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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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“Freshman 15” at Ashley’s (“Light & Verity,” Oct.)? When I was a student, no more than 19 years ago, the ice cream sold at Ashley’s (which then had locations on both York and College streets) was thought to contribute to the “freshman 10.” Is this change another sign of the obesity epidemic, or do we just like alliteration more than we used to?
Heigh-ho, Everybody Judith Ann Schiff’s article on Rudy Vallee (“Old Yale,” Nov.) mentions his signature phrase, “Heigh-ho, everybody.” This spelling, although it may be accurate, doesn’t indicate how Rudy pronounced it. “Heigh-ho” can be pronounced as either “hay-ho” or “hi-ho.” In fact, it was the latter, and is often spelled simply “hi-ho.” Curiously, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines the term “heigh-ho” as “an exclamation expressing dejection, uneasiness, weariness, etc.” Gilbert and Sullivan used the term with this meaning in several of their operettas. It’s usually pronounced “hay-ho” in this context, although at one point in Princess Ida, Gilbert coins the word “heigho-let” to mean a little sigh, and the word is apparently supposed to rhyme with “violet.”
Understanding Autism As Yale alums and the parents of a nine-year-old autistic boy, we were excited to see that the Yale Alumni Magazine was featuring a piece on autism (“Inside Autism,” Nov.). In this context, we were profoundly disappointed to read Dr. Volkmar’s quote that “there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way people with autism engage with others.” We’re sure that we’re not the only people, parents or otherwise, who would have preferred that Dr. Volkmar had used the word “different” rather than “wrong.” First and foremost in understanding a person with autism is understanding that differences in their sensory processing systems cause them to interpret the world differently from the way we do. This is a critically important distinction we are trying to make for all autistics and for the people who work with them, live with them, love them, try to help them, and try to understand them. Mere semantics is not the issue here. We find it deeply concerning, philosophically, that Dr. Volkmar would have used the word “wrong” to describe how autistic people interact with others. Further, the article goes on to describe Yale as a research and treatment center for autism. Personally, as residents of the New Haven area, we have yet to discover any form of “treatment” for our son at Yale. When we first learned of our son’s disability, our first thought was to contact the Child Study Center to find out what kinds of programs they had to offer us. We were both surprised and disappointed to find out that although the Center did once actually work with autistic children, they no longer offer such a program. Instead, we could have waited months—even years—to have our child evaluated by a Child Study Center psychologist—a process, by the way, that is both costly and covered by very few insurance plans. Since we already knew that our child had autism, we felt that our money was better served going toward people who would spend time actually working with our child. Despite all that we have stated above, we are of course thrilled that effort and financial backing are going into autism research at Yale. We still hold out hope, for instance, that some form of treatment might become available to help our son. We also think about our older “typical” son being able to have children someday without being afraid of autism resurfacing in his life. However, we think that it is important for some of the people who study the disorder to do so at less of a distance so that they might come to understand it at the same level and with the same intensity that those of us who are working in the trenches do.
School Days The Sanderses' article, “School Days in the West Bank” (Nov.), was touching precisely because it skirted over a key fact: The Israeli tanks, closures, and curfews that complicate life for West Bank schoolchildren are intended to prevent Palestinian terrorists from blowing up our schoolchildren (who apparently merit less concern from the Reverend and his wife). Since, according to Palestinian polls, the majority of West Bank parents support suicide bombers, I personally find it more difficult to sympathize with them (excepting those who favor peaceful coexistence with Israel) than do the Sanderses. The sad fact is that the Palestinians are causing most of their own suffering, and the so-called “cycle of violence” will end when their support for terror ends. Meanwhile, the Sanderses worry that Palestinian children won’t be able to get to and from school; I worry that mine will come home in a body bag. It was gratifying to read in the November Yale Alumni Magazine of the Sanderses' teaching experiences in the West Bank. The tragedy that has befallen residents of the territories occupied by Israel over the past 26 months, especially the Palestinian schoolchildren, is largely ignored by U.S. media. During the early 1980s, my wife and I lived nearly four years in the Gaza Strip, where I helped to administer more than 80 schools providing elementary, intermediate, and vocational education for some 85,000 Palestinian refugee children. Their thirst for knowledge and training, the dedication of their teachers, and the results achieved were most gratifying, especially in light of the many difficulties inherent in a region under hostile military occupation. Conditions during our years in Gaza, while much calmer than they are today, were not without occasional incidents similar to those described by the Sanderses. There were always extremists determined to undermine movement toward an improved dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. My wife and I are no longer able to maintain direct contact with former friends and colleagues in the Gaza Strip due to the disruption of mail, telephone, and fax services in that region. Some figures furnished recently by the United Nations highlighting the overall impact on schoolchildren of persistent military activity, curfews, and mandated school closures in the Occupied Territories might be of interest. Last year, an average of 29 working school days in each of the 264 UN-run schools were lost because staff and pupils could not get to their classes, and over 72,000 teacher workdays were lost. Military operations have repeatedly violated the sanctity of schools, some of which have been used as detention centers. Two hundred schools have been damaged by gunfire. According to Amnesty International, more than 250 Palestinian schoolchildren have been killed since September 2000, and during the same period, 72 children in Israel have been killed. Before the outbreak of the current intifada (uprising), Palestinian literacy rates were among the highest in the region, and Palestinian girls were the first in the Arab world to achieve educational parity with boys. Palestinian engineers helped to build the Arab Gulf region and Palestinian-educated doctors have benefited communities from California to Cairo. With school success rates falling, a generation of Palestinians risks losing its hope for a future in which, like its elders, it can contribute to the development of successful states in the region. Failure to bring about an early end to this terrible conflict will not only have tragic consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis, but all too likely also for us, as it has become the impelling force driving terrorists to direct their wrath against U.S. targets.
More Memorization In his letter in the November Yale Alumni Magazine, John H. Branson '89 asks the Yale community to consider “trends in secondary education that have elevated rote knowledge over intellectual development.” But where is evidence of such trends? Intellectual development has fizzled in millions of American students precisely because trends in education have eliminated rote learning. From grade school to grad school, drama departments offer the only American classrooms where students consistently engage in memorization of core texts. Without an intellectual template—a mental cache of information and linguistic coherence—students of literature, history, and language lack the desire and the ability to engage in what Mr. Branson sentimentally terms “robust debate.”
Corrections In a November “Light & Verity” article about a gathering of past winners of the Bollingen Prize for poetry, John Ashbery’s last name was spelled incorrectly as Ashberry. In a December “Light & Verity” item about the new Henry Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty, we reported that the gift to establish the center and its endowment was given by Joseph Koerner. Mr. Koerner and Lisbet Rausing together were responsible for the gift. Also, Mr. Koerner is a member of the Class of 1971, not the Class of 1980. A number of observant readers pointed out that in his review of Fay Vincent’s The Last Commissioner (“In Print,” Nov.), Bruce Fellman dropped the ball in describing Stan Musial as a pitcher. While the St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Famer pitched briefly in the minor leagues, Musial won fame as an outfielder, first baseman, and hitter. The mistaken identity was the result of a last-minute editing error committed by the reviewer and is all the more grievous because Fellman’s first baseball glove, worn many years ago, was a “Stan the Man” autographed model.
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