DATE: Friday, April 18, 1997                TAG: 9704170137

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 05   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letters 

                                            LENGTH:  131 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR - VIRGINIA BEACH

A recent story in The Virginian-Pilot talked about SATs from a Suffolk perspective. People need to get a grip and stop shooting the messenger, in this case the SAT exam.

The math on SATs is essentially seventh, eighth, ninth, and a little of 10th-grade math, and the verbal is a lifetime of reading. The math covers things that we use in the real world - discounts, measurements and logic skills.

The verbal requires one to think about written relationships, reading logic and vocabulary. All of this is essential to interact in today's world and to survive college.

Colleges use this tool because there is a correlation between scores on this exam and how one does in college. Instead of criticizing the test, we should prepare our students to the level that allows them to multiply, divide and do other basic math skills.

I see juniors and seniors in high school every day who cannot do these basic math functions properly. Students are told to take the PSAT as 10th- and 11th-graders, and the SATs late in their junior or senior years. For average or below-average students this is simply too late, and for top students, if they falter, they have a good GPA, but an unrepresentative SAT score.

They should take the SATs as early as possible for the experience and also to get results.

The ideas I have stated above are the philosophy of the Making A Difference Foundation, an award-winning School to Work/College Initiative Program.

The students we work with succeed early. The process is simple - teach the students how to think. Also teach them the things they need to know, and to a level so that it is not soon forgotten.

Look at the material on an SAT, Mr. Bowers, and realize you do most of the things asked on an SAT every day of your life, and it does help you to know how.

Robert A. Bobulinski

Executive director

Making a Difference Foundation

March 7 French Army map shows old Beach sites

The article on Lake Holly calls to mind a map by the French Army topographical engineers of the area at the time of the siege of Yorktown during the Revolution. It shows Lake Holly as having a ``salt house'' on the east side and a ``guard house'' to the west, at the end of the road which was a predecessor of Cypress Avenue. Another old map shows Lake Holly as a ``salt pond.''

A salt house could store salt to preserve fish from a fishery at Rudee Inlet. The road runs north to intersect with Old Virginia Beach Road and Holly Road, which runs northeast and dumps off on the beach at about 48th Street, near the ancient site of Strattons Creek, suggesting a fishery there.

Another possibility is that salt pond indicates a pond for the production of salt. During times of stress, with normal sources of supply disrupted, local salt sources became important. We know that salt was produced at Fisherman's Island at Cape Charles in the early days of the colony. During the Civil War, Union forces destroyed a salt works at Back Bay.

Scientists tell us that Brinson's Inlet Lake, Lake Redwing, Lake Christine and Lake Wesley are part of an ancient fresh water system draining into Rudee, and called ``the fresh ponds'' before the Revolution. A rough British map made during that war shows a ``Brinsons Inlet'' connecting the two southern lakes, and subsequently the southern one was called the Salt Pond. ``The Dam Neck Story,'' the Navy's history of Dam Neck, suggests that Brinson's Inlet was only temporary and the British map was the only one to show it. ''

A bridge crossed Lake Holly at 6th Street. Its eastern abutment still juts into the lake from Pacific Avenue there.

W.T. Sawyer

Feb. 11

A recent story in The Virginian-Pilot talked about SATs from a Suffolk perspective. People need to get a grip and stop shooting the messenger, in this case the SAT exam.

The math on SATs is essentially seventh, eighth, ninth, and a little of 10th-grade math, and the verbal is a lifetime of reading. The math covers things that we use in the real world - discounts, measurements and logic skills.

The verbal requires one to think about written relationships, reading logic and vocabulary. All of this is essential to interact in today's world and to survive college.

Colleges use this tool because there is a correlation between scores on this exam and how one does in college. Instead of criticizing the test, we should prepare our students to the level that allows them to multiply, divide and do other basic math skills.

I see juniors and seniors in high school every day who cannot do these basic math functions properly. Students are told to take the PSAT as 10th- and 11th-graders, and the SATs late in their junior or senior years. For average or below-average students this is simply too late, and for top students, if they falter, they have a good GPA, but an unrepresentative SAT score.

They should take the SATs as early as possible for the experience and also to get results.

The ideas I have stated above are the philosophy of the Making A Difference Foundation, an award-winning School to Work/College Initiative Program.

The students we work with succeed early. The process is simple - teach the students how to think. Also teach them the things they need to know, and to a level so that it is not soon forgotten.

Look at the material on an SAT, Mr. Bowers, and realize you do most of the things asked on an SAT every day of your life, and it does help you to know how.

Robert A. Bobulinski

Executive director

Making a Difference Foundation

March 7

The article on Lake Holly calls to mind a map by the French Army topographical engineers of the area at the time of the siege of Yorktown during the Revolution. It shows Lake Holly as having a ``salt house'' on the east side and a ``guard house'' to the west, at the end of the road that was a predecessor of Cypress Avenue. Another old map shows Lake Holly as a ``salt pond.''

A salt house could store salt to preserve fish from a fishery at Rudee Inlet. The road runs north to intersect with Old Virginia Beach Road and Holly Road, which runs northeast and dumps off on the beach at about 48th Street, near the ancient site of Strattons Creek, suggesting a fishery there.

Another possibility is that salt pond indicates a pond for the production of salt. During times of stress, with normal sources of supply disrupted, local salt sources became important. We know that salt was produced at Fisherman's Island at Cape Charles in the early days of the colony.

Scientists tell us that Brinson's Inlet Lake, Lake Redwing, Lake Christine and Lake Wesley are part of an ancient fresh water system draining into Rudee, and called ``the fresh ponds'' before the Revolution. A rough British map made during that war shows a ``Brinsons Inlet'' connecting the two southern lakes, and subsequently the southern one was called the Salt Pond. ``The Dam Neck Story,'' the Navy's history of Dam Neck, suggests that Brinson's Inlet was only temporary and the British map was the only one to show it. ''

A bridge crossed Lake Holly at 6th Street. Its eastern abutment still juts into the lake from Pacific Avenue there.

W.T. Sawyer

Feb. 11

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu