To the editors:
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First, since there are only so many minutes to a typical class period and a limited number of days to the school year, teachers are forced to choose what they believe are most important for the education of their students. Since, until recently, this country was mostly settled by Europeans, teachers logically chose what they themselves had learned. Older teachers like myself are simply “children of their times.”
Third, has Mr. Lipsitz rode the el or bus lately and seen what the hoi polloi are reading as they commute? It’s rarely the classics like War and Peace or The Divine Comedy. Or even the Tao. It’s rather the ephemeral best-sellers written by the likes of Scott Turow or Danielle Steel ad nauseam. Such costly tomes are literary drugs that stimulate or tranquilize, but rarely educate i.e. contribute to lasting ideas that would guide one’s behaviour in the future.
