Tepid student participation bigger problem than stupid
questions
I am sure that John Shim’s comments on students who speak
up in class were well received by the majority of readers. The
trouble is, they illustrate one of the most severe problems faced
by UCLA students. As we sit in our classes with pen in hand,
jotting down test-worthy material, we often neglect a key point in
the learning process ““ attempting to take personal interest
in the material. It’s not surprising that professors are
usually met with cricket-chirping silence when offering a question
to their audience until the goody goody in the second row
eventually pipes up.
Somehow the word got out around campus that it’s not cool
to participate in class, that students who offer questions or
comments are only inhibiting test preparation. Though I agree that
lectures are the professors’ time to pass along information,
without student interaction on some level, information may be only
memorized and not understood. The result will be a society of
superficially prepared citizens.
Laying the blame on those poor bastards that beg for attention
at the front of the class expresses only contempt for the learning
process. The fact is, your professors would much rather choose you
or one of your scribbling buddies to answer a question or offer a
comment. But you don’t allow them that option because
you’re either not paying attention or you don’t want to
expand your knowledge.
I agree that students should show some responsibility and stay
on point with their comments, but encouraging silence is a lazy and
harmful response to the problem. If you haven’t already noticed,
the assembly-line method of learning is well secured at UClA; too
many raised hands is the least of our problems.
Eddie Hunsinger
Third-year, religious studies
War with Iraq not as simple, easy as Singer and Delshad
think
What bothered me about both Michelle Singer’s Oct. 1 column
and Jonathan Delshad’s Oct. 7 submission are the comparisons
they made regarding Saddam Hussein. Singer thought it was
appropriate to equate him with a school bully and Delshad likened
Hussein to a burglar entering someone’s house late at
night.Â
My problem with Singer’s comparison is according to the current
public knowledge, Iraq’s military is small, disorganized, weak
and technologically inferior compared to the U.S. Military, or to
many other militaries for that matter. Comparing it to a school
bully greatly overestimates its military prowess.
I also found Delshad’s comparison misleading, because he seems
to assume that waging war against Iraq would kill only the alleged
evildoer, Saddam Hussein, by comparing war against Iraq with
self-defense against a burglar. War actually kills
innocent people! Numerous Iraqi civilians who, as he states
later in his submission do not even have the power to make informed
decisions, would die as a result of war. Does Delshad think
that the innocent children and acquaintances of the
“burglar in your house late at night” ought to be
murdered too? I doubt it and would urge Singer and Delshad to
rethink their oversimplified comparisons since war with Iraq is
very different than facing up to a bully or taking down a burglar.
The war with Iraq will be about much more than just one man.
Anna Ferrini
Fourth-year, communication studies
Anti-war doesn’t mean anti-American
As a Bruin alumnus and U.S. Army veteran, I was saddened to see
Shane Waarbroek’s (“Rally Against Iraqi War Ignorant,
Viewpoint,” Oct. 9) dismissive attitude towards the lives of
our service men and women. In fact, I find it incredibly
interesting that the soldiers are mentioned only in the final
paragraph of his letter. “Our soldiers may die, and some of
our military sons and daughters may not come home. However, we know
that our enemy has not been conquered, and our generation has been
called to preserve our cherished democracy.”
Surely, this is pretty rhetoric from someone I assume has never
carried an M-16 and probably doesn’t face the possibility of dying
in the Iraqi desert. And for what? To clean up the mess created by
people like Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney in their
previous career incarnations during the Nixon/Reagan/earlier-Bush
administrations? If we worry about unstable and terrorist-assisting
governments having nuclear weapons, why haven’t we disarmed
Pakistan? If we want to fight a war with those who support terror,
why aren’t we invading Saudi Arabia?
Waarbroek is presumably younger than I, and probably hasn’t had
the opportunity to serve alongside the young men and women who will
preserve our democracy, so I will endeavor to give him some of the
benefit from my experience. Military personnel do not generally
regard anti-war demonstrators as unsupportive of their cause,
especially when a war is not currently under way. It is not the job
of Soldiers, Marines and Sailors to seek battle; their job is to
train for the possibility of battle and carry out the orders of the
National Command Authority. Americans who exercise their
Constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and encourage their
leaders to prevent a war are not against our brothers and sisters
in arms, but rather seek peaceful resolutions while they are still
possible, as they are in this case.
Waarbroek certainly doesn’t understand that sometimes
killing for your country can be worse than dying for it. Many of
the Gulf War veterans I came in contact with during my active duty
service still struggle with the things they did and saw in the
first war with Iraq. I pray the 18-year-old privates that served in
my squad be spared such an experience. The UCLA professors who say
that everyone loses when we go to war may indeed be treasonous. I
can’t say for sure because I don’t know them and don’t have
enough information to make such a judgement. But one should not
equate being anti-war as equivalent to anti-American. They’re
simply not the same thing.
Please make no mistake about me either. Don’t lump me in with
the “treason lobby and the ignorant.” After college, I
enlisted in the Army for several reasons including paying back my
student loans and a desire to serve. I chose a combat specialty as
a scout rather than a cushy office job because I firmly believe
that if you are going to be a bear you might as well be a
grizzly.
Though no longer on active duty, I continue to serve in the Army
National Guard and if/when the call comes I will pick up my rifle,
kiss my wife and infant son goodbye and do my duty as I have been
trained. And if truly “our generation has been called to
preserve our cherished democracy,” then I hope that instead
of showing his support with strident rallies and pretty signs, Mr.
Waarbroek takes a trip to his friendly neighborhood recruiter and
offers his assistance in a more practical, boots on the ground
manner. Let me know if you need their number.
Justin Fuller
Class of 1995