Gun violence

Dear editor:

I understand Chris Covington’s attitude expressed in his letter of March 21 about school districts allowing students to walk out in protest of gun violence. However, as a former public school teacher, my first teaching having been at the old Hot Springs High building, and later as a teacher for 44 years at the college and university level, I strongly disagree with him.

His statement that he is “not paying my hard earned tax dollars for students to make social or political statements; I’m paying for them to be educated,” shows a lack of understanding of what public education is all about. Yes, we must continue to teach them the fundamentals of “reading, writing and arithmetic,” as the old saying was, and still is with many parents, but a basic purpose in primary and especially secondary education is to cause the students to think.

I applaud the many students across this nation who were willing to say, “This is enough!” about school violence. We all know this is not a new problem, but in the past two years, it seems to have grown.

I firmly believe, and perhaps am wrong, that the rhetoric of our POTUS during the 2016 election year about strong stands and firm support of the NRA and its bizarre attitudes, have added to the problem. Now, even he has stated that Congress should not be afraid of the NRA, but has already backed down after meeting with their reps at the White House. If our government is not going to do anything specifically about the problem, it may be left to individual school districts and students protesting through civil disobedience to get anything done.

College students have for years acted in forms of civil disobedience about various social and political issues. Why not public school students? I should remind Mr. Covington that even as an octogenarian, I still pay much property tax for thousands of students who are not my children. But I do have great-grandchildren and I am very proud to continue paying my share of taxes for their complete education, which includes teaching them to think.

Yes, those who did walk out in protest recently walked aware of suffering the consequences of the school district, but that, Mr. Covington, is an example of courage! If people of the past, like women who were spat on and put in jail for supporting female suffrage, and all those who suffered even more in past civil rights protests had not exhibited strong courage, even at the point of death, we would still probably have voting rights limited to men and still be experiencing the horrors of “Jim Crow’ years which I grew up with.

I appreciate Mr. Covington’s right to express himself, but I strongly disagree with his thoughts. And the idea that one man, like Mr. Westerman, can solve the problem at Lake Hamilton is not a very likely possibility. “It takes a village,” Mr. Covington, it does take a village.