Wednesday, April 18, 2001

In 1998, 1999 and 2000, we Fayette voters were called upon to vote on the financing of our public schools. Between the 1998 and the 2000 elections, we also had the opportunity to change the personnel on our Board of Education (BOE). Some may think our work is now done, but this is no time for those of us who care about the public education of our children to be complacent, as we've given the BOE the opportunity to spend large sums of money, including the opportunity to misspend a lot of it.

An insurance company has sometimes been described as a large pile of money, surrounded by people who want some. So, it seems, is government. That includes public schools. Reflect for a moment on all the people who look to schools for money, and you'll eventually think of those who sell textbooks and equipment. There is a whole industry out there for whom the word "schools" spells money. At the government end, we still have people who are mesmerized by computers and gadgets of all kinds. Let the gadgets be paid for by the taxpayers, and they'll go for them.

This note today is not about computers, gadgets or even textbooks. It's basically about the students.

Reflecting upon my own career over the years, I have found that when I had the right tools I could accomplish so much more so much faster. Yet I have had employers (in whose service I did not stay long) who were simply too dumb to provide me with the space, equipment, and sometimes quiet, I needed to do my work effectively. They possibly thought they were saving money, but they weren't; they were wasting money. As a consumer, I have had to hire assorted tradesmen, and I have always been amazed how most of them could accomplish so much so fast, with the right tools. Having the right tools counts for a lot in life. Of course, knowing how to use them counts for a lot too.

Having had the opportunity to go into our Fayette public schools over the last few years, as community school teacher, career day speaker, or outside coach for extracurricular activities, I have been appalled by these darn chairs with a tablet that you squeeze yourself into. (The dictionary lists them under "tablet chair.") I hate these things. I can't understand why that's all we provide our students with. These weird chairs are awful.

Not only do you have to contort your body in some unnatural way to slide your rear onto the seat, but you're left afterwards with a tiny area to put your books and write on. I am exaggerating, of course, because there's no way you can put books (plural) on the surface you're given, unless they are closed and piled up.

Folks, nobody has ever learned anything out of a closed book. So you have to open the books. But you can open only one at a time, and even then it's in great danger of sliding off. (One advantage here is that keeping the book from sliding off might keep the student awake, as far too many of our older students show up in school tired from the fast food job that helps finance their wheels.) If a book is open on this tablet, only a Houdini could then write notes on a sheet of paper, let alone on a full-size notebook.

While kids who are right-handed could properly claim their forced use of these contraptions violates their Eighth Amendment right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, the kids who are left-handed have an even greater claim to being mistreated. All the tablet chairs I have seen in Fayette schools have a right arm of sorts, that supports the right forearm and hand of the student. It's tough luck for the left-handed kids.

The sad part of this torture treatment inflicted by our professional educators upon our children is that the children do not realize they are being harmed by the very people who swear to all of us, every chance they have and certainly every election, that they love our children. The children are in no position to complain until after they've grown up, when it suddenly dawns on them that the folks who lorded it over them were dummies. If they loved them so much, why didn't they give them a decent school desk, where they could spread out their books (while opened) and their papers?

The Fayette BOE will soon consider how to equip all these new schools the taxpayers are financing. All the gadget makers will try to dazzle and tempt BOE members with technological widgets that do everything but scratch their back. Some members will be sorely tempted, especially if they hear of other school systems that have already fallen for the siren song of gadgets passed off as technology.

For heaven's sake, folks, give the kids real desks. Not gadgets but desks. Desks they can spread their open books on and their papers. It's good that our schools should teach our kids keyboarding (typing), using computers, and doing research on the Internet. The crummy weird chairs I described won't be used for that. But I suppose that for many conventional subjects (English, math) the new schools will still use books, and they'll teach writing (by hand) on paper. Please give the kids real desks for that. Please. It'll be money well spent. Better than on gadgets.

Oh, and if you think you're short of money for the desks, I can tell you about two expenses you can pass up. First, skip the fancy plaques at the school entrance with the names of all the school board members and other pooh bahs in the school system. Not only will that save money, but if you don't put your name all over the place it will set an example for the kids not to engrave theirs on the desks, or express their individuality with graffiti. Start by giving a good example. Second, skip that infernal public address system. The rudest device known to man, it only serves to startle and disrupt everybody.

Remember now: yes to desks, no to plaques, and no to PA system. Bottom line, school people, it's not gadgets you should love, and it's not money: it's the kids!

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayetteville

cypaquin@msn.com

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