Dear Editor,
I attended a recent Dodgeville school board meeting. I am a Class of ’78 DHS graduate. Like America’s greatest critical thinker, Thomas Sowell, I keep learning and let facts dictate my conclusions. Most of the meeting was structured on a strategy to get more money. The board will ask again this fall, just for less. What was never brought up is accountability. Dodgeville is failing compared to Mineral Point and other school districts and it wants more money for declining enrollment. Something doesn’t add up.
In the Army whenever we had an exercise we held an AAR – After Action Review. We discussed what went right and more importantly, what went wrong. Throughout my life I have been held accountable for my actions. DHS badly needs a sober AAR and likely a new Superintendent. I will not vote yes to reward failure. The Muellers, Tom and Nancy, are invaluable citizens. Tom served on the DHS School Board and Nancy is a data wonk. They have the facts and figures the school board waves off.
After bringing home a failing report card from an inner city Detroit school as a child Ben Carson’s mother saw the future of her 2 sons going down the toilet. She made a life saving decision. She handed Ben and his brother free library cards and told them every day after school they must go to the library, read any book they wanted, and write a written book report about it. Loving discipline! Accountability! Ben hated it at first and his mother was told her children would hate her. Ben’s brain started humming and his attitude skyrocketed as the books he read took him out of the poverty he lived in into distant wondrous lands and endless possibilities. He rose to the top of his class through reading and writing and became a brain surgeon! He was chosen from all other brain surgeons to perform the first separation of Siamese twins joined at the head and brain.
Carson was renown for his eye hand coordination. He didn’t play sports nor have video games. As a devout Christian he credits God for his gift. However, cursive writing, which requires good eye hand coordination would have honed his God given ability. Ben wrote a lot and has good handwriting. I’ve read it. I am against eliminating cursive writing for another more important reason. It cuts us off from our families and our history. Without cursive I wouldn’t have been able to read the multitude of letters and cards from my grandmother and mother and father when I was sick, at Christmas, or away at college and lonely in the Army. Children can’t read the Declaration of Independence in it’s beautiful handwritten form with the s’s that look like f’s. Many thousands of books have selections of handwriting for many reasons. Children are being cut off from invaluable family and American history and culture and heartfelt thoughts!
Our country and our very culture and community is being destroyed piece by piece and children indoctrinated to support Marxism. Bring back cursive writing, always teach civics and history without woke ideology, and get children to the library reading and writing.
Gregory Erickson, Dodgeville, WI