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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 1999)
ie Battalion O PINION Page 11 • Monday, October 4, 1999 Wesil EWARE THE ROBOPROF rofessors’ actions add to students’ sparse attendance rofessors at Texas &M University end to become lily irate when half indents do not ~V 'the' t0 show up for [tedpes after the first arkumiya ek of school. Many attempt to rent this phenome- JESSICA CRUTCHER ISRAEl bv taking attendance, often making ipossible for students to pass the ss if they miss more than a given iraber of classes. However, it should be noted that al- T‘ olh some students do skip out of j£:j|QHess, many times it is instead be- K they doubt they might glean any- instanti ing useful from lectures, jse,’ . s ar;: j^tead of accusing students of apa- e refugee I ].. c turers should look toward them- [led by ::B s jf they notice a consistent drop in i/reakec t enc jance from a large percentage of 1 concern: ei r class . ?*y- Students cannot be expected to gain ts groupsjl e y should from classes if instruc- ut theIniBafg unable to speak understandable advance.M s h, choose to lecture directly from intingto»ook or are generally apathetic ingthose wut their classes. . ?tribution Host students have had at least one or, peacf|)f, ssor in their academic careers who -ea neariiHwould like to see permanently said the I wasielarcj oldiers ^eek in the !ai barred from teaching, and sometimes the reason for this hostility is the poor English skills of the instructor. Kristin Yerex, a sophomore health education major, said the difficulty of language barriers in the classroom can impair learning. “How are you supposed to learn any thing when your professor speaks Chi nese?,” Yerex asked. “You cannot pay at tention to the lecture because you are too busy trying to understand what she is saying.” Yerex’s statement expresses the frus tration felt by many students stuck with professors they cannot understand. If students do not feel they will bene fit from the lecture, they probably will skip class. The professor who chooses to lecture directly from the text at 8 a.m. on a Fri day morning also should expect low at tendance rates. This kind of professor seems to be the most likely to take attendance in a 300-person class, simply to ensure peo ple will show up. Tbying to keep track of that many people takes a great deal of time that could be better invested com ing up with a more interesting way to say in lecture what the book has not al ready said. Basic reading skills are a requirement for A&M students. Therefore, students should be able to comprehend the text without having it read to them in class. Students should not be criticized as too lazy to come to class if professors are too lazy to come up with relevant lectures. Students also tend to be driven away from classes in which professors them selves seem not to care about the class. Tenured professors often are more prone to be in this frame of mind. Since their jobs are guaranteed, their grade distributions basically cease to matter. There are few things more frustrating than a professor who rambles vaguely for an hour every day, then administers a departmental exam with seemingly no relation to the lecture material. There will always be students who skip class no matter how wonderful the professor is. However, if there is a marked decrease in everyday attendance — 200 people in a 400-person classroom — the instructor should consider changing his or her lec ture format instead of punishing absent students. Many students have a great deal of motivation and would be happy to at tend class if they believed it would be worth their time. Jessica Crutcher is a sophomore journalism major. mark McPherson/i hk battalion eepingo] ellysaid tk - since ero the early .^nhes^lSry ontroversial ‘Dutch 5 biography skews line between fact, fiction MARK PASSWATERS OH jids when were nger. As Y grew up. Hose imagi nary friends bmj/jivay. But what happened to them? the case of author Edmund jis, that imaginary friend Id up in the Reagan White pe. orris is the author of Dutch, n biography of former Presi- eitt Ronald Reagan. Morris was ven unprecedented access to lagan during his administra- |n, to the point the president ¥-1 that “one night in bed. Icy [Reagan] sneezed, and ftund said, ‘Bless you.’” Even with this access, Morris me up with a book unworthy [he ‘biography’ designation, ■work, which relies on fiction- characters and sensational ac- fctions, fits in quite nicely with le Jerry Springer” generation. Criticism of the book has come from all angles, for many reasons. A good portion of re viewers’ criticism attacks Morris’’ insertion of a fictional character — his own alter ego — into critical moments in Reagan’s presidency. Morris, according to the book, was with Reagan when he was shot, when he decided to bomb Libya and during one-on-one meetings with former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev. After reading Morris’ work, it may be considered unfortunate