Letters

NEA Today, Oct 1999

STUDENT STRESS

While your article "Easing the Strain of Students' Stress" (Health, September) has great information, it carries the wrong title. The article appears to be a pitch for school psychologists.

Realistically, school psychologists are unavailable to students and staff. The school support staff who are readily available to students. staff, and parents for assistance in times of stress are school counselors.

School counselors teach all of the coping skills discussed so well in the article-problem-solving. conflict resolution, anger management. resisting negative peer pressure, and many more.

We're very grateful for the expertise of school psychologists during crisis situations and as consultants, but school counselors are the everyday support for students, educators, and parents.

Bertha Haas

Hermiston, Oregon

TAKING ISSUE

Reading your September issue, I once again find myself asking why people who should know better have allowed a fine word like technology to refer only to computers (Cover Story). In its well-established and still relevant definition, technology means the application of science, especially for industrial or commercial purposes. The teacher who uses a VCR or an overhead projector is using technology; for that matter, so is the teacher who uses a pencil. As sending this via E-mail should indicate, I am not computer-phobic. But as an English teacher, I do care about words. Let's not let this one become needlessly restricted.

Robert Pingree

Concord, New Hampshire

HIGH TECH TIME

I enjoyed reading your pros and cons concerning education and technology. We have to inculcate technology into our classrooms whenever feasible for the greater good of students who will face the new century probably filled with fierce competition. There's a wealth of knowledge on the Web and a number of tools designed for education. This includes free online grading programs for teachers (www. ericsp.org/lesson.html) and countless news sites filled with pertinent information. The analogy that the Internet is much like walking rhrough a city is valid. You always need to pay attention to your surroundings.

Sam Ferman

Danville, California

BAD BOYS

It is disappointing but not surprising to read the idiotic psychobabble William Pollack spews forth as insight (Interview, September). First, it is disappointing because Pollack does not understand boys at all, although he is sadly expert in the foolish and harmful "self-esteem" approach to bad behavior prominent among therapists since the 1960s.

He also mistakenly claims that boys are taught the so-called boy code" when, in reality, boys are not taught to be boys, they just are. Nevertheless, good boys don't bully others. Bad boys do!

I thought I would fall off my chair laughing when I read that bullies and class clowns are saying, "I need help. Notice me. Do something before it's too late." Yeah, right! Second, seeing this kind of nonsense in NEA Today is not surprising, given the dominance of liberal ideology in American education today. The corrosive effects of leftist dogma have recently been manifest in places such as Pearl, Mississippi, and Littleton, Colorado.

Greg Moss

Diamond Bar Califomia

DILEMMA DISCLAIMER

I'm absolutely appalled by Dan Wells's response to the "Dilemma" (September) about helping a student who is the target of relentless teasing. Mr Wells's plan for dealing with this issue is nothing shy of dangerous.

Wells suggests that it's the victim who needs to change, rather than the students doing the attacking. He suggsts that a verbal contract be developed for the victim to change his behavior, so as to avoid ridicule and teasing.

Ultimately, the class. minus the victim. is informed of the provisions of the contract and is asked to support the victim's efforts to change a better word for this would be "conform." If we have learned nothing else from Columbine. it's that we need to work at accepting differences and to avoid making students feel alienated and disenfranchised from the school community.

How in the world is this ludicrous plan going to make any student feel emotionally safe? How can any student under this plan learn to become a better human being?

Under no circumstances should any individua-regardless of wardrobe or attitude-be teased. We need to teach our students how to treat every human being. without exception. with respect and dignity.

Ann Berger

Davenport, Iowa

SCHOOL COMPUTERS

The September "Debate" on computers in the classroom vs. computers in a lab setting was presented well by both sides, but, in truth. this should not have been an either/or situation.

Given only one option, I would choose the classroom. Only in that setting could the technology be integrated into lessons on a daily basis. Having to march kids to a "special" room that you have to reserve in advance is both inconvenient and artificial.

The lab is an excellent place to teach necessary computer skills to an entire class at once. But maintaining just that type of an environment is controlling and counterproductive to the teaching-leaming process.