THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 4, 1995 TAG: 9508030011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 36 lines
As a student of the Maury High School Class of 1997, I am appalled at ``Not enough textbooks at Maury'' (letter, July 14).
A shortage of textbooks should be grounds for concern if teachers cannot properly teach their courses, but a class set of textbooks means that students do not carry the (oftentimes quite heavy) books home. Driver-education courses work like that. The students complete daily work and study notes and worksheets as homework. Complaints about leaving the textbooks at school were rarely issued by students in my driver-education class last year.
Most classes in the honors program have a textbook for each student - and often several extra textbooks are borrowed by other teachers of the same course.
Usually the classes that are short of textbooks are those normal classes in which unruly or disrespectful students have banded together and either stolen the textbooks or ruined them. Seemingly, honor-program students have a little more confidence in themselves and know that the textbooks have a specific use: to help the student learn the topics of a course.
As long as there are enough textbooks to furnish each student in a class (whether the books are left at school or not), students can learn (if they are truly eager). Maury's courses, whether remedial, general, honors or AP, are thorough, and I am proud to call myself a student of Maury High School. It is equal to the best because it is one of the best.
ASHLEIGH M. ETHERIDGE
Norfolk, July 15, 1995 by CNB