“What Have We Come To?” (2/20) To the Editor, Rishabh Bhandari ’11 points out that culture in our society is no longer something ?we intimately appreciate, but something we do to get done. I happen to ?agree with his assertion and seek to do two things in this letter, ?identify the cause and offer solutions.? Why is culture no longer an experience? Our teachers have made it so. ? Back in the day, it was a privilege to study poetry, ethics, math,? music, etc. People saw it as a way of bettering themselves, of? improving their condition. Studying these items was something people? looked forward to. ? Nowadays, it is a course requirement. We can’t choose to be part of this movement, we are forced ?into it. Teachers no longer have to market their product and prove ?that an education is meaningful. Because they have an apparent ?monopoly on students during school, they don’t have to provide a high? quality product that is both fun and educational. The results are a? dry curriculum we would rather opt out of, yet are forced into because? the majority of teachers see no reason to improve since they will? still have a job at sunset. Furthermore, once students leave school in the afternoon they may turn their attention to things that are made to be interesting and useful.? This is not the only cause, teachers are often forced into curricula ?and cannot add any flavor of their own into a class, yet the above? reason is the main one.? To fix the system we need to give students the option to select ?teachers so we can begin to weed out the bad ones. We must give bonus? pay to the teachers who receive the most votes and those who do not? receive any should be placed under close scrutiny and possibly fired.?(To ease the transition, we will allow these teachers to learn from ?the better ones first, if they do not improve, they may as well get ?the axe). ?Hopefully, our school system changes so that we can have some? competition in the system that allows for an improvement in society as ?a whole. I just hope the unions aren’t as powerful as they have been. ?Sincerely, Gustavo Tavares ’09?
