Letters

NEA Today, Feb 2000

WRONG NUMBER

Lynn Bonsey's article "Dial T for (Teacher" (My Turn, January) sent a chill up my spine. Not only would I never give out my home number to my students, I don't even let them know the name of the town that I live in.

Maybe Surry Maine. is like the idyllic Mayberry RFD, but I teach in a large suburban school district just outside Washington, D.C. Twenty years ago, as a new teacher and single mother, I moved to an apartment just a few blocks away from the high school where I was hired. I wanted to be part of the community and have my two children, then three and eight, grow up in the town where I worked.

I laughed off the first incident when a carload of students came by on a Saturday night and yelled out for me to come party with them. I even tried to ignore the obscene phone calls.

But the day after report cards came out, I discovered someone had thrown a brick through my bedroom window, flattened the tires on my car, and spray-painted obscenities on my front door. I recognized the handwriting and the misspellings.

I moved to the next county. Ever since then I've paid to have my phone number unlisted. With the advent of caller ID I don't even call parents from my home phone.

Margaret Bartley

Montgomery County: Maryland

WAY TO GO!

Congratulations to Barbara Morgan (interview, January) for her strength and perseverance in becoming not only a teacher, but an astronaut in training.

Southwest Wisconsin teachers had the opportunity to hear Marsha Ivins, a veteran of four space flights, present a stimulating recount of her experiences.

Educators should sit up and take notice of these professional women in space, but so should our up-andcoming future-the children in our classrooms.

Marcia Chambers, Lancaster, Wisconsin

BYTES FOR BEGINNERS

With a little care, the modern searcher has a tremendous advantage because of the search engine, as explained in Bits & Bytes (January).

Search engines are a funny breed. They are mechanical in their routines, but they seem almost human in their quest to make sense of a user's request. Following the rules presented in the article will reduce a user's time considerably, but I would like to offer one tip that has helped me immensely

When I first started searching on the Internet, I simply typed in a keyword that I was looking for (on Alta Vista), not realizing that the engine would produce any and everything that has this combination of letters in it.

I soon found that limiting my search by adding quotation marks quickly produced better results. I'm not sure if this works with all search engines, but it has been very beneficial for me.

Albert Baggetta

Agawan, Massachusetts

The "Good News for Reading" article (Bits & Bytes, January) was an eye-opener for me. It's great to know that "CNN Newsroom" offers a Web site with lesson plans that can go along with our educational program.

As a teacher, I'm always interested in finding new methods to improve my students' reading skills and to better meet the needs of all my students. Getting students to enjoy reading is very important.

In order for students to be successful in reading, you need to build a strong reading program. Using a variety of resources will do that.

I would like to thank Wanda Zamorano for this information.

Judy Pounds

Durham, North Carolina

21ST CENTURY SCHOOLS

Our goal for public education in the next century should be more than survival (Debate, January).

The time has come for us to overhaul our outdated educational system before outsiders do it for us. After all, the current factory model of education, where we warehouse children in buildings that resemble prisons, has changed very little over the last nearly 100 years.

Yes, we have tinkered endlessly with the system, but the basic institutional structure of school has changed negligibly over that time.

The first thing to change is the idea of Carnegie Units where "seat time" equals learning. Education is not a function of time. Education should be about what one can do, rather than how long someone "has been exposed to learning," quietly sitting in seats listening to others.

The belief that all students a certain age need to learn the same thing at exactly the same time and rate is ludicrous.

Most adults would agree that much of their education was meaningless-and, at times, mind numbingly boring.

Yet our schools have changed little, and we wonder why our children loathe going to school for 12 years and set "getting through" as their primary purpose for being there.

If we do not set about improving education as a priority for the 21 st century, we won't have to worry about much else.

David Fiore

Bend, Oregon

AL GORE SUPPORT

I am troubled by your recent rather too enthusiastic endorsement of Al Gore for the upcoming primaries (News, January). This is rather harsh treatment for Bill Bradley, a friend of education and at least deserving of notice. Did you even mention his name? I didn't see it.

I'm even willing to read about Republicans and to be educated regarding their positions. I understand that the NEA is as much a political creature as anything else, but a nod to fair play would be more becoming. Are we not early enough in the campaign process to still warrant the appearance of an open mind?