Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 10, 1994 TAG: 9409210039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
To continue the employment of teachers without standard credentials is an endorsement of mediocrity at a time and in a place where mediocrity is unacceptable. Moreover, it is grossly unfair to those teachers who have invested considerable money and time earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in preparation for increasing classroom demands.
A good school system begins with a highly trained professional staff. While a college degree is no guarantee one is going to make an excellent teacher, it does certify a mastery of those skills (speaking, writing, ability to organize, etc.) essential for survival.
With the increasing numbers of college graduates moving into the work place, it is not an unreasonable expectation that every classroom teacher have, as a minimum, a bachelor's degree and a state teaching certificate.
RODNEY A FRANKLIN
ROANOKE
Winter worries in the New River Valley
IT HAS long been my intention to write concerning the power-line controversy. The Sept. 6 article by Cathryn McCue (``Apco line: `Power to the people' or `power corrupts'?'') reinforced my need to speak up. My point is that large companies such as Apco could achieve a great deal more cooperation and understanding from the public if they employed a public-relations consultant, or just used common sense.
The winter weather of last year is all very vivid in my memory, and so is the lack of response and public information disseminated by our utility company. The fact that the General Assembly, after great outcry from constituents, held a hearing and found that Apco did all it could under the circumstances does not resolve anything.
Here we are facing another winter that, we hope, will be without great problems, and Apco is putting fear into the public by predicting power shortages in the year 2014 if high voltage lines are not built. I know not how long I will live, but, just the same, I am a great deal more worried about the next winter than the next century.
What is being done to replace sagging and faulty wires in the rural areas of the New River Valley, where I live? What is planned by Apco regarding putting lines underground, and buying a great supply of power poles so there will not be delays in restoring electricity?
What about eliminating incessant, momentary power outages that drive me to keep resetting VCR clocks and other electronic marvels of today?
AGNES S. HELLER
BLACKSBURG
Learning what comes naturally
AS A REGISTERED nurse and mother of two children (one still breast-feeding), I feel that Beth Macy's Aug. 18 column (``They told her how to be a mom; they told her wrong'') went too far.
Of course, what happened to the child of the breast-feeding mother she wrote about is tragic, but generalizations about ``parenting zealots'' were personally offensive to me and others I know.
How one chooses to deliver, diaper and feed one's baby is a personal decision, and really didn't need to be satirized in her column. I don't believe any parent (zealot or not) would ``claim victory'' over the tragic ending of that mother's firm resolve to continue breast-feeding, presumably over the pressure placed on her by society.
I still deeply believe breast-feeding is best, and only wish all new mothers could be informed about the immense help and support I've received from La Leche League (an organization whose purpose is to promote good mothering through breast-feeding).
To health professionals, family and friends of pregnant women who plan to breast-feed: Please inform them about the help and encouragement of learning the art of breast-feeding that is provided by La Leche League. Breast-feeding is a natural act, but needs to be learned. Perhaps one way this may be accomplished is through support and information from other nursing mothers.
KAREN HAUPT
ROANOKE
Wilder is ahead of the Senate pack
DOUG WILDER is clearly the best choice for the Senate seat. Sen. Chuck Robb and Oliver North are masked in troubles and controversy. Much has been said about North, Robb and Marshall Coleman being veterans. Wilder won two Bronze Stars fighting in ``The Forgotten War'' (Korea). He says little about it, but it's a fact. He's a strong veterans' man.
Wilder balanced Virginia's budget. He worked to pass a law where only one handgun could be purchased a month. He passed the first fair-housing law in the South. Also, he was and is against Clarence Thomas' actions.
In all, I feel Wilder is clever, solid and the best-qualified candidate for the U.S. Senate.
WILLIAM W. ARNOLD
ROANOKE
There is still only one Creator
ERIC BROWN'S Aug. 29 letter to the editor, ``Evolution remains the best explanation,'' was full of big words to make scientific evidence sound like positive proof of evolution of living beings on Earth.
But where did the original ancestors come from? Sooner or later, scientists have to admit there has to be a beginning to every living creature, and we have yet to figure out how to create a life.
There's only one Creator. He who breathes the breath of life into every living creature is one and the same as the Creator of the Earth we inhabit.
Evolution might be the best explanation for living beings for Brown, but scientists have a long way to go to prove to me the validity of this theory.
MARGUERITE ST. CLAIR
ROANOKE
by CNB