Looking for a More Positive View of Youth

Your article, “When Push Came to Shove, Coach Let Him Take the Field” (Times, Nov. 12) digs deep for negative news about our society. Trying to make a sensational story out of poor timing on the part of a school dean in disciplining one football player only underscores the way the media are being used by individuals to distort and magnify the violent nature of our youth. High school students are not known for mature judgment in behaving around a fight of their peers. Unfortunately, their tendency to play out disagreements in the form of a fistfight is taught to them every day on TV.

I would like to challenge the Los Angeles Times to write as many articles about young people doing community service as they do about gangs or youths getting into violence or vandalism. How about some articles about volunteer efforts by community youth organizations and their leaders, teachers who volunteer their own time to lead a student club or athletic activity, young people who spend voluminous hours preparing for good, clean, wholesome campus activities, and parents of youth making a difference in our schools? How about making these articles balance the articles about troubled teens, parents who abuse their children, the divorce rate or the statistics of crime in our society?

Yes, you may have further to go in looking for good news. You won’t have an individual wanting legal documentation for a disability claim calling you to give you this information. But as a citizen who believes there is plenty of good news about our young people in general and about public education in particular, that needs to be reported and as one who is sick of article after inflated article about the bad stuff, I protest!

TERRALYN VASQUEZ

Westchester