Determining the Best Teaching Methods

Re “Stop Making Our Teachers Scapegoats,” Orange County Voices column by Eileen Spatz, Jan. 25:

I’m afraid that people will get the impression all home school teachers think like Spatz, so I’d like to set the record straight: Neither I, nor any of my acquaintances who home school, call ourselves “teachers” (except of course for the ones who happen to be teachers by profession).

The benefit of taking our children’s education into our own hands is that we can give them a learning experience that fits their needs.

I’m tired of the kind of argument that Spatz makes--that everything that’s wrong with public schools is the method. Every child (and adult) learns in their own way and has different strengths.

I “teach” my kids by being attuned to their abilities and paying attention to what they are interested in and when. This is called “child centered” learning.

The problem with school is that no teacher can fit his or her method and schedule to the learning styles, interests, and mental stages of 30 individual children, no matter what method he or she uses.

OFRA OBEJAS

Huntington Beach

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In typical fashion, Eileen Spatz, like all the other radical right agenda groups, is blaming teacher unions for the ills of society. How convenient! After all, why put the blame where it belongs?

Spatz has very little knowledge about the National Education Assn.

If she knew anything about the California Education Code she would know that the state Board of Education sets the curriculum in California. She would also know that legislation forbids bargaining anything that has to do with curriculum. Therefore, the teacher unions cannot determine in any way, shape or form how reading will be taught and with what materials.

Teachers are not brainwashed by the union: They are the union. I sit on the California State Council of Education for the California Teacher Assn. I have been a delegate to the NEA representative assembly for nine years.

None of these bodies has ever said that phonics or “practice and repetition” do not work. I have never spoken against the use of same. What we don’t like are the groups that use these terms as their battle cry when they swoop down constantly and attack our associations for the sake of political vindictiveness.

LLOYD PORTER

Yorba Linda