Kids get it - parents should too
I retired from teaching after 38 years in a profession I was passionate about. There's a common thread surrounding the teaching profession. Constant new requirements, demands, guidelines, brought about by administrators and education departments (many have spent little or no time in classrooms) are making teaching in public schools a frustrating and far less appealing profession. Tie all this into high student/teacher ratio, long hours, and an increasing number of students who are disrespectful, don't care and not motivated to succeed, and you have a profession that's alarmingly difficult to be passionate about.
New initiatives and requirements for teachers are all in an effort to bring about "World Class Students" which no doubt we want. Not mentioned, however, is what part parenting has in this whole education process.
My Gifted Education students at E.A. White, Fort Benning, were involved in a competition to research and find a more innovative way to help students learn, which would help build "World Class Students." Most competitors chose technology solutions, but my students came to the conclusion that "World Class Parenting Makes World Class Students." They highlighted key points made into posters for parents: Read to your child at every opportunity. Discipline your child. Teach honesty, integrity, compassion -- display these traits yourself. Give positive reinforcement. Give learning experiences. Find your child's strengths and weaknesses.
I think these students hit the nail on the head. My point: We've targeted teachers enough to better our students. It's now time to target parents. Combining both will get us "World Class Students."
Marie Hand
Columbus
Codes of conduct
I am in total agreement with the sentiments expressed in the letter "Respect, not race." When did respect for authority become obsolete? There are students across the country who believe, and their beliefs are re-enforced by their parents and guardians, "Whatever I do, even if it's wrong, my parents are going to back me 100%." These students and parents are in for a wake up call: There will always be rules and people in positions to enforce them. There are avenues to challenge unfair rules, and these avenues are to be employed.
Parents send their children to school so educators can give them the tools to open their minds to new ideas. As my parents told us when we were growing up, "I'm your parent, not your friend. The first time you do something wrong in school, the principal is going to ask to see your parent, not your friend." Respect is engrained at home and transferred to school and professions. Parenting is continual, and part of the task is praise when deserved, discipline when necessary, and respect at all times. If this is appropriately applied there would be no need for School Resource Officers to re-enforce guidelines approved by the school system and of which the students and parents are informed.
John Wm. Roberts
Opelika
Welfare states
There is a difference between being a "socialist" and having a strong social conscience. Anyone with a strong religious, moral conscience should, by definition, have a strong social conscience, observing the Golden Rule. I do not understand how being a conservative contradicts any of these principles unless it means conserving what I have and not being willing to share.
We live in a free enterprise, capitalistic system which would imply that each of us should be able to care for himself and family and not be dependent on others.
But, as we all know, for whatever reason, this is not always possible. Where should all these people go for help? There seems to be so much resentment of government "handouts." Yet we send people to Congress in order to get "handouts" for our particular states. We pool our money in the form of taxes to enable us to do this. Sometimes this is not enough.
I know, this is a free country and no one has a right to tell me what to do with my money. But what about a social conscience? What about a moral imperative?
What about the poor and not so poor who take advantage of the system? There are those who will always do this, but fit probably makes up no more than 2%. The "rich" also take advantage of the system through their use of social programs like Medicare.
As I read all these letters to the editor, this is food for thought.
A.J. Kravtin
Columbus
Deja vu
Watching the commentators on TV, listening to them on the radio, reading them in the print media, they are all struggling to explain -- to understand -- Donald Trump, and now Ben Carson, too. And, yes, it makes them feel insecure, puzzled, and I feel insecure, too, because those two are so popular and yet so empty, so obviously mediocre clowns, not serious, yet occupying so much media space as to be frightening.
I struggle to find a historical example to make sense of it all, and it's difficult. I am almost panic-stricken to see a near catastrophe in the making. Are there really so many benighted voters out there? Is this what happened in 1930s Germany and Italy? An obvious idiot manages to become very popular, to capture the imagination of enough frightened, downtrodden people to seize enough power to take over a powerful government? A few people understood Hitler -- Winston Churchill, for example, and Franklin Roosevelt, but not Charles Lindbergh, not Henry Ford, not millions of Germans and Italians in two of the most educated and cultured nations on earth.
This was the phenomenon that earlier anti-democrats feared about the new Democratic Experiment; the naivete and ignorance of the majority, their susceptibility to the demagogues. To coin a phrase: How can so many be so blind about so few?
John Studstill
Columbus
This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Kids get it - parents should too ."