LETTERS
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A TOP-HEAVY 186 I support Springfield Public School District 186 – I always vote “yes” on bond issues for schools. However, 5.3 percent of our budget spent for administration is not “slightly more” than 3.3 percent statewide (“Balancing school books,” Patrick Yeagle, Sept. 3). This is 60 percent more.
We can do better.
Charles Matheny Springfi eld
PENNIES FOR LINCOLN Regarding the lack of funding for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, consider this idea inspired by the March of Dimes charity drive of the 1960s: Pennies for Lincoln.
Set out donation containers, involve schools, make it national. Insist on penny donations. Most people dislike pennies. They would not begrudge the amount. We all likely have a drawer or bowl with some pennies rattling around like paper clips. Best of all, the penny has the man’s picture on it. Let the pennies go directly to the ALPLM to be dispersed by the people who do the work of defining Lincoln for us by what he left behind. Sue Anderson Springfi eld
COMPASSION We all want to be safe, intelligent/productive and economically stable. Most agree the way to achieve these things is by mandate. Two examples are education and militarization.
But there’s a crucial human element often forgotten: Compassion/empathy.
We humans all have the same basic needs, yet the tendency is to focus on our own life situation. Those who are extremely disadvantaged to having their needs met may give up, become desperate and are judged as worse than/less than by the more fortunate. The less fortunate unfairly judge the more fortunate as somehow at fault for their undesirable circumstances.
If education took into account the social chasm between many teachers and students, classes would include sociology, allowing teachers and students to see one other as basically the same, enhancing everyone’s ability to connect with rather than be at odds with one another.
When using our military to let others know how much more powerful we are than them, if we thought about how we’d respond if another country did that to us, we’d temper our military force, realizing the natural, eventual response to threats and attacks are counter-threats and attacks.
Compassion sees us all as members of the human race albeit in differing circumstances. I’m most likely to learn and become a productive member of society if my teacher and I feel connected with one another. Countries are less likely to attack each other when the focus is on “win/win” scenarios. Our fear that blinds us to our common humanity puts us at risk and gets in the way of compassion that breeds trust, enhancing our safety and ability to thrive.
Compassion is within us all, often trumped by and buried beneath our fear. The more fear, the less compassion. But I don’t have to wait for others to become more compassionate. When I move through my own fear, experiencing enhanced unity with others, the world around me becomes more compassionate as well. Michelle Sullivan Springfi eld
