Good to know that teachers really care
The following is a Counterpoint:
By Alida van Bronkhorst
Since I have been an area homeowner/taxpayer for less than two years, but did teach more than a thousand kindergartners in New York State public schools for 15 years and several hundred learning disabled children ages 5 to 21 in a New Jersey accredited school for 18 years, I was much taken aback by your front-page story about the fire at Eastern Guilford High School (May 20).
Obviously, I don't know all the history of educators in North Carolina, but out of millions of teachers, or millions of any other profession, including news reporting, we know there will be some jerks or even criminals.
By the specific reference to "a bitter teacher" as a possible source of the Eastern High fire, and all the ensuing heartbreak and extra demands of time and energy by all concerned -- not to speak of those who served that day and the financial losses which face us -- I had to believe that past North Carolina experience with murderous "bitter teachers" made this option tenable to those in the know.
I did not see any editorial to the contrary, or any explanation as to why that reason was suggested by the area paper as a viable cause.
My thanks to Charlie Abourjilie for his Counterpoint. As a taxpayer and as a mom, grandma and retired teacher, I am glad to know from his words, and from other reports on TV (even some in your paper), that we have area teachers who give appropriate, conscientious attention to their students and the academic atmosphere around them.
That is the spirit I understand after 33 years as a teacher in three different school systems.
The writer lives in McLeansville.
Comments (2)
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A second Counterpoint that agrees with the first?
Coincidentally, the State Senate just approved a 5% raise for teachers, again.
Posted on June 1, 2007 10:10 AM
"I did not see any editorial to the contrary, or any explanation as to why that reason was suggested by the area paper as a viable cause."
I don't run the paper but those who do may remember a disgruntled employee that was purposefully setting fires at Eastern Middle School just a couple of years ago. Previous to finding out that it was an adult employee who was lighting up and putting the entire school population in grave danger, the assumption was that it had to be a student. It's only fair that this time around the paper is recognizing that there are possible suspects outside of the student body to consider.
That said - the phrasing in the paper was unnecessary and clearly, almost every person in the school that day did NOT set the fire.
Posted on June 1, 2007 10:47 AM