his alter ego did not decide to follow General George Armstrong Custer instead of Reagan, so that he could have gone to the Little Big Horn instead of the White House. Had this happened, we might not have Morris’ warping of history. Morris said his insertion of a fake character was intended to make the book more interesting. It also made it fiction. Conversations in the book be tween “Ed” and former presi dents Reagan and George Bush never happened and invalidate any claims Morris may have had If 11 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF SMITH/T in: Battalion to being historically accurate. The reader is left to wonder what is truth and what is not, and confusion over truth should never happen in a biography. But Morris did not stop at reinventing the historical wheel. He also went out of his way to incite controversy. Morris said Reagan’s mental facilities went steadily downhill after Reagan was given a transfu sion of “lukewarm” instead of “warm” blood in 1981 after he shot during an attempted assassi nation. He also said Reagan was a simpleton unable to understand many of the day-to-day functions of his office — but also too com plicated a man for even his wife to figure out. Morris contends that while Reagan was indeed mentally in capable of grasping many things, he was as sharp as a tack when it came to such duties as dealing with the Soviet Union. Morris said in the book that SDI — Reagan’s “Star Wars” mis sile-defense program—was based on a comic book Reagan read at age 11, and that Reagan, who spent his presidency fighting “Godless leftists” and “The Evil Empire,” tried to join the Com munist Party in the ’30s. Not surprisingly, these allega tions have brought criticism from the Reagans, Bushes and former Reagan administration officials. Despite the reception his book has received, Morris maintains the book is historically accurate. He is correct if historical accu racy is defined by the National Inquirer. There is certainly no place for fake characters in a book that is supposed to be an accurate representation of what really happened. When James Michener planted characters from the same family at the Constitutional Convention, at the battles of Yorktown,Gettys burg and Okinawa, he did not try to pass it off as history. Instead, it became his best selling novel. Legacy. Morris is using the same plot device, but claims his book is different. It is only different in his mind. Morris has put his ego ahead of his duty to present fact with this book. As a result, he has butchered a grand opportunity to honestly relate the actions of a remarkable individual. Authors who insert them selves into situations that really happened or attempt to create controversy should not be con sidered historians. They should be considered sensationalists and fiction writers. The big loser in all of this will certainly not be Morris, as his book will probably be a best seller, albeit in the wrong sec tion. The loser will be those hop ing to catch an honest portrayal of America’s 40th president. They will have to wait for someone to do his or her job properly. Mark Passwaters is a graduate student in electrical engineering. special | SERIES Litmus Tests for Racial Bias hen students cannot pass, they sue — at least in the case of the Texas Assessment of Academic (TAASJ test. In an ironic twist, the TAAS is about tb undergo a tough examination set forth y high-school students — one which tight cost the exam its life. The Mexican-American Legal Defense lefollo''^ nd Education Fund (MALDEF) has tak- r k alon^ n up a fight against the TAAS on behalf if seven African-American and Hispanic Itudents who failed the test. The TAAS p an exit exam the state of Texas re- juires students to pass to receive their [igh-school diploma. MALDEF is choosing the wrong fight n the battle against poor minority TAAS lerformances. The problem is not a racially biased est but sub-standard schooling in low- ncome areas dominated by minorities. UALDEF should realize the value of a tandardized exit test, even though dis- idvantaged minority students might uffer until their schooling is brought lip to par. MALDEF charges the TAAS discrimi nates against black and Hispanic stu dents, noting that three-fourths of stu dents who fail the exam are members of these minority groups, as are the majori ty of Texas high-school dropouts. A States receiving federal education money cannot offer tests which discrimi nate on the basis of ethnicity. However, each question is screened nine times for any racial bias by a special committee. The questions are not the problem. jTS tO'V degree-' -s’ coopt lationpf • educ# redite^ =nt lis^ < days f 1 includi 11 ! Alrli^ Schools in low-in come neighborhoods suffer from poor reten tion rates and sub-stan dard instructors, and their students are being ill-prepared for a test that will determine if the students have the necessary academic skills for graduation. Until these poor school conditions are rectified, a test is need ed to attach a uniform worth to a public