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Re: Is this OT?



----- Original Message -----
From: "John Barrer" <forcejb@YAHOO.COM>


And uniforms solve these problems??? Please. John


By themselves, of course not....but: We have to look at what the school
CAN DO to provide a safer, more attractive atmosphere for learning. There
are things that can be done--if the litigators will stay out of it--that
might help. Strict dress codes (which are easiest done with uniforms),
separation of the sexes (at least by classroom), all-year school,
residential schools, etc. are possibilities that might make a real
difference. These are all techniques that have been, and are being used in
various successful private schools--private schools to which people send
their children to AVOID public education. However, most of these techniques
stir up such a plethora of objections (and ACLU actions) that they can't
even be tried. So my point is that if we can't improve the learning
atmosphere in the public schools, they aren't going to work well, and we
can't improve the learning atmosphere because every suggestion/technique
that _might_ do so is savagely attacked from either the right or left
(politically) for reasons that have little to do with their educational
value. [And it does no good to say 'do a study to show the
effectiveness'--because right-leaning researcher A has done such a study and
shown result X and left-leaning researcher B has done another study and
shown result Y and X and Y are at odds with each other. So use some common
sense and again look at what IS being done around the country in the private
schools AND around the world in public schools to provide educational
settings.]

IF we could improve the learning atmosphere and IF we could put in place
curricula that work [and I'm personally not convinced that some of the 50's
curriculum--especially the old Iowa Reading Program--wouldn't be right for
the task] then with time we might see some improvements in the social areas
that now threaten so much of our youth.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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