THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230024
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Your editorial ``Remedial resistance'' (Sept. 19) with gross unfairness blames the increasing number of college students who require remedial courses on ``the high schools (that) simply pass their problems on to the colleges.''
About eight years ago, a basketball player received his diploma from Creighton University, Omaha, Neb., and following graduation enrolled in a small private elementary school in Chicago to learn to read and write. Many universities, including my alma mater, Ohio State, graduate from 30 percent to 50 percent of their athletes. To whom do colleges ``pass their problems''?
Most elementary- and high-school teachers work hard, care about students, worry about those not making it, spend extra time with kids, try all kinds of ways of reaching unmotivated students. After all this effort, some students still do not make it - not because the teachers simply or idiotically, as you imply, ``pass their problems on to the colleges,'' but because a lot of students come from extreme poverty: white students, black students, brown students. Even those not from poor homes come from homes where there never have been the ordinary stimulus, encouragement, role models and parental involvement characteristic of middle-class homes. The problems of our society are not created by our schools.
Before I retired, I was a professor of English at The University of Notre Dame, Ohio State University and Pace University in New York. I taught courses for high-school teachers, lectured and conducted workshops for teachers throughout the country and visited ghetto schools, suburban schools. I saw large numbers of dedicated, hard-working teachers giving themselves totally to helping kids, and their efforts would make any man or woman weep with joy and sadness. I saw a lot of kids make it because someone cared.
There are effective ways to reach unmotivated students, but the best efforts fail for some who may be damaged beyond repair.
I don't know how to solve the problem of massive numbers who need remedial help in college, but neither does the writer of your editorial. I am glad there are thousands of teachers out there who have not given up, who work for unrewarding wages and often an uncaring public. Praise the Lord for them.
BOB CHRISTIN
Virginia Beach, Sept. 16, 1994 by CNB