The Editor,
Re. "Taking paper out of schools" (The Tri-City News, Feb. 16).
I am very concerned to read the front-page article. The story said since November, one teacher received more than a thousand student assignments for Language Arts and Social Studies. I am thinking how wonderful it would be if those were done on paper. I bet they would have taken various forms, including hand-made posters. How original and different these paper assignments would be.
Paper assignments show more of a student as he is - his character, his creativity, his efforts and his ability. It is especially so true with the assignments of Language Arts and Social Studies. I consider it a sad deprivation to the students.
To me, it is one very important way of learning.
Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in we should go paperless wherever it serves best, such as business as it survives and thrives on less cost. Nevertheless, it is so disheartening to see our schools taking paper out of school. It is so disheartening to hear a teacher saying he is doing his best to try and get rid of the paper because it's expensive and makes the classroom a mess. Obviously it is not for the best interest of our students.
I have a comment for the School District 43's energy manager. His target, defined by his position, was totally right on both cost and environmental concerns but should he, or anyone in the district, put the best interest and the needs of the students behind the cost and environment issue?
Paper is one of the most important inventions of human kind. Our kids need to learn to enjoy the paper so as to enjoy the civilization we have been enjoying for generations. They still need the paper to pass on our heritage.
The first concern should not always be cost, especially with education. Even when one needs to cut cost, cutting waste proves to be more effective. The first concern is not always the environment; there are more we can do to not to abuse our environment, more we can do to take better care of our environment before we have to sacrifice our children's best interests.
I hope there are lots of teachers and parents who would agree with me.
Alice Yang, Coquitlam
