LETTERS: CAN HE GET PAPERS HERE IN ADVANCE

To the editor:

I enjoyed your Feb. 3 article about awesome illusionist David Copperfield's coming Show Me Center performance April 7. As readers of the story are aware, Copperfield for some reason used his magical powers to make the Southeast Missourian report in a previous article that he was coming April 9 instead of April 7. Why he did that I don't know, but it gave me an idea. I use the Southeast Missourian in classes I teach. The newspapers are a wonderful supplement to civics and other subjects. However, I have a suggestion that might make the use of the Southeast Missourian in the classroom an ever better teaching tool. You see, I receive a room set (30 copies) of each Wednesday's edition of the Southeast Missourian early on Wednesday mornings when I arrive at school. The problem is, I don't have very long to read it and prepare a meaningful lesson before classes begin. But, if I wait and use the newspapers a day or two later, the students seem less interested, even if the quality of the lesson is better. The students want their news fresh! Anyway, what I'm getting at is this. Could Southeast Missourian or, perhaps, Show Me Center operatives ask David Copperfield to use his powers so that you could deliver Wednesday's newspaper to me on, say, the previous Monday, much like on the true-to-life television show, "Early Edition"? That way, I would have much more time to read and study the newspaper and prepare a good lesson. At the same time, the students would not have to use what to them might be considered already out-of-date material. Do you understand the point I'm trying to make? Frankly, I think that if you could get Copperfield to do that, it would be very helpful. Don't you agree? Though I think this suggestion is an excellent one, I'll be honest with you. I have run the idea by my students and can't say that they agree or disagree with it. Oddly, when I brought it up, my usually opinionated and at times outspoken students lapsed into almost eerie silence, accompanied by what to me was an inexplicable and very noticeable widening of their eyes.

STEVE MOSLEY

Cape Girardeau