Better early than late
I can remember being at an educational leadership conference and hearing the keynote speaker talk about the three rules for success in any occupation.
They were show up, on time, ready to work. Maureen Downey’s article addresses rule No. 2.
I always told my children that it’s better to be 10 minutes early than one minute late. When others are depending on you to attend a meeting, open a business, complete a report, or being on a job site, being late is saying that you don’t respect their time, and employers don’t appreciate that.
If we can continue to teach and emphasize, in the home and school, the importance of being punctual, then it will carry over to the work place.
Jerry Schwartz, Alpharetta
Knowledge, not therapy
In the op-ed essay “Our kids deserve better than NCLB and AYP,” the highlighted comment is: “We want them to come up with the answer on their own —maybe an answer we haven’t thought of — rather than select the “right” answer from a list. We respect them more than that. We want them to see the classroom not as a place to pass time but as a place to begin to figure out who they are.”
Rarely has what is wrong with our current education been revealed so starkly. The authors see education as psychotherapy.
What is conspicuously absent here is the simple notion that the classroom is a place where students acquire knowledge, knowledge that accrues and leads to the acquisition of more knowledge. This is desirable, not because knowledge is power, but because knowledge empowers. This is desirable because culturally important and valuable knowledge engenders culturally important and valuable literacy.
The result should be that students become culturally competent at least, culturally proficient on average, and culturally excellent at best. What the students do with that competence is their business, not the school’s.
Dr. Robert Zaslavsky, Decatur
Credit to their field
I have never been inspired to write a letter to a newspaper until I read the column by the three Fulton County high school teachers. Bravo, ladies. I am a retired teacher and feel that I can sleep better at night, [knowing] that educators of your caliber are on the job.
I have copied it and sent to several friends, and each of them sent it on to someone else. This piece will be well traveled and well read because it shows what the best teaching is all about — respecting your students as creative beings who are more than test scores.
Ann McGuire, Atlanta
Address the culture
What is it going to take to convince politicians, many parents, and a lot of school system employees that it takes more than a seat in a classroom and a teacher for a child to learn the material with which to answer test questions?
It is a fact that many children come to school having never seen an adult reading a book, a reputable magazine or newspaper, and never hearing adults speak in complete sentences using multi-syllable words.
How can a teacher be expected to have all of the children in a class of 30 such children to move to a prescribed level of competency in the same 120 days of instruction experienced by children of the standard culture ? How can teachers overcome the effects of these shortcomings in a child’s culture?
While I can never support cheating, I can certainly understand a person’s inclination to do so when the rate of pay as well as the job itself are based on the achievement level of children who are ill-prepared for school by the culture in which they live.
Helen M. Branch, Atlanta
