Teachers not always appreciated at first
Upon returning from vacation Wednesday evening, we began wading through the papers our neighbor had saved for us. I was drawn to the Aug. 9 article written by Hap Alexander. After reading the article, I can honestly say that Hap illustrated in his article what he had learned from Helen Jenkins.
Being a fellow classmate of Sally Edwards,as well as Hap’s sister, Anne Wilson, I know Helen Jenkins’ reputation as a “very strict” teacher was handed down by her former students. When I learned she was to be my eighth language arts teacher, I cried myself to sleep!
Miss Jenkins was all about teaching the basics. She believed you learned how to write a good sentence by diagramming it (a lost grammar requirement in education today). Miss Jenkins’ former students knew how to do that. After we learned proper sentence structure, she moved us into paragraphs, and eventually into a weekly essay which was due Friday morning, no exceptions! No matter how many classes she had per day, those essays were returned Monday with two grades ó grammar and composition. I, too spent many afternoons after school learning how to learn from Miss Jenkins who was close to retirement age in the early 1960s.
I wish to applaud Hap’s openness with his learning disabilities. Many of us have benefited from the identification of the various symptoms of ADD and how it affects concentration, etc., albeit much later, once we became adults.
My last contact with Helen Jenkins was a note written upon reading an article written about her contributions and dedication to teaching while I was in college. The article also mentioned she was battling cancer! The purpose of the note was to let her know that her influence had steered me into education and ultimately a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language.
ó Anne Saunders
Salisbury
Satisfied with system
I am a cancer survivor only because of our current health care system. Biopsy noon on Tuesday. Surgeon 3 p.m. on Wednesday. Oncologist 11a.m. on Friday. Aggresive chemo started within 10 days of diagnosis. I choose my doctors, my hospitals and my treatment path.
Then I fought like a girl for the next 12 months of my life.
I pay $6 per person a day for my family premium, for which I get fast, immediate care. No waiting for appointments. No pre-certifications. No bureacrats deciding what I should or should not have based on their checklists or tier treatment plans.
Paying for healthcare is my responsibility, not the government’s. Health care should not be a freebie, handout program. Yes, count my family of five in the very satisfied category!
ó Phyllis Tonseth
Salisbury
Do your research
This country has some of the best medical care in the world. It does need some changes such as covering everyone and cutting costs. It would be stupid to scrap the whole system to adopt a government controlled system like currently in Canada, Great Britian and several other countries. The systems in these countries do not work.
In Canada, for example, they sometimes use a lottery system to determine who receives care and who does not. Sometimes patients have to wait six or seven days in emergency rooms, or wait up to two years for needed operations.
Don’t depend on the national news media for answers, as some of them stand to make billions of dollars if this system is adopted. You cannot trust your elected officials; if they weren’t the best liars in the country, they never would have been elected.
Do some research, then decide for yourself, go to Google and search Canadian Healthcare.
ó Bobby E. Lawrence
Kannapolis