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

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

[email protected]