Letters_ Lecturers needs to be free to make use of inventive strategies in school

Relating to “Assist academics” (Letters to the Editor, July 17): I’m a teacher-of-teachers, and the San Francisco Faculty District sends a message of no assist once they “whip” academics into submission who attempt new issues.

You reported final yr (April 22) {that a} trainer who introduced in a cotton plant to show about slavery was positioned on depart till she wrote a letter of apology. That trainer ought to have been given an award for educating excellence. What can we anticipate from an schooling system that was arrange 150 years in the past to coach manufacturing facility employees. A system by which college students are instructed to line up, sit down, shut up and pay attention. Sound acquainted?

This is the reason your scholar doesn’t come dwelling excited a couple of trainer who did a handstand to show reciprocals. Or discuss stepping off a jumbo stability beam to really feel how an equation is solved by holding it balanced.

Does your scholar snigger about making an attempt to pry a rest room plunger off a desk with 250 lbs. of power as they really feel that air does have weight.

The schooling system will proceed to rinse-and-repeat the outdated methods till academics see inventive educating, and don’t get “whipped” for being inventive.

Curtis Panasuk, San Francisco

Monitoring misconstrued

RE: “Colleges want new concepts” (Letters, July 13): The letter author bemoans scholar monitoring as a result of it failed to shut the achievement hole, however closing the achievement hole was by no means the intention. The intention of monitoring was to tailor instruction to college students’ skill/progress ranges; the intention behind its elimination was to keep away from labeling college students, so college students in “decrease” tracks wouldn’t internalize adverse emotions about themselves. It might or could not have labored — constructing college students’ shallowness has been an overriding objective of schooling for many years, even to the exclusion of different objectives, like … um … studying stuff.

The true answer for assembly academic objectives is smaller lessons, the place a trainer is in a position to answer variations in college students’ skills, motivations and achievement inside a single classroom. With no societal dedication to schooling (comparable to considerably extra and better-paid academics), nevertheless, grouping college students for focused instruction makes as a lot sense as grouping them by age, as we do now.

Alice Spears, San Francisco

Goal tin foil packets

A few weeks in the past, a courageous S.F. park ranger declared his park off limits to drug sellers for the evening. With out permission — and that was the important thing – he demanded that there be no extra merchandising within the park that evening. No medication, no merchandising of any variety, not even cleaning soap!

Had he requested Metropolis Corridor for permission to do that, he would nonetheless be ready for a response to his e-mail.

What would occur if our governor determined that small packets of tin foil had been harmful to kids? What if the governor determined any such product needed to be confiscated … and instantly destroyed? No paperwork, no evaluation, no storage; simply destroy it as you’d a useless rat.

Medication and homelessness are usually not rocket science, however they’re extraordinarily worthwhile to many attorneys, politicians, cops, derelict resort homeowners and extremely paid workers of many supposedly nonprofits.

If the governor doesn’t have the huevos to declare tin foil packets harmful, do we have now a mayor that might achieve this? How a couple of councilperson?

William Fuhs, Acampo, San Joaquin County

Who’s ‘invading’ whom?

I’m troubled by the tone of latest articles concerning the ocean and its wildlife. (“Infamous ‘browsing sea otter’ continues to evade seize in Santa Cruz, officers say,” July 15, 2023.) Writers and interview topics demand the browsing otter be captured or killed.

Related articles increase the alarm about sharks “invading” waters close to in style seashores. I’ve loved swimming, browsing and diving within the ocean my complete life. Each time I’m conscious that I’m visiting the house of numerous residing creatures, and that warning and respect are required. Certain, there are dangers, but it surely’s their dwelling – not ours.