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Regarding the article "Booted from the pedestal," about removing a bust of Roger B. Taney from the U.S. Capitol (Dec. 15): I understand the "urge to purge." But I believe we are doing history a disservice. I had heard of the dreadful Dred Scott decision but nothing really about the author of the decision. Would it not be better to leave the bust in place with a plaque around the neck of this arrogant white man explaining his misguided reasoning? Then visitors to the gallery could look into his marble eyes and marvel at this racist dandy.

Better that than to let him off the hook and allow him to slip quietly into obscurity