Have your say:

Schools of choice?

Winnipeg School Division policy reads: "The Board of Trustees of the Winnipeg School Division supports the concept of "schools of choice" both for students resident within the boundaries of The Winnipeg School Division as well as for students resident within other public school divisions in Manitoba."

As a parent in the South District I feel like the choice has been removed for me when so many of our schools hold their information nights on the same date and time. Ecole River Heights, Earl Grey and Churchill, all with Grades 7 and 8 programs are holding their information nights on Feb. 10, while Kelvin and Grant Park high schools are both on Feb. 18. This is very frustrating for parents who "choose" to exercise their rights within the division's policy.

LEANNE FOURNIER

Winnipeg

Different view

I accept the general statement on global warming and the serious effect of global pollution on the environment and the atmosphere. I have a different understanding, however, of the changes that will occur as a result.

The oceans will warm up and evaporation will increase greatly with the result of much greater rainfall on Earth and many changes in climate where the rain comes down. This will increase the growth of plant life on Earth and also of animal life.

The increase of moisture in the atmosphere will block out the heat rays from the sun so that the temperatures on Earth will remain suitable for human life.

Daniel Heinrichs

Winnipeg

Riverview works

I would first like to say a big thank you to all the wonderful staff at the Riverview Health Centre.

We hear in the news today about health care being so negative well, I think it is time to hear something positive.

At Riverview Health Centre they have a rehabilitation program for people with lung disease that is a life saver. It is a two-week, in-house program where you are taught by a respiratory therapist how to conserve your breathing, programs to help you cope with oxygen, ways to improve your quality of life while coping with this disease including exercise, nutrition and social work to assist you with your new way of living.

Your family members are encouraged to participate so they, too, will know how to assist you when you return to daily living.

You meet others who have the same condition and are able to have in-depth discussions with them after the classes have finished for the day. These discussions help you to recognize the different levels of this disease and how they can effect others.

In my mind this program should be recognized for its tremendous efforts to keep us out of the hospital and manage at home.

Thank you to all involved in this program.

Lynda Henson

Winnipeg

A little late

In response to Premier Greg Selinger's request of Ambassador Gary Doer to arrange a meeting with the United States secretary of agriculture to discuss country-of-origin labelling, it seems that Doer should have been using his influence while premier to help build meat-processing facilities in Manitoba so as to forestall the harmful effects to farmers' livelihoods caused by occasional spasms of U.S. protectionism.

Ten years and a few photo-ops later, there still is no new beef slaughter plant and the scuttling of Oly-West, while effective "perimeter politics," really does Manitobans no favours. While admittedly the proposed Oly-West location may have been objectionable to some, our former premier certainly showed flexibility and persistence in the selection of the new stadium site, which, alas, wasn't the case in these affairs.

Larry Giesbrecht

Elma

Doug sizzles

I'm a big fan of Doug Speirs and always read his column, but I think he surpassed himself with his Sizzling bacon exposé (Feb. 5.) It was so hilarious that I found myself laughing aloud at his reasons why bacon is better than sex. Keep up your very funny work!

Carol Carver

Winnipeg

Long gone

I read with interest your feature article on Team Manitoba (Feb 6). The fact that our province can produce such a sizable crop of dedicated, talented athletes is cause for celebration. The fact that not a single one of them still resides in Manitoba is cause for concern.

Larry Roberts

Winnipeg

It's the way it's said

Re: N-word offends (Feb. 8).

Gillian Anderson's letter sheds light on an interesting phenomenon in language. Years ago I seem to recall that "native American" was being touted as a politically correct term. It made sense to me, too. After all, they were native to North America long before the Europeans ever got here, so it was logical choice of words. I have also noticed that the term native has become unacceptable. So from there we moved on to aboriginal and now it appears that it is in danger of becoming taboo as well. But why are all these changes necessary?

Of course the problem isn't with the words themselves, but rather with the people saying them. There are simply too many people out there who are perpetuating a negative view of First Nations people. If enough people use the word native with malice in their tone, eventually the word develops a negative stigma. Soon it stops mattering what context the word is used in and it becomes politically incorrect.

I think that's probably what the problem was with the term Indian as well, although of course that also had to be changed, not only because it was derogatory but because it was geographically nonsensical. And now it's also happened with native. What really has to change is people's attitudes. Changing words is pointless if you don't change the way that people say them.

Alex Passey

Oakbank

Teaching helps

In her discussion of reading deficits among "disadvantaged" children, Brownell asks the rhetorical question, "Is this because of bad teaching?" implying that poor children do less well mainly because of non-educational (i.e. socio-economic) factors. While there is no doubt that reading development is influenced by many such variables, the data presented in the article strongly suggest that effective instruction does in fact have a significant impact.

Though the focus of the analysis is on one-to-one instruction, classroom teachers who are knowledgeable about reading instruction can significantly impact literacy levels in the classroom. While it behooves educators to be cognizant of the nature of learning and development, they must be careful not to use this knowledge as an excuse for poor teaching.

Edwin Buettner

Winnipeg

Correction

A letter to the editor Thursday (Feb. 4) had the name incorrectly spelled; it should have been Krucko. The Free Press apologizes for any confusion this may have caused.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2010 A13