Letters

Do new kiosks signify a trend?

Editor:

Well now, isn’t that pretty? After two years of dealing with (da
da dah) the REAL WORLD (aaaaGH!) I am once again a student on
UCLA’s beautiful campus. Which has changed so much that my husband
had to give me a guided tour during Reg Week so I could find my way
to my classes. The maze between Powell Library and Royce Hall is
particularly impressive, and I’m not going to get started on
mourning the demise of the VERY expensive grass now under
asphalt.

No, my particular peeve this time is the newspaper kiosks. When
I was an undergrad, obviously in the dark ages when the campus had
a lower standard of living, we had simple little kiosks that held
three stacks of Daily Bruins. Perhaps you remember them. There are
a few still around. Now we have very high-tech, impressively sleek
metal kiosks with labeled slots for the newsmagazines.

Why is this necessary? Are these new kiosks that much more
effective than the old ones that we can justify the expense? Or is
"Wendy" ­ and her Snapple beverage crew ­ paying for
them? The only real difference I can see is that it is much more
difficult to post things on them or, perhaps psychologically,
students are deterred from covering them with the many multicolored
flyers the old ones always sported.

This is disturbing; the old newspaper kiosks were pretty much
the only place we could post notices that were not stamped and
sanctioned by the university. A reflection of the growing trend
away from the relaxed, liberal arts college atmosphere we used to
have, along with marble floors in Murphy, freeway art in the
Treehouse and shrinking green spaces? Hmmm.

Jasmin Harvey

Graduate student

Germanic Linguistics

Tea in the cup of education

Editor:

Know something funny? This is my second year, but I feel more
like a freshman than ever. The biggest thing I learned at UCLA last
year was that I have a lot to learn.

"Don’t look down on me ’cause I’m a chola," my Prison Coalition
tutee demanded, right after introducing herself to me. I asked her
what "chola" meant, and she laughed at me. Growing up in a
comfortable suburb of San Jose, gangs are an elsewhere phenomenon,
something you hear about on the 10 o’clock news, fuzzy and faded,
like an "I Love Lucy" rerun.

The first quarter I tutored in South Central, I got the shock of
my life. I thought segregation was a thing of the past. Maybe the
laws changed, but the reality hasn’t.

I’m always astonished at the obstacles my pupils face. Not one
of my tutees (all young teenagers) knew their multiplication
tables. Two were illiterate. One saw a gang murder in front of his
home.

Tutoring has taken all the stuff about poverty and oppression
that I’d heard before and infused it with vivid Technicolor and
surround-sound.

I don’t understand much of what I see these days, but I remember
a story about a student who goes to a famous Zen teacher and asks
to learn from him. The Zen master tells the student to sit down,
and begins pouring a cup of tea. He continues to pour even after
the cup is full, with tea running down its sides. The student asks,
"Why do you continue to pour tea into my cup?" The teacher replies,
"You must empty your cup of knowledge before I can teach you
anything."

It’s a new quarter, and I’ll be tutoring in Chinatown as part of
the Asian Education Project. I’m getting ready to empty my cup.

Christina Shigemura

Second year

Geography/Environmental Studies

Teachers cause ‘campus crisis,’ not students

Editor:

The column by Professor William Allen ("’Crisis of the
classroom’ pervades UCLA lectures," Oct. 24) goes to great lengths
to explain the profound educational shortfall which students at
this "prestigious university" are experiencing. The aloofness which
characterized the professor’s article is the same attitude which is
responsible for what he calls "children of the campus … who do
not know much."

Professors like him ­ and I have had many in my three years
on campus ­ are the precise cause of the "dour assessment" of
the educational prowess of UCLA students. As Professor Allen states
himself, "I do very little teaching … I profess profundity
-­ but not much is learned." Perhaps if Professor Allen did a
little more teaching rather than talking down to his students, they
would learn a little more.

His verbose discourse completely neglects taking into account
that if a class of California’s best and brightest, the future
professionals and leaders of this state, fail to grasp his academic
ramblings, that perhaps this calls for a change in his "teaching"
approach. Luckily there are a "few exceptions" on this campus
­ professors whose goal is to educate, not just to conduct
classes. It is with these professors that the hope for a real
learning experience on this campus lies.

Dominic Messiha

Fourth year

Political Science