The American Spectator

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Smiley Faces

10.8.07 @ 12:01AM

SPECIAL DELIVERY
Re: Lawrence Henry's "A Special Kind of Me":

What a down-to-earth treat, reading Lawrence Henry's views on the "Special Me" poem. Probably the treacly poetess meant "unique," but thank God she didn't use it, or it would have been prefaced by "very" or "extremely," as unique is never quite unique enough to stand alone these days. I will never hear "special" again without thinking of Dana Carvey's SNL "church lady" -- "isn't that spesshhull?"

My 5-year-old grandson is in kindergarten and after six weeks I am still baffled at the low level of expectations his teacher has -- as indicated by her mania for star stickers, "Great Job" remarks and Smiley Faces. So, together we de-construct his class work and decide if a star sticker was truly warranted. One such starred paper asked the children to color the scene that most nearly described where they lived. One was a big city with tall buildings, a bus and a taxi in the street. The other a pastoral setting. My grandson colored the city scene. He lives in Half Moon Bay where if there is anything taller than his two-story house, I have not seen it. I asked him why he colored what looked like New York City. He said "Curious George lives there." I said "Yes, but you are not Curious George. You did not read the instructions and you should not have received a star." Apparently his teacher didn't read them, either.

I was struck by Mr. Henry's sane approach to helping his sons rein in emotions. My middle grandson always got mad when I beat him at Scrabble. I just told him, "Look, I play to win -- whether you are thirteen or thirty-five. You want to win? Expand your vocabulary."

Long ago we had a saying -- now gone out of vogue, because of the need to make children feel "special." It was "Prepare your child for the road and you will not be forever preparing the road for your child." Worked for my sons. Seems to be working with my grandsons.

I was gratified and a little amused that one grandson recently chose for his "quote" under his Year Book picture, "Global Warming is a sham." I just hope there are no environmentalists on his water polo team, as it seems to be the only sport where you are entitled to drown your opponent. This is the second to "letter" in swim and water polo. I asked the first, who is 6'4" and excels in other sports, why he chose water sports. He said "You don't sweat and there are no floor burns." He is the one who, at sixteen, endeared himself to all at Thanksgiving as each guest gave thanks, by saying with a happy grin, "I'm thankful for the internal combustion engine." Irreverent, but heartfelt. We had just given him his grandpa's well-preserved 1977 El Camino.
-- Diane Smith
South San Francisco, California

Regarding Mr. Henry comments on "A Special Kind of Me," the world, for adults as well as children, is full of battles to win, lose or ignore. No one has time to fight every slight, wrong and miscarriage of justice. The problem with tilting with windmills is not the flight of fancy, but the waste of time and energy that could be better spent fighting real giants. The attack on a silly school poem is not worthy of any AmSpec writer.

If Mr. Henry was attacking school curriculum that indoctrinates our youth to political ideologies (usually of the left variety) or arguing for vouchers for school choice, I would be waving my flag right along with him, but to take a youngster's poem to task is killing flies with B-52 bombers. While schools do teach some pabulum, "A Special Kind of Me" is not harmful in the least. Most children need a little slap on the back as they travel the road from inferiority to mastery (to use the renowned psychologist Alfred Alder's phrase). Children learn quickly enough that if we are all special, then being special is nothing special. A poem of encouragement at a tender age is not the stone on the tracks that will derail the train that is taking a youth into the world of being a competent, productive and well adjusted (and hopefully libertarian) adult.

As a teacher of fifteen years, all in the inner city, I can assure Mr. Henry, with little fear of contradiction, that if his children are occasionally bratty or undisciplined, the blame does not lie with any poem or even "mush minded" curriculum. The cure for any ideological insanity that is taught by school is solid "home schooling," as my students call it. The students who excel, no matter what their economic background, are the who have caring parents at home. I have often had to teach curriculum that did not sit well with me ideologically, and I offered my own caveats when teaching my charges. Not all other teachers catch the left leaning odor or disagree with the ideology; some may simply ignore philosophical differences they have with the lessons. When my child, who is asked nightly what she has learned at school today, tells me she has learned something in which I find a hidden (again, often left leaning, agenda), we discuss the lessons, the overt and the hidden, until she understands what we believe is right and wrong. Until she stands solidly on her own two feet as a freethinking adult, my wife and I are here to shelter her from the storm of ignorance, ideology and hidden agendas of the NEA.

Mr. Henry is clearly involved in his children's upbringing. While no parent can afford to let down his guard when his children are at stake, it wise parents who know the difference between a fool's wind and a true hurricane.
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester (City School District), New York

Sorry to say, you have hit the nail on the head. Kids now do not learn how to lose, ribbons are given for every place, no one wins. Everyone is perfect and then they have to get out in the REAL WORLD and they cannot handle it.

Life is NOT easy and the sooner kids learn that the easier the rest of their life will be. You do not get everything you want and NO you cannot have that, needs to be words they learn.
-- Elaine Kyle

Dear Mr. Henry -- if your younger son is inclined in this way, you might look into participating next year in The Treble Chorus of New England, an excellent group that practices each week in a church in Andover and gives several local performances per year (tuxes for the boys, demure dresses for the girls) and goes on a concert tour in the summer. Everyone in the chorus is special -- meaning, they can sing reasonably well, adhere to the choral leaders' discipline, take it all seriously, commit to the practice schedule, etc.
-- Dave Light
Maynard, Massachusetts

I've got one of those "special" kids -- starting his first year at an elite university who is suddenly and brutally learning that he really isn't a "special kid" at all! It's hard to watch, but a good lesson for him to learn. By the way, we are now home-schooling the younger one.
-- Sherry Mayer
Greensboro, North Carolina

LIGHT HIS FIRE
Re: Quin Hillyer's Open Letter to Fred Thompson:

Letter to the Editor

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