Totally confused: Letters, 23 May

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

Motives of teachers called into question

If you are a teacher who is doing this because you care for and about children you will not need an incentive payment.

If you need an incentive payment to encourage you to be educating a group of children, then you should not have been there in the first place.

As for the uproar relating to the slight increase in class/pupil numbers - get real.

In the 1960s I had a class of 55 primary children in a prefab and I successfully coped with that situation and was borne out by accolades from the parents of those children, in particular, twin 8-year-old boys with learning problems.

I know, times have changed, but I wonder sometimes if this means are we really going forward?

Barry H Walker, Mount Maunganui

Class sizes

To raise the number of children in school classes will be counterproductive.

With 20 per cent of children in New Zealand living below the poverty line teachers have to deal with this on a daily basis. A child who is inadequately clothed and hungry is not in the best position to learn.

And yes, I know most schools do the best they can to feed and clothe these children even though it is not their responsibility.

Add to that the number of children who may have ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, aspergers, autism - the list goes on, and there is a strong case for smaller numbers per classroom with more teachers.

Lawrence Woods, Katikati

I see we are again going to get many rapid responses on both sides for and against regarding the editorial that supported gay marriage. For those that promote the human rights argument (can't actually see anywhere in the world that marrying is a human right) then using that argument I would like to be a woman. I suggest that on that level of debate the human right argument falls in a big hole.

The arguments about a marriage being between a man and a woman so they can have babies is obviously also flawed. The most laughable argument I have read, supposedly from a Canadian Association of Psychologists, is that gays don't "feel good" if they can't be married.

Yes, I am one of those that still struggles with the modern practice of a couple introducing their wife/husband as their partner. Leaves me totally confused.

With gays I am relaxed as I know exactly what they mean. It seems to me that the majority of westerners who are "polled" don't give a rat's backside about the issue and reply they are "not against it".

This is often taken by the activists as support for homosexual marriage.

I don't have a justification for my view other than I am comfortable with heterosexuals being married and homosexuals being in a union (or some other word) - after all, in New Zealand a civil union has all the lawful benefits of marriage except the ability to adopt as a couple.

Of all the English words we have at our disposal why would we want change the generally accepted meaning of marriage, so a very small minority can "feel good"?

Roy Edwards, Tauranga

Teach nutrition

If nutrition was a compulsory subject in our schools, I believe it would be of great benefit to us all - in both the short and long term.

Linda Elliott, Tauranga