Alternative doesn’t spur full potential

As I read Steve Smith’s convoluted Family Time article in Saturday’s

Daily Pilot (“Timing of story gets old”), I recalled an experience

that I had in graduate school many years ago. As I earnestly sought

to impress the professor with my learning, he stopped me in the

middle of my presentation and said, “Lavrakas, you’re suffering from

cognitive dissonance; your problem is that you have a tendency to

jump on the horse and ride off in all directions.”

Smith, in his attempt to cover a host of subjects and give them

meaning, “has jumped on the horse” and taken off in all directions.

Since I most strongly disagree with several of his views, especially

in his prioritizing of vocational classes and in denigrating the

discipline of geometry, I urge him and any of his readers who support

his views to consider the following:

* In a day when the No Child Left Behind Act is raising the hopes

of the typically disadvantaged student, Smith tells us that “ ...

many kids going through the school system are not candidates for

college.” He laments the “demise of shop and other classes,” while I

lament the loss of all those students who are not encouraged to

achieve their full potential by going on to college. No Child Left

Behind is aimed primarily at closing the achievement gap by ensuring

that all students, including the disadvantaged, meet high academic

standards. In this regard, it’s interesting to note that the word

“academic” does not appear anywhere in Smith’s article.

* As for Smith’s disdain of geometry, which goes back to his own

schooling days, he mistakenly agrees with his daughter that “he never

had to use geometry his entire life, since school.” By thinking a

little on the world around him, he might have told his daughter about

the place of geometry in geography, how our 24-hour days are broken

up into a.m. (antemeridian) and p.m. (postmeridian). And as we

approach the time of the autumnal equinox, he might have explained

that when the days and nights are of equal duration, the sun rises

exactly in the east, or 90 degrees, and sets in the west, or 270

degrees. He might have added that navigators of old checked their

compasses on this occasion. All of this and so much more appears to

have no meaning for Smith, which is sad indeed.

It will be interesting to see if Smith chooses to refrain from

composing further multi-subject articles where coherence is a

problem. Hopefully, when he sits down to write, may I suggest he jump

on his horse and ride off in one direction.

LEFTERIS LAVRAKAS

Costa Mesa