high- school education. The TAAS should ensure high-school students in Texas are not slipping through the cracks of the edu cation system. Just a decade ago, it was not uncommon to hear of high-school graduates who graduat ed from the system still illiterate. Over half of the states in the United States have standard high-school exit ex ams, and a federal case in Florida in the 1980s upheld states’ legal rights to ad minister such exams. Deborah Verbil, Texas assistant attor ney general, has attempted to relieve doubts about the benefits of testing. “There is no other way for the state of Texas to ensure that students learn the LEGAL ISSUES Part 1 of 5 State tests under fire: Do high- school exit exams discriminate against minority students? material that the state of Texas considers important than by an objective test,” Ver bil said in an Associated Press interview. Verbil’s statement illustrates MALDEF’s misplaced blame in the case. Blaming the TAAS for failing minority scores is like Bill Clinton grouching at a marathon for being too long. It is not the run — it is the extra cheeseburgers. MALDEF should choose its battles wisely, focusing more on the lack of funding and low standards of poor neigh borhood schools and less on the TAAS. Poor preparation of students is what leads to poor test performances, not the test questions. A1 Kauffman, MALDEF re gional counsel, disagrees with the policy of punishing those students with poor test performances. “It is extremely harmful to our com munity to deny a high-school diploma to good students who have worked in school for 12 years, been assessed by dozens of teachers and have performed at grade level or above.” But simply staying in school for 12 years should not be enough for a diplo ma. Students must prove they have the necessary academic skills for future suc cess. Kauffman should realize it is more harmful to Texas to approve the gradua tion of students who may have over achieved throughout high school and lack the skills to be called products of the Texas education system. Jeff Webb is a senior journalism major. PITS proposal hurts students PTTS’s proposal to "al low University parking re sources to be better allo cated” is nothing more than a blatant scheme to further exploit the stu dent population for more cash. The motive for the proposal to change Southside parking garage to random park ing clearly is to enable RTFS to sell more per mits than there are park ing spaces. PITS current ly cannot get away with assigning two people the same spot, but if they were to convert the garage to“place” parking they could easily assign two or three times as many permits as there are spots while still charging students premi um rates. Students pay about three times as much for garage parking as other permits, in part for the convenience of always knowing that you are guaranteed a spot and to know where that spot is. Transforming Southside into another Fish Lot is robbing students of part of the service they paid for. Students should not put up with the Gestapo's money-grub bing schemes, which do MAIL CALL not consider students’ best interests. Jeff Becker Class of ’02 ‘Unfriendly’ not helpful In response to Eric Dick ens’Sept. 29 column. The more I thought about Eric Dickens arti cle, the more it did not make sense to me. I have personally nev er seen a brochure about Texas A&M that has “Friendliest University” plastered across it, but I’m sure they exist. The thing is, I believe that this is a friendly campus, and I came to that con clusion on my own when I visited here my senior year of high school. I never read it, and I al ready believed it long be fore I attended Fish Camp. My main problem with the article is that I do not believe promoting A&M as an unfriendly school would be honest or helpful to our cultural- diversity problem. I know this school lacks diversi ty. That is the one thing I wish I could change, and I think about what I can do every day as a person and in organizations to help this situation. Nev er did it cross my mind to stamp out the fact peo ple at A&M are unusually friendly. Why damage one of the best things we have going for us? One might say that you, as a white male, by attending this University are demot ing the diversity by con tributing to the majority percentages. But do you think it is a good idea to quit allowing white males into this school? No — that’s ludicrous, and so is saying that by forget ting about this school’s friendliness we can pro mote diversity. As a fe male, I have felt sexism at work many times, even here at A&M, but I never thought it would help the problem to label A&M a “Not-sofriendly” University. Crystal Goodman Class of ’01 The Battalion encourages let ters to the editor. Letters must be 300 words or less and in clude the author’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Let ters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station. TX 77843-1111 Campus Mail: 1111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: battletters@hotmail.com