in health classes, physical education, and the arts that helps make students well-rounded, cooperative team players. Focusing on one agenda too early in life is stifling. I love to see young people's eyes light up with wonder. Life is too short to stop the exploration and wonderment before they even graduate from high school.

Janet Smith

Holland. Ohio

Study Hard, Get Ahead?

Science education professor Alberto "Rodriguez's study showing that even the top Latino and African-American students don't score as high as top white and Asian students (Innovators, January) shows that the "meritocracy myth" doesn't need a closer look. It needs to be thrown out entirely.

African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans have been the hardest working people in America for centuries and, as a whole, haven't achieved a lifestyle equal in stature to whites'. The "social and institutional factors" that some believe "hard work" can erase are the critical factors that keep minorities from achieving Anglo-Europeantype success in America.

Those factors have been kept purposefully and firmly in place to keep the races unequal and prevent necessary, inevitable change.

Georgene Fountain

Germantown, Maryland

Math Anxiety

You report that "public schools now average one computer per every six students," noting that the figure is half the 1:12 ratio from five years ago (Bottom Line, January). One half of the ratio 1:12 is 1:24. The actual ratio is twice the earlier one. In other words, twice as many students have computer access now compared with five years ago.

Richard Fairly

Albany, California

Halting the Rookie Exodus

I agree with Bob Chase's call for "A New Deal for New Teachers" (President's Viewpoint, November).

It's no wonder that beginning teachers leave the profession in droves. They're often given the most preparations, the most challenging students, the largest classes, and the poorest facilities-all without meaningful mentoring.

Building principals are primarily responsible for the indefensible way many beginning teachers are treated. Almost equally culpable are veteran teachers who pressure principals to give them the most desirable assignments.

I had hoped that common sense and good will would prevail. I'm now reluctantly beginning to believe that laws and regulations will be required to ensure that beginning teachers are treated fairly.

Carl Olson

Cary, North Carolina

Bob Chase's column implies that wicked old veteran teachers regularly pick on new teachers. It ignores the fact that veteran teachers often feel harassed by some new young teachers who come into a school and aggressively demand the best of everything before they've shown themselves capable of doing anything.

With all the education-bashing going on today, the last thing teachers need is a column like this one-by the NEA president in the NEA magazine-to aggravate a division that already exists.

Richard Mros

Taunton, Massachusetts

The Grammar Police

Never in my 26 years of teaching have ll Ill read anything that has shocked me like your last debate question: "Should we correct students' grammar all the time, every time?" (Debate, November). I was appalled that the question was even asked.

Of course we should correct students' grammar, each and every time. Why do you think the public complains that we graduate seniors who can't spell, write, or communicate in an educated way?

Good grief, folks, let's do everything we can to see that our students leave us with at least the basics.

Mary Prehm

Paris, Tennessee

A blanket policy of "correcting students' grammar all the time, every time" does nothing for students but lead to confusion about language and its role, diminish confidence in teachers, and increase resentment toward a rigid educational establishment.