FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM MARCH 22, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 35
oped
Spring is here, so it’s a perfect time show you this gem of a springtime picture taken in May 1913. The image shows a young family and
a horse-drawn wagon crossing the railroad tracks at what was then Trotting Course Lane in Glendale. According to the photo caption,
the tracks were part of a then-active Long Island Rail Road Rockaway Beach branch. Send us your historic photos of Queens by email
to editorial@qns.com (subject: A Look Back) or mail printed pictures to A Look Back, The Queens Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside,
NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you.
Ridgewood Times archives/Courtesy of the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
letters & comments
REAL CAUSE OF
SHOOTINGS:
PARTICIPATION
AWARDS
Th e tragic school shootings and
the growing number of mindless acts
of mayhem have stirred emotions
and provoked debates about the root
causes of these events. Th e most contentious
aspects of the debates are the
accessibility and the kinds of weapons
used.
What is never mentioned or discussed
are the principles and policies
of the educational establishment
that nurture an antipathy to making
moral judgments and foster a mindset
of infl ated opinions and moral
relativism.
Students are taught that all lifestyles
are equal even if they disagree
with them and they should not discriminate
between them. In other
words “Do your own thing” and
“Don’t judge me.”
Incorporated into the school curriculum
is the dogma that students
should be constantly praised
for how good they are regardless of
whether their ideas or actions are
praiseworthy or not. Awards for
Excellence in competitive activities
have been replaced by Certifi cates of
Participation. Th is over abundance
of juvenile “self-love” implants in
the students an unjustifi ably high
opinion of themselves. Th ey tend to
become aggressive and even violent
when confronted with criticism, disapproval
or teasing.
Guns and ignorance are a lethal
combination. If we want to stop
school violence and turn our schools
into serious places of learning, we
should restore a curriculum that
emphasizes reason over emotions,
knowledge over feelings, moral judgment
over moral agnosticism and
self-control over self-expression.
Edward Konenchik, Flushing
PROTESTS HAVE
MEANING,
REGARDLESS OF AGE
In traditional fashion, the nationally
coordinated March 14 school
walkout to protest gun violence was
met with pushback. A strategic position
taken on by gun rights advocates
has been the “walk up not out” narrative:
a belief that mass shootings
will be hindered by addressing mental
health at the peer-to-peer or childto
child level.
It needs to be understood that walkouts
and “walk up” are not mutually
exclusive, period. And, young adults
should not be pressured on whether or
not to act on their political consciousnesses
or be made to feel responsible
for addressing an issue most adults are
not qualifi ed to — when the real issue
is apathetic representatives.
Irony is: fanatic supporters
of the Second Amendment and
Constitution absolutism are trying to
dampen the engagement of the First
Amendment. For a majority of these
students, this is their only way to participate
in our democracy given their
age — and politicians are watching
the future voting class.
Our country would be a very diff erent
place if the women of the 1910s
didn’t agitate and disobey or the Civil
Rights activists of the 1960s didn’t
sit-in and march.
Th ese voices are clear and will
either be heard now, or they will be
heard at the polls in 2018 and 2020.
Ricky Malone, Ridgewood
THE CITY NEVER
SLEEPS, EVEN WHEN
MAYOR IS AWAY
Mayor Bill de Blasio is no diff erent
from many predecessors who racked
up frequent fl yer mileage traveling
around the nation. Th e late Mayor
John Lindsay, who served from 1966
to 1973, did the same promoting
urban agenda for increased federal
aid to cities. Any good CEO of a
major company delegates authority
to get things done.
De Blasio has several hundred
City Hall staff , hundreds more commissioners,
deputy commissioner
and assistant commissioners for
various city agencies to represent
his interests. Th e 320,000 municipal
employees ably led by several
thousand managers are quit capable
of continuing to deliver the critical
services which millions of New
Yorkers count on while de Blasio
periodically travels around the
nation promoting his “progressive
agenda” and perhaps 2020 presidential
ambitions.
Life in the Big Apple will go on
day aft er day regardless of de Blasio’s
physical location.
Larry Penner, Great Neck
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views expressed in all letters and comments
are not necessarily those of this
publication or its staff .
Guns in schools:
A terrible idea
BY MAYA FAISON
I have multiple issues with teachers and school
offi cials having guns. In my talks with youth at both
my church and in the schools where I work, the
response has been the same. The idea of teachers
having guns scares them.
Teachers play an integral role in the development
of young people. Students spend more time at
school and with their teachers than they do at home
with their families. Not all teachers are made equally;
some genuinely care about their students while
others have unresolved personal issues that could
result in more harm than good.
Many teachers, like cops, are coming from neighborhoods
unlike the ones they teach in. Their neighborhoods
are not full of black and brown kids. Too
often teachers have implicit biases about the kids
they are brought in to nourish. These implicit biases
can make giving their guns lethal because they are
afraid of their students.
What does the presence of weapons in schools teach
our young people? It says that any time there is
a problem it can be remedied with violence. We
need to remedy the real problem, which is our ignorance
of the very real struggles our young people are
having with mental health issues and/or with such
everyday issues as poverty, discrimination, bullying
or dysfunctional home situations. They suff er alone
as teachers with untrained eyes look on and wonder
what went wrong when another school shooting happens.
Young people are not masters of disguise; they
cry for help and we as a society are ignoring them.
I fi nd it outrageous that we as a country would
entertain the idea of arming teachers to keep our
kids safe. Teachers call young people names that are
“easier” to pronounce. They ignore cultural norms
and write them off as foreign and unimportant,
thus doing their students a disservice because they
are overworked and under-supported.
We can train teachers to aim and fi re on a child,
but we can’t teach them to be culturally competent?
Some of our young people are coming from
war zones in our own backyard. School is their
safe haven. It’s where they do not have to worry.
The moment we give teachers (and other school personnel)
guns, we take that security away from them.
We need to invest less in guns and more in providing
professional counselors for schools, trained
teachers who notice signs of young people in distress,
and a process for supporting troubled youth
whether in school or out. That means policy changes:
limitations on access to guns and the end of in-school
or out-of-school detention are just two examples of
such changes that are likely to result in dramatic
declines school shootings and other violence.
Lastly, we need to stop and look at where we are
policing our young people. Black and brown kids
have grown up walking through metal detectors and
being searched as they enter school, but time and
time again we see it’s not they who are committing
the atrocities that have spurred this conversation. We
need to stop being selective and recognize that this
can happen anywhere. That means no child should
be able to purchase or have access to a gun, military
style or otherwise.
We need policies that protect our young people
and ensure that our schools again become places of
creativity, engagement, personal growth and educational
opportunity.
Maya Faison attended New York City schools and
now works in four schools as a teacher-trainer for
Global Kids Inc.
A LOOK BACK
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