(The following letter was originally written as an assignment where students were asked to write about a subject that is important to them, according to Hosmer Elementary School teacher Christine Fletcher. It is the unedited version of the essay.)
Have you ever wanted to be an astronaut or a doctor or an architect? If you want to be one of these jobs when you’re grown up you have to go to college.
College is a school you can go to after high school. Some people go there to learn more things. And how you can do a job and to learn skills. And now that you know what college is now I will tell you Why College is important and needs to be affordable.
I asked everybody in my classroom what they wanted to be When they grow up. Believe it or not, almost all of the jobs you have to get a college degree for. College is $25,487 per year or $101,948 over 4 years. So if you can’t afford that you can’t be your dream job either that’s a doctor an astronaut a architect or a train conductor. If you don’t have a college degree because you can’t afford college you can’t be these things. Or even more things and jobs that you want to be!
Some people might say that we can’t do anything about it! But we can still try. We can send letters to colleges. and to the president and the community that it’s a problem and we can try to help! So write to your senators to ask them to make legislation for college to be more affordable.
And that’s why college should be more affordable and how we can help so start writing! And maybe someday college will be more affordable, so don’t stop dreaming, we can do it.
Sawyer Alves
Grade 3
Hosmer School
Sawyer, I agree with you and I have no doubt that you will go to college. No self-respecting institution of higher learning would say no to a thoughtful, go-getter like you. Any that do, don’t deserve you. In the meantime, keep writing. I will be watching for your future editorials.
I applaud this young person for having big dreams and ideas. At his age it is difficult to know all the ramifications of funding college by individuals, but it is good that he is thinking about possibilities. One concern that comes to mind with his letter is that his teacher did not counsel him on grammar, punctuation and complete use of sentences before releasing his letter to the public. We have all heard of concerns regarding the level of education that students are getting or not getting in our schools and that they are not achieving high scores in English, math, etc. I sincerely hope that teachers work with all students to learn and improve their proper writing skills as they will also be important to their success in life. This young person is at a beginning stage of learning and, hopefully, with the proper teaching will improve his skills as he progresses through the grades. I hope that our students are strongly encouraged to read so that they gain more diverse ideas and see grammar used appropriately in a variety of publications. Kudos go to this young person for picking a topic that is in the forefront of the minds of many people at this time.
How do you know that the teacher did not address any the issues you found with his essay? Did you not read the last line of the paragraph before the start of the essay? This is the unedited version and this statement can be taken at least two different ways. One, it was printed with nothing removed by the paper. Second, maybe another version of this was submitted by the teacher with corrections made specifically for this printing and the paper wanted to be as is. Valid points and possible solutions were presented which is a rare occurrence in some essays and letters written by people with more education. I suggest you re-read what you presented and correct your errors.
Thanks, Sawyer & Mrs Fletcher! This is the best letter to the editor I have read in a while – direct, personal, logical, non-blaming, brief, hopeful and supported by multiple data points.