Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Listen up, bureaucrats

Critics of city governments don’t just reside in Spokane. Groups throughout the United States are finally getting organized and demanding answers to some baffling and frustrating questions.

In Spokane, an organization called Priorities First is being blamed by some city bureaucrats for impeding progress. Groups such as this were successful in stopping the $37 million street bond issue, for obvious reasons. Groups such as Priorities First have done a public service and deserves recognition and support from the folks who really count, the taxpayers.

Those who say they are smarter than us had better watch the warning signs that are coming forth throughout Spokane County and the state of Washington. Our purpose is simple. What our local political leaders need to understand is that if government, from within, doesn’t make an effort to improve services and reduce costs through restraint and true-to-life realism, public anger will increase substantially, and the results may not be healthy and progressive.

The way to solve increased government spending is not to add another layer of government but to consolidate services, cut unnecessary overhead and listen to the people.

If Spokane politicians attempt to build a parking garage, in spite of the people, they will be making a serious mistake. Dick Adams Spokane

Inconsistency is troubling

After reading the articles and negative jibes being directed toward the group Citizens Putting Priorities First, I perceive its goal to be limiting government guarantees to fund private enterprise such as a downtown parking garage. I believe that if any project is viable, private enterprise will construct it and profit from it.

I find it confusing when one entity, such as the city of Spokane, is backing this project (garage), when I read on one of the back pages of the paper that the county commissioners are very concerned with who is going to pay to provide road maintenance for Dawn Mining to transport rubble from Spokane rail yards to a site near Ford, Wash. “Commissioners were offended that a private company was asking for public money to import nuclear discards.” I am sure these trucks would be asked to pay hefty road taxes. Does it matter who is asking, or is public money not always public money? Jo Shaw Davenport, Wash.

PARENTING

Rosemond approach shortsighted

Whenever I read John Rosemond’s parenting column, I’m baffled as to why you would choose this columnist when there are so many truly good parenting writers available. Ones who realize that raising interactive humans is more important than the controlling of behavior. The March 3 column about arguing with children was a very good example of how to raise a child who will not want to listen to others.

Rosemond’s “answer” to a child who has an issue is to refuse to discuss it with them. How does this type of domineering behavior teach a child to resolve a disagreement - now, or as an adult? Besides this arrogant lack of treating a child human to human, he then quotes Dr. Spock from his first edition. But Dr. Spock’s later editions of “Book of Baby and Child Care” repudiated many of his original ideas, and “You can’t reason with a child” was one of them.

One of the guiding principles in how to deal with children is to visualize the child as a friend and then try to be as kind and reasonable to this child as you would be to your adult friend. Sometimes, as the parent, inarguable power must be resorted to, but it is the last choice, not the first.

Rosemond appears to feel that being right, being controlling and having all the power is the most effective way to deal with children. That may work for a little while, but it’s only a temporary solution. Respect and kindness are the true keys to communicating and teaching. Renee Roehl Spokane

Near zero parents wasted their time

“Near zero attendance at parent summit” (Region, March 2) smacked of self-righteousness of the good Linda Thompson, volunteers and participant.

Parents have been educated to death on gangs, violence and drugs. The subjects of these topics have been glamorized in the movies, sensationalized by the press and endorsed by a judicial system afraid to step on inalienable human rights of these subcultures. Now, in order to be deemed responsible parents, we are to use our time to learn more about, and to understand these maladies, giving them further credence and acceptability as conventionality in our society.

I’m afraid you’re not seeing the forest for the trees. To quote the article, “Most of all, Saturday’s speakers emphasized the importance of spending time with children.” Perhaps the errant parents who stayed away in droves were spending a Saturday of quality time with their children.

Who were the children of Thompson and the other selfrighteous people hanging out with on Saturday, in the obvious and celebrated absence of their parents? Suzanne Thompson Liberty Lake

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

‘New education’ subverts youth

Few parents realize the “new education” being forced on our children. We hear over and over again it’s not an official part of the curriculum. Yet renegade teachers are still subjecting students to educational techniques that include hypnosis.

Jack Canfield and our own administrators in the publication, “Critics of Change,” offer advice for teachers and principals if parents object: just change the name. Don’t call it hypnosis, call it guided imagery, progressive relaxation or centering.

Sure, maybe these techniques start out as innocent exercises. But, if teachers don’t have the good judgment to leave these things out of the classroom, we certainly can’t expect them to have the good judgment to know when it has gone too far.

If you don’t think this is dangerous or really happening, get a tape of the testimony given at the hearing for HB1598 in Olympia and prepare to be shocked. Testimony was given to show that these techniques not only waste academic class time but also can cause an increase in anxiety, depression and antisocial behavior. This was documented with articles from professional scientific journals. Parents from all corners of the state testified this had happened to their children.

Maybe changes in our youths can’t be attributed just to drugs and bad parenting. Maybe bad teaching is responsible, too. Support HB1598. Sonya Fisher Davenport, Wash.

Reform schools with lawsuits

“Bill would ban yoga in schools” (Region, Feb. 19) shows The Spokesman-Review’s continued inability to cover issues completely or accurately. This bill covers a lot more than yoga. Actually, the bill deals more with hypnosis.

Jack Canfield’s “Self-Esteem in the Classroom,” a curriculum available through the curriculum lab at Eastern Washington and Gonzaga universities, advocates teacher use of progressive relaxation with guided visualization to help children find an “inner guide.” All these techniques bring on a hypnotic state.

With Spokane teachers grabbing up Canfield’s material and these techniques being taught at the universities in the name of effective, confluent or transpersonal education, is it any wonder they show up in the classroom? After all, teachers have academic freedom. Parents shouldn’t be surprised when academic freedom means hypnosis experiments on their children.

That is, if parents find out. How many teenagers want to trade lying around on a floor in a dark room being mystical for good old hard work? Fifty-two students were hypnotized in the academic strategies class at Mead. Parents, did you know about it?

Even when parents do go to administrators they are lied to and told they are the only one to complain. Imagine their shock to find out they aren’t.

The PTA, Washington Education Association and the administrators’ associations fight tooth and nail against access legislation for parents. I wonder why.

Next time you ask your child what he or she did in school today, you might be surprised by the answer. Don’t call your principal to complain. Call your lawyer. Rick F. Krisnosky Medical Lake

Ban on techniques necessary

I am a certified teacher. In my work with a parent advocacy group, I have talked with teachers, parents and students across the state and read with great interest “Bill would ban yoga in schools” (Region, Feb. 19).

If parents or teachers bother to read the bill, HB1598, they will find it deals with much more than yoga. It includes a variety of techniques that belong in a psychiatrist’s office, not the classroom.

Spokane Superintendent Gary Livingston’s response is not surprising. From Auburn to Zillah, school administrators say it’s just not happening. Parents and students say otherwise.

Teachers are being taught guided imagery and transpersonal education in workshops and college classes. Why should we be surprised when it shows up in the classroom? Teachers are taught that use of hypnosis techniques in the classroom is irresponsible and unprofessional.

Psychologists, dentists and doctors get sued if they take a client on a guided imagery fantasy trip through hypnosis and fail to get informed consent from the client beforehand.

Let’s wake up and realize what’s going on before we see our precious tax dollars go down the drain in a needless lawsuit. Thank you, Rep. Mark Sterk, for having the guts to open our eyes. Muriel Tingley Medical Lake

Relaxation techniques big mistake

I agree with Spokane Schools Superintendent Gary Livingston that relaxation techniques are inappropriate in our schools.

Rep. Mark Sterk’s bill would prohibit educational practitioners from bringing students into an altered state of consciousness through hypnosis.

I especially object to teachers using guided visualization, a type of hypnosis, on students.

