Letters on public school teachers, Confederate flag, geese, ‘Mad Max’

Poverty not only issue facing teachers

I appreciated Christopher de Vinck’s commentary “Stop blaming teachers” (June 21 Opinion). He asked: “Where are the voices of the teachers standing up to this nonsense?”

My mother was a teacher, and I have uncles, aunts, a spouse, children, grandchildren and many friends who are teachers. As a group, they are not people who go around tooting their own horns. They simply want to make a difference in the lives of young people.

But each year it gets more difficult. Why? The problem is complex and not simply due to poverty.

In 1950s rural Oklahoma, many of us students lived in poverty. But most parents backed the teachers and valued education. The way out of poverty was to get an education, but somehow the idea has been lost. Students realized there were consequences for bad behavior. Not so much anymore, and teachers are often blamed for problems that kids have at school. The role of family on kids’ attitudes and motivation is being ignored.

In the 1950s, regular classroom teachers didn’t have to be experts at dealing with kids with brain damage, learning and mental problems, and behavioral disorders. Other students were not denied time and attention because teachers devoted 90 percent of their time to dealing with those problems. Private schools today don’t have to deal with them. Those students need help, but the present system is not fair to all concerned.

Enemy flag

We can romanticize the Civil War all we want, but the reality is that the Confederacy was an enemy. My grandfather, Edward Harding Simison, marched with Gen. William Sherman’s brigades through enemy territory.

Yes, Confederate soldiers were brave and courageous, as were German and Japanese soldiers, but they were enemies of the United States. Enemy flags belong in museums, not flying with our nation’s flag.

Anti-flag bigots

Some say that the Confederate flag should not be shown because the Confederate states allowed slaves. Well, true. However, before they were the Confederate states, they had slaves. Their flag then was the U.S. flag. Should that be outlawed? Some of the Northern states even allowed slaves. Should their state flags be banned?

England brought most of the slaves to North America. Should its flag be prohibited today? Actually, most of the nations of Europe that had colonies in this hemisphere had slaves. That makes a lot of flags to ban.

We don’t believe in slavery now. In 1700 most nations did, and if we had lived then, many of us probably would have also. Someday, something that we all think is OK now may be condemned. Should we then outlaw the flag we have now? That would be ridiculous.

Who could be so biased? We shouldn’t be, and we shouldn’t tolerate the bigots who now think the Confederate flag should be banned.

Nasty birds

The geese population is out of control (“Wild goose chase,” June 22 Eagle). Allowing higher bag limits won’t do much. The population gets worse every year. Plus, the geese that are still here in the summer live here. They are a big reason why the river is polluted. They likely pollute numerous water impoundment areas, including farm ponds, streams, etc. They are nasty birds.

We need a dedicated capture-and-destroy program for the sake of our health and the health of our loved ones. We need to get serious. Forget banding. Catch and destroy before all our water is polluted.

Maddening movie

I recently went to see the remake of “Mad Max.” The Eagle reviewer gave it four stars, the highest rating. So I said, “What the heck,” and took my wife out to see it.

The hero of the movie had such snappy banter that at the movie’s climax he said, “Humph!”

Seldom have I seen a movie with this level of gratuitous violence. The plot was stupid and repetitive. That’s two hours of my life I’m never getting back.

I asked my wife how many stars she would give me for choosing this movie. She just laughed and said, “Stars?”

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Letters on public school teachers, Confederate flag, geese, ‘Mad Max’."