LETTER: Writer is wrong about high school kids, says ADSS teacher

Kids are well-educated in Port Alberni, teacher says defending students

LETTER: Writer is wrong about high school kids, says ADSS teacher Published 3:10 pm Wednesday, July 15, 2026 To the Editor, Re: Bullying in schools grows thanks to cellphones, AV News Letters, July 1, 2026 I am writing in response to a letter published from Thomas Gowan in the July 1 edition. In his letter he claims that ‘pre-school classrooms are better behaved than the so-called mature high school student classrooms’ and this is simply not true.

I am a teacher at ADSS and I can assure Mr. Gowan and your readers that our classrooms are mostly well-behaved places of learning. Obviously there are the usual teenage shenanigans at times but overall it’s not like pre-school at all. Mr. Gowan also makes the erroneous assertion that ‘many if not most of our high school students can’t even read a basic novel from cover to cover, unless it’s Dr. Seuss.’

I am a longtime member of the ADSS English Department, and no one in our department uses Dr. Seuss, nor did he write novels at all. Furthermore, hundreds of our students from Grades 8-12 read all kinds of novels and other rigorous works every school year. These claims are an insult to our students who do in fact engage with, and enjoy all kinds of classic literature all of the time.

Yes, social media and cellphones need to be regulated, but so do false claims like those in the letter. Shaun Rust, Port Alberni