Schools losing focus on teaching history
Re: “U.S. history a mystery to college freshmen, seniors,” Sept. 27 news story.
I have shaken my head every time I have discussed world geography or U.S. history with my daughters, both now in their 20s.
Needless to say, neither one learned very much while attending Ranch View Middle School and ThunderRidge High School. The curriculum was almost obsolete when it came to history or geography courses.
When I was in high school many years ago, we had to know and recite the preamble to the Constitution, know all 50 states and their capitals, know the presidents and their vice presidents, plus know the Bill of Rights. We also learned the continents and their countries.
I remember my younger daughter coming home one day while she was in fifth grade telling me what she learned at school. “Mom, it’s the same thing I learned in second grade when we lived in Pennsylvania,” and it happened to be a history lesson.
From that day on, I talked to my daughters about our country and its history, along with geography, which they obviously weren’t learning at school.
Linda J. Rudzinskas, Lone Tree
Preventing violence: more guns or fewer?
How many Emily Keyeses must we weep over before we get our act together? And her tragedy is meaningless, until we also consider the tragedy of Duane Morrison. The most immediate issue is the availability of guns, something many Americans equate with “freedom.” In America, too many people who should not have guns do. Talk all you want about people doing the killing, not guns, but guns are for that specific purpose. And God forbid we give up our “freedom” to own them.
The deeper issue is the value we place on life, perhaps most of all the life of children. Who knows what Morrison’s personal hell consisted of? But we can assume he had plenty of it, and from early on. We – every single one of us – must make children our first priority. Every decision we make must reflect this most basic value. Perhaps then, we’d think twice about selling guns (or even about the 75-mph highway limits).
Let’s start by making Emily Keyes the last of Colorado’s lost children.
Anne Culver, Denver
…
The tragedies in Bailey and in Wisconsin are again bringing out the fools with the prescription for more of the same: Take guns away from law-abiding people, giving an unchallenged monopoly to armed criminals. The same fools have blocked the only rational solution so far: to eliminate the attacks in schools as far as irreducible laws of probability will ever allow, have every teacher and other school employee who passes stiff tests, practical and background, be armed with a serious gun and supply of ammunition, concealed if desired. (Conscientious objectors would be exempted.) Knowing that he is likely to be surrounded by armed defenders at all times cools down even the marginally sane, so a shootout with overwhelming odds against the criminal would be most unlikely, although still available as a last resort.
K.A. Skala, Denver
…
Letter-writer Kipp Welch (Sept. 30 Open Forum) proposes that the cure for school attacks like Platte Canyon and Columbine is to allow concealed weapons on school grounds. This is crazy talk. The notion that amateurs with guns and Bruce Willis bravado are as good as a radio-linked team of disciplined, trained police professionals is dangerously wrong.
I can think of four negative consequences of this proposal that are nearly guaranteed: 1) Any carefully planned school attack then will begin with shooting all adults on sight, on the chance they’re armed; 2) someday a hostage will be shot mistakenly by an amateur rescuer; 3) someday an amateur rescuer will be shot mistakenly by police; and 4) someday ongoing fruitful negotiations will be interrupted by an amateur rescuer, turning a peaceful ending back into a shootout. In short, the proposal increases the stakes, and increases mistakes.
The vigilante hero myth is enduring, perhaps because we all yearn for the power to prevent such tragedies. It is better to recognize that school shootings are still rare, and acknowledge that we can’t fully control them, only improve the odds. Most important, increasing the number of guns inside schools does not improve safety and reduce risks, unless the guns are attached to fully trained police professionals.
Charley Noecker, Boulder
…
Re: “A murdered child, a pain without end,” Oct. 1 Diane Carman column.
How utterly predictable: Less than a week after the school shooting tragedy in Bailey, Diane Carman pulls Tom Mauser out from under his rock and trots him out to say the usual script about how this painful episode was because of “the proliferation of guns” in America.
This despicable act by an utterly demented person was an act of violence. He would have done this no matter what weapon was available to him. Would it have been better if he’d brought 5 gallons of gasoline and a match? If he’d strapped a dozen sticks of dynamite to himself and walked into that school?
Carman, Mauser and all those who constantly point out firearm ownership in America as the cause of violence choose to ignore the real causes of violence and give a pass to the perpetrators. There are sick people in the world – not just America, but in the world. The causes for this sickness that gives rise to evil and violence are myriad and must be addressed if mankind is to survive and evolve. Not among those causes, however, is the existence or ownership of firearms.
There is only one effective way to combat violence and criminal behavior, and it’s not by cowering like sheep, hoping that the wolves will leave us alone. The way to prevent violence is for all citizens to be aware, watch out for their neighbors and be ready and willing to take responsibility for their own and their neighbors’ defense.
Dennis Chappell, Pueblo
Editor’s note: These letters were received before Monday’s Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania.
Columbus Day
Re: “High hopes in place for Columbus Day,” Sept. 27 Al Knight column.
I was appalled by Al Knight’s praise of Columbus Day.
Neither Italians nor any other Americans have reason to celebrate Columbus’ life or deeds. His voyages and pillaging were irrelevant to the birth of our nation three centuries later, and there are hundreds of Italians whose accomplishments were more admirable and important. The blood, sweat and tears of native Americans were shed under Columbus’ exploitation to enrich him and the Spanish monarchy, not “so that we might … enjoy the land of the free,” as the Denver Columbus Day Parade Committee has asserted.
Though I am a descendant of Europeans and was born on Oct. 12, I regret we have a holiday to honor him. The brutal style of colonialism that his adventures typified may have been an inevitable outgrowth of European power and arrogance, but they are not something to celebrate. To balance July 4th and Memorial Day, Columbus Day should be a day to mourn the suffering the weak have endured throughout history at the hands of the rich and powerful.
Tim Jamison, Aurora
Foley sex scandal
When he was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., back in March issued a loud, stern rebuke on the House floor to “despicable child predators.” This was before he’d at least openly shown some liking of his own to the idea – just so long as said exploitation was limited to certain under-age boy pages. This brings to mind Rush Limbaugh’s many shrill and sanctimonious on-air denunciations of drug addicts until he was rather blushingly chagrined to be discovered to have long been one himself.
To be sure, hypocrisy, even to these flagrant extremes, is hardly the province of Republicans alone. Still, some skeptics might sense a delicious irony in the growing discovery that the “family values party” is at least as dysfunctional, sexually and otherwise, as any other family.
Meanwhile, the erstwhile standard bearer for That Other Party, William Jefferson Clinton, who is to this day roundly and righteously excoriated on his ample right flank for his legendary carnal excesses, at least directed those toward members of the opposite sex who were well above the age of consent.
Almost seems a touch quaint now, doesn’t it?
David Eichenberger, Littleton
TO REACH US
Phone: 303-954-1331
Fax: 303-954-1502
E-mail: openforum@denverpost.com (only straight text, not attachments)
Mail: The Open Forum, The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 600, Denver, 80202
Letters guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 200 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.