Dr. Margaret Singer, professor of psychology at University of California-Berkeley, states, “Some of the most intense emotional arousal responses can be produced by guided imagery and other trance-inducing procedures.” Maybe that’s why the students at Mead High School’s academic strategies class experienced uncontrollable crying, shaking, sweating and anger when the teachers apparently took the students on a guided visualization in a darkened room with a few candles lit.

In the journal Psychiatric Annals, Singer states, “Groups that use prolonged mantra and empty-mind meditation, hyperventilation and chanting appear more likely to have participants who develop relaxation-induced anxiety, panic disorder, marked dissociative problems and cognitive inefficiencies.” A lobbyist for the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction testified in favor of using guided visualization. She reported that progressive relaxation and repeating a word or phrase helps developmentally disabled students. The SPI should consider sending memos to schools to suggest that educators who utilize trance-producing techniques with students take out extensive malpractice insurance. After all, it’s just a matter of time before parents and lawyers realize some teachers are practicing psychiatry without a license and utilizing Eastern religious techniques in the classroom. Gloria Clark Spokane

ABORTION

Teacher’s attitude appalling

Dan Ford’s letter (“Operation Rescue up to no good,” Feb. 26) brought to light the political attitude all too many taxpayer-funded instructors of children have. He is “appalled by their motivation.”

The saving of innocent, unborn children appalls him? How can he be concerned about his students’ rights and not give a damn about an unborn child’s life? That’s hypocritical.

I used to believe in abortion until I saw my beautiful, yet-to-be-born son through ultrasound technology. Instantly, I knew what I had previously believed was completely, without a doubt, wrong. This belief has nothing to do with religion but has everything to do with human compassion and the instinctual love for one’s own child.

I tend to side with many religious agendas, for different reasons and motives, as I am a conservative. But I also find many of the religious conservatives’ ideas and actions hypocritical.

Ford is charged as a teacher not to look at both sides of an issue but to teach children what is right and what is wrong, i.e. the correct answer to a math problem and the right way to spell a word.

Abortion is wrong, pure and simple. It is the taking of an unborn child’s life, in most cases for convenience.

Ford should be embracing these protesters as they are trying to ensure that he will have growing children to teach in the future. Dick Brauner Spokane

Optimum birth control the answer

In a recent letter to the editor, a woman wrote that adoption is the answer to abortion. I respectfully disagree.

The availability of affordable, 100 percent effective and safe contraception for women worldwide is the only realistic answer to the abortion dilemma. Why, as we approach the new millennium, is such contraception unavailable? Joyce M. Paris Spokane

Adoption choice showed character

In response to the birth mother in pain (Letters, Feb 26), I will not say I know how she feels because I can’t even imagine how tough that would be. I do know that I am impressed with how she took responsibility and remained accountable for her choices. That deserves respect.

Life consists of successions of choices. When a young person chooses to have sexual relations and takes no precautions to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, it is obviously not a good choice. We all make mistakes but this young woman was not ready to make that choice. She was then confronted with tough choices.

Being responsible for her previous actions, she made a good choice to have the baby. Another good choice was made by giving the baby up, realizing she was not ready for the responsibility of the original choice.

I know some of those loving couples. They love those babies more than you or I can imagine.

This mother bonded to this baby because it is life inside her. She raised and cared for this baby for nine months. Would her pain be less if the baby was killed and never smiled at anyone? I don’t trivialize the choice of adoption but I think the choice of abortion is trivialized. I support the mother’s choice to keep or give up the baby. I think the baby would choose life. Ron Kendall Spokane

One demonstration calls for another

My first reaction to the anti-choice demonstrators picketing a Spokane school was one of outrage. However, on second thought, school is a place where ideas should be contemplated.

I hope the pro-choice people will follow suit. The anti-choice people have every right to their opinion, just as pro-choice people have to theirs. Let’s hope no law is ever passed to deny either side the right to believe as they wish or to act upon those beliefs. Hal Payne Coeur d’Alene