Education Letters

Column was long rant without shred of reason

While I appreciate having a guest column in the AJC, David Elmore’s column was nothing more than a rant.

After his stretch of an analogy of a frog in boiling water he goes on to say that the public schools cause ADD, teenage rebellion and a host of other maladies.

Does he really believe that children in private schools do not have ADD or not rebellious? But the coup de grâce was equating public schools with concentration camps and teachers/parents who send their children to public schools as concentration-camp guards.

Elmore’s opinions should not have been elevated for print in your newspaper. His opinions are baseless and harmful. And he calls himself a journalist? Thankfully my public education taught me not to believe everything I read.

Leslie Wolfe, Atlanta

Context and analysis is key part of schooling

While I entirely agree with David Elmore that the structure of many classrooms can work against the normal ways that young students learn, I must protest the picture of learning which he proposes.

ADD is a real disease. Anyone who “mostly got A’s and B’s” in school was not ADD. Elmore should spend some time in a class with real ADD students —he will soon see the qualitative difference between their distractibility and the usual kind. Lack of structure is hard for them.

Learning to add numbers or read words is not the same as learning mathematics or reading a sophisticated text: Both require understanding underlying ideas and comparing and contrasting them with other ideas.

Talking to a parent about how invasive taxes are also will not prepare someone for adult conversation. While most of the time people don’t know theories, they use them. The first time someone proposes a Hamiltonian view of freedom while yours is Jeffersonian, if you don’t know theory, you will not be able to respond convincingly, and you will soon feel pretty stupid.

An exciting school, at any level, gives students not only skills like addition and reading, not only facts without context, but the joy of deep understanding and analysis, which requires teachers and a structure leading students to it.

Sally MacEwen, associate professor and chair of classics at Agnes Scott College

No schools, no rules,

no way to educate kids

I’ll leave it to others to debate David Elmore’s assertions point by point about public education. For me, his views are a prescription for anarchy … do anything you want … no restraints.

Richard W. Augusta, Atlanta

Tests replace critical thinking with factoids

Regarding AJC education columnist Maureen Downey’s recent column “Why detest the test?” the answer is simple. Our public schools no longer teach children to think critically or to apply the lessons they learn from literature, history, science and math to their everyday lives. Instead, students are taught “factoids” which they must regurgitate on the CRCTs. That’s what teaching to the test is about, and that’s why our education system is in crisis.

Reed Travis, Atlanta

If they’re mad, she’s doing something right

If columnist Maureen Downey and the AJC need any more proof that she’s on the mark with her weekly education articles, they have only to read all the irate letters from whining teachers. It’s about time someone called my fellow teachers on their complacency and blame-the-student excuses. You go, girl.

Sue Milsap, Stone Mountain