Dear Abby: The letter you printed from "Patience, Consistency and
Praise in Minneapolis" brought tears to my eyes. As a schoolteacher who
has given up on more than a handful of teaching assignments because he
couldn't be mean to kids, I pray that every school administrator,
policymaker and teacher read that column.
Children are only the innocent mirror of the environment they grow up
in; if they come to school with a mean, jaded attitude it's because they
learned it from all the adults in their lives. They get enough strict
meanness at home without getting it a school, too.
I wish I could find a school anywhere where disciplining children with
love is the order of the day. If I could, I'd be packing in a moment to
teach there. If every school were to implement a lovebased discipline
policy, not only would test scores rise, but also eventually we would see
a decline in drug abuse, delinquency, dropouts, crime and unemployment in
society.
R.L.L., SILVER LAKE, CALIF.

Dear R.L.K.: I have always maintained that if children are raised with
love, they will respond to others with love.
(c) Universal Press Syndicate