Teachers

* Regarding Andrew Lam's Viewpoint piece, "When teaching becomes scutwork" (NCR, Jan. 11): In my experience over the years, our collective zeitgeist never accorded teachers the respect the task we entrust to them deserves. Low pay and lack of resources are only two expressions of that fact, yet we ask more and more from our educators, especially in the elementary years. The latest round of "blame the teacher" manifests itself more testing and tying remuneration to student achievement, while teachers' pay stagnates and budgets decrease. No wonder students undermine and underrate their teachers on the Web. They do what society taught them.

I am the husband of an elementary school teacher and principal. Over the years I've been made aware of all the latest thinking in education as my wife earned her advanced degrees and certifications. Only one intervention out of all the programs, new teaching methods and "no-child-left-behind" testing schema actually positively influences achievement. That is class size. A ratio of one teacher to 15 students proves ideal for student learning. How much more learning could be achieved; how much less discipline problems would there be; how much would we all benefit if the zeitgeist demanded real progress? No one knows because no one has tried it. Doubling starting salary for teachers and halving class size sounds like a good start to me.

STEPHEN COURT

Rockford, III.

* Teaching does not become scutwork due to scandal or the zeitgeist. Teaching becomes scutwork in those places where teachers have lost the connection to the future. We teach for the future. When we cannot connect with or pay adequate attention to that future, then we have failed our students. Scutwork happens! Such failure to focus on the future must be actively battled.

At our middle school we have students placing letters they write to themselves inside a 10-year time capsule. They write about their history and their plans for the future. Then they place the letters into a 350-pound vault bolted to the floor in our school lobby. When students return at their 10-year reunion to retrieve these letters, we will listen carefully to the presentations they will be invited to give to students 10 years younger than themselves about their recommendations. Questions they will be asked will include "What would you do differently if you were 13 again?" When teaching focuses on the answers former students give to such questions 10 years later, teaching is no longer scutwork. Teaching must focus on the future.

BILL BETZEN

Dallas

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