LETTERS: Kids are being used

If you read the letters to the editor in Friday’s Coeur d’Alene Press (1/22/16) from 7th and 8th grade students of teacher Diane Wandrey’s Lakes Magnet Middle School students, you will read how indoctrination rather than critical thinking is at play in our schools. I assume that the teacher and her students got their information from articles on the Web about the subject of child labor in the tobacco fields of the United States. Most of these articles refer to the 47-page report published by Human Rights Watch.

If you read the report, you will note that the students’ emotional, out of context letters do not mention anything about the recommendations in the report to Congress, the President, the Department of Labor, the tobacco companies or the international labor organizations. No mention is made of the positive and corrective steps that the tobacco industry has taken to address child labor.

In my experience as a college professor, it would seem to me that the teacher and her students could better serve the public and demonstrate real learning by first, factually explaining and sourcing the issue, and then proposing positive solutions to the problem.

No one condones the exploitation of child labor or the exposure of young children to the hazards of farm work. No one argues that farm children are vulnerable to health and safety issues to a greater degree than older youth or adults. One should also note that this report is based on an extremely small sample of respondents (33) with some repeaters from 2013.

The unfortunate result of this report is that malleable minds of young students (and for that matter low-information adults) will accept the broad-brush conclusion that “big tobacco” capitalists are exploiting and killing our youth. I am further disappointed that the editor of the Coeur d’Alene Press would publish these letters without a balanced explanation or reference to source material so readers could objectively better understand the issue.

I must confess my bias, as I spent my summers from ages 7-11 working on farms to pick prunes, grapes, hops, peaches, cherries, on the fruit dehydrator, driving tractor, etc. to earn a few hundred dollars to buy school clothes and new shoes. We packed our water and lunch for the day with “sanitary” facilities “out in the bushes.” I had the great experience of working with captured German (submarine) officers and Italian prisoners who also worked in the harvest alongside Americans. As youths we saw this work as part of our “coming of age” process.

GENE J. MALVINO

Coeur d’Alene