Mixed Reaction to Yearbook Quotes

An English teacher asks students to write about “To be, or not to be.” One student calls it beautiful because it lays bare the intimate thoughts of a troubled man, while another says it is beautiful because it comes from “Hamlet.” Do both students pass?

Another teacher asks students to write about “The truth shall make you free.” One student finds it of little value because it does not define truth and says nothing about finding it, while another says it is of little value because it comes from the Bible. Do both students pass?

If they went to Buena Park Junior High School, we know the second would, but the teacher would be suspended for inserting biblical references into a school document (“Bible Quotes in Yearbook Beget Ruckus in O.C.,” June 13).

What I find discouraging here is that the ruckus is not about what the phrases in the yearbook say, only that they were taken from the Bible. Is this how adults teach students to think for themselves? To evaluate words only after they know where the words come from? That to know a book, they need only to look at its cover?

Adviser Phillip Fivgas claims that the biblical passages were in the yearbook when it was reviewed but that they were not quoted with chapter and verse. That may be why the reviewers found nothing wrong. But Principal Ronald L. Barry found the yearbook embarrassing and sought legal advice.

The yearbook was withdrawn, no one is likely to sue, and everybody’s job is still safe. Except Fivgas’. Thus did the students learn something about how adults think for themselves?

WILLIAM S. LaSOR JR., Corona del Mar