Speak Out 11/24/05

True colors

THE DEMOCRATS had the opportunity to put their money where their mouths were with the recent House proposal to bring the troops home from Iraq. The proposal was defeated 403-3. It's nice to see their true colors shining through. After months of posturing and calling for an end to the war, once they had the chance they backed down. They are the party of much rhetoric but few solutions.

What is going on?

HOW IS it that if a teacher finds bruising on a child that was inflicted by a parent, The Division of Family Services is usually contacted and, in some cases, the child removed from the home. But a child can receive swats from a principal, leaving large bruises on his bottom, and nothing is done. What is going on here? I've not only given but received plenty of spankings back in my day, but never once was it hard enough to leave a bruise. And to the school board members who decided there was no harm done, would you have felt the same had this been your child?

Visions of Broadway

MATT SANDERS says, under the headline "Generating buzz," that the River City Players "have now accommodated" the Southeast Missouri State University Department of Theatre and Dance by backing off of plans to attempt to stage "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Noises Off." How sweet of them. I'm sure this area's now-surging Theatre and Dance Department fairly wept with relief when they got this news. I'm sure that the "Trojan Women" and "Guys and Dolls" folks feel a renewed ease in not having to face such stiff competition. Or maybe not. The River City Players folks have little, if any, business attempting to stage such difficult and demanding pieces. Their production values are low, their talent pool limited and their processes amateurish in the extreme. For any high school to attempt "42nd Street" sounds brave, but what motivates such obvious overreach? Education, art, or ego? I wish schools would work only on plays within their reach (with high-school-aged characters and relevant stories) and that the River City Players would get materially behind the university. Alas, many high school teachers and community-theater folks spend too much time fantasizing, it seems, about Broadway.

Stimulating students

AS A 12-year teacher of gifted children, I was shocked to read the article about teachers differentiating in their classrooms. Letting children choose from a variety of ways to complete an assignment is not differentiating for gifted kids. Their needs are not being met. With the way our schools are set up, it is impossible for teachers to meet the needs of all of their students. I am certainly not knocking them for this. We have some wonderful teachers who simply aren't miracle workers. They can't do it all in the little time they have. Because of the importance put on test scores, teachers often can't provide a stimulating curriculum for high-ability children. They must teach to the middle, or low-middle, to keep those all-important scores up. How sad to see many very bright children sitting in classrooms totally unstimulated. Oh, the things they could do.