The Battalion
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Heroes and those who deserve
admiration are close friends
•f"§§r
April
Towery
opinion editor
ame the person you most admire. Name the
qualities you most admire about that person.
Sound familiar?
he saying goes that the
lities one most admires in a
son are the qualities that per-
exudes her or himself.
JMaybe not. It's quite a
■tch sometimes. I admire
Other Teresa of Calcutta, but
ny friends would probably say
On't have much in common
r hh her. However, it is true
ial persons become like those
Oh whom they spend the
Ot time.
Otis important for students to
Oe role models — maybe someone older and wiser
Oom students strive to be like. On the other hand,
ffi e ge is a time for students to make decisions about
K r h ve s and futures under their own influence.
JAs students, we finally have escaped the nurturing
Bur parents. We are on our own. We can go to
rch wherever we choose. We can wear the black
fhatboots, pierce our bodies, dye our hair and stay
It past midnight. We can become who we want to be.
Per than who the world expects us to be.
^lore likely than not, we are a lot more like our
| n ds than we would like to admit. I know I have a
lore in common with a few of my close friends
C 1 1 d° with Mother Teresa.
n a group of four or five close friends who see each
er or talk on the phone almost daily, most finish each
(cc s sentences for them and know what they are
ing before it comes out of their mouths,
nen one of my best friends and I watch a movie,
I play a game where we pick out which movie
pacters represent the people we know. Based
jon the characters' words and actions, we can de-
| e 0r e ach other who we are like.
So what is the purpose of having a hero? The peo
ple we are truly influenced by are staring us in the face
every moment of our lives. I can say the editor of The
Washington Post is my hero till I am blue in the face,
but I do not spend every day modeling his manner
isms and studying his character.
We become like our friends subconsciously. We do
not sit around in front of a mirror and practice saying
certain expressions because they are popular among
others. We just pick them up. Words, phrases, ideas,
even beliefs often originate from how we allow others
to influence us.
The question is, are our friends worthy of influenc
ing us? Wouldn't we all rather be like the person we
named when asked who we admire than the buddy
next door?
Our college friends should be our heroes. Maybe
once we graduate, we will live 12 states apart. Maybe we
will have different jobs and different lifestyles. But we
have chosen these people to spend time with us. We are
free to choose what kind of lives we want and who we
want to share them with.
Friends are one of the most important components
of our character. They help us grow and watch us
change. If one's friends are not persons whom he or
she admires, maybe the individual should seek to find
other friends.
I have grown closer to a group of a few people in
just a couple of years than I ever grew toward anyone I
knew in high school or before. I admire and respect
each of them individually and hope to become like
them in certain ways.
Mother Teresa and the editor of The Washington Post
have not taught me about love, trust, companionship
and friendship the way my friends have.
When someone says, "Name someone you ad
mire," think about it. Maybe it's the person with
whom you spend most of your time.
April Towery is a senior journalism major.
W
Mail call
'omen should
,e pastors too
! response to April Towery's June
11 column:
iim i | Ver ^ ar 8 ues in her June 11 col
ls ' u Women should not be pas
te i c ^ urc h; “it is the men who
It I e jders," she says. Unfortu-
[ s T' s ne offers little explanation
Iblp^ 0S ^ On ' sim ply spouting off
Iph Verses an d wallowing in mud-
r[ reasoning. 6
I ^ 0ne Point, for instance, she says
that the Bible can be interpreted to
adapt to societal norms and gives as
an example the fact that Israelites
now eat rabbits, even though the Bible
instructs them not to. Similarly, men
of the church greet with a handshake
instead of a kiss, as Paul told them to
do. These, Towery says, are societal
adaptations; "[a] woman pastoring a
church is not." Why not? Apparent
ly, the reader is supposed to deduce
the answer for herself as Towery
makes no attempt to back her claim .
At the same time that she is telling
us that women should bow down to
the leadership of men, Towery assures
us that the submission which is re
quired of women "does not equate in
feriority." Now let's think for a mo
ment. What would make men more
qualified to be leaders than women?
Or to put it another way, what are the
qualities of good leaders? Intelligence,
fairness, decisiveness, foresight, prob
lem-solving skills, and compassion
come to mind, to name a few.
Towery needs to do some seri
ous thinking about her position on
women's role in the church and in
the household. If she does, she
will find that it is simply incom
patible with her seemingly femi
nist assertions that women are not
inferior, that "women are ready for
progress" and that "the progres
sion of women is a necessity."
She's trying to have her cake and
eat it too.
Carlynn Whitt
The Battalion encourages letters to the
editor Letters must be 300 words or less
and include the author’s name, class and
phone number.
The opinion editor reserves the right to
edit letters for length, style, and accuracy.
Letters may be submitted in person at 013
Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Let
ters may also toe mailed to:
The Battalion - Mail Call
013 Reed McDonald
Texas A&M University
College Station. TX
77843-1111
Campus Mail: 11.11.
Fax: (409) 845-2647
E-mail: batt@unix.tamu.edu
"If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you
would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in
the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart
the natural love of learning by leaving the natural
method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and in
sisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or
capacity for. The college, which should be a place of de
lightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the
young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to ral
ly their jaded spirits. I zvould have the studies elective.
Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by
awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise in
structor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils pre
cisely the attractions the study has for himself. The
marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for
boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put
on a professor."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
ince Ralph Waldo Emerson
I succinctly described the prob
lem fac-
MER EDITH
Hight
columnist
ing universi
ties today in
one paragraph
100 years ago,
this column
should not
even need to
be written.
However, it is
possible that
some students
never have
been exposed
to the works
of Emerson, one of the most
renowned American philosophers
of the 19th century.
More likely for students to have
intimate knowledge of is their grade
point ratio, the amount of hours left
until they can order their Aggie rings
and the number of classes they can
squeeze into the summertime at com
munity college.
Through core curriculum re
quirements, final exams that empha
size the most amount of material
learned in the shortest amount of
time and distant professors engaged
in their own research, the love of
learning has been lost.
How often do students look
forward to class? How often are
students excited about what they
are learning?
Typically, students spend hours
figuring out their schedule trying to
determine which professor teaches
the easiest or what class has the high
est grade distribution. It is not just the
university system, though.
In students' minds, the potential
dollar signs that will come from a col
lege degree take prevalence over the
pure value of education.
According to George F. Will in
Newsweek, only 25 percent of under
graduates are liberal arts majors.
More and more students are choos
ing majors that will lead to profitable
careers. College is becoming more of
a breeding ground for money mak
ing than a place to learn. But who can
blame the students?
Recent surveys on college gradu
ates from tlie Class of '97 reveal that
the average salary for liberal arts
graduates is $28,000. Those are some
of the best figures seen in years for
liberal arts, mostly due to a buoyant
economy. Still, a chemical engineer
ing degree tops the list at $43, 762 and
a computer science degree yields at
least $38,475.
Universities, though, are places of
higher learning. Their aim and pur
pose lies within the education of the
students, not just the preparation for
future careers. Especially at a place
such as Texas A&M, which is primar
ily agricultural and mechanical, it is
easy to lose perspective on the impor
tance of a liberal arts education.
Both students and universities are
somewhat guilty of file crime of not
appreciating learning for learning's
sake. However, universities should
be the institutions spearheading an
interest in preserving knowledge.
Students cannot respect the art of
learning when their professors seem
to find making exams difficult more
important than having a real grasp
on the material.
If Emerson faced the same defi
ciencies in education 100 years ago,
and these deficiencies still do not
seem to have been resolved, perhaps
it indicates that universities are a nec
essary evil. Without universities,
higher education would not even be
possible. It is a great irony, though,
that universities may be the institu
tions responsible for destroying stu
dents love of learning.
Meredith Might is a junior
journalism major.
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State concerned with rank and
appearance instead of teaching
T ests are everywhere we go,
around every corner of our
educational venture. They
are the speed bumps or fallen
trees in the road that students
must overcome to move on to the
next level of
the game of
higher educa
tion. Now,
one of the
more infa
mous obsta
cles of our
pre-college
educational
escapades is
about to
change the
rules.
The state is
Richard
Paddack
columnist
strongly considering changing the
Texas Assessment of Academic
Skills testing format, which in
turn may influence educators to
alter their methods of teaching.
The reason the state has been
considering changing the TAAS
test is essentially the students and
teachers. Yes, you read correctly,
the students and the teachers are
the reasons the state is consider
ing the change.
TAAS test scores have in
creased significantly in the past
five years and the students and
teachers are to blame. This kind of
news would possibly incite a pa
rade for the teachers and maybe a
raise in their pay anywhere else.
but not in Texas.
The TAAS covers four basic cri
teria: reading, writing, math and
social studies. The present version
of the TAAS was first adminis
tered in Fall 1990. The TAAS is ad
ministered to grades three
through eight and again toward
the end of the student's sopho
more year in high school.
The purpose of the TAAS is to
make sure that students have
learned the basics to move on to
the next grade level.
There has been a lot of controver
sy surrounding the TAAS test in re
cent years. Some consider the tests a
waste of students' time and taxpay
ers' money. Others say they feel the
teachers are just teaching the TAAS
tests, and in doing so are shying
away from the fundamentals.
Well, if the TAAS is to test the
basic skills and a student passes
the test, then the students have
learned what they needed to learn
and the teachers have done their
job — it is as simple as that. Ap
parently, the State Board of Edu
cation seems to feel otherwise.
The Board feels changes need to
be made if the students are doing
so well.
The state has stipulated that
end-of-course tests be developed
for selected high school courses.
Pilot tests have been administered
for the past two years, and the re
sults of the tests were not avail
able. Changes in the exams also
are being considered for the inter
mediate grade levels. The changes
to be considered are not yet
known.
Texas always has been
wrapped up in the problems with
educational programs and
schools. Texans constantly are an
gered by the fact Texas teachers
are some of the lowest paid teach
ers in the country. This is hard for
a majority of those in the profes
sion to swallow, considering it is
one of the most important jobs in
our society today.
We also are rather embarrassed at
the fact our state has been ranked as
one of the lowest in test scores. The
scores are starting to improve, but
the teachers still are not receiving the
praise they deserve.
Doctors are paid phenomenal
amounts to repair and maintain
people's bodies. Lawyers re
ceive a large chunk of money to
make sure someone else pays the
doctors. How much do those
who mold minds and open eyes
to all the possibilities get paid?
Not enough.
Texas teachers are not receiving
the credit they deserve and these
recent changes are a perfect exam
ple. The teachers are doing what
needs to be done, and the tests
show this, so why fix something if
it's not broken?
Richard Paddack is a junior
journalism major.