Thank you, CeeBee, for the kind words. You have my permission to submit to either or both publications.By way of explanation: As a topic for their first composition, I asked my students to write an essay on the problems that public schools are having (and to suggest solutions). To stimulate ideas, I gave them a few excerpted readings, but they were told to use their own perspectives, not just those in the assigned readings.
The essays were, as usual, pathetic, but they contained some interesting viewpoints and some wacky ideas. More ideas emerged when, after the first draft of these papers, the students discussed some of their own essays that I typed and distributed (with the author's name removed). During the discussion, I soft-pedaled or stifled my own views because I wanted to hear what theirs were.
I emerged with a distinct impression that my students, though they had been immersed in the system for twelve years and were still in it, were confused (if not uttetly clueless) concerning what education is really all about. Even more revealing, though, was my recognition that they were reflecting the attitudes of former teachers, their parents, and our society in general.
I felt an overwhelming urge to give them the perspective of someone who has been involved in education as a student, parent, and teacher for more than sixty years – and who has been reading and writing about our school systems for nearly that long. I intend to pass out copies of the essay after they have done the revisions of their own essays, mostly to give them this point of view and to get them to think about it but also as an example of essay organization and paragraph development.
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Rich Turner (The Curmudgeon Himself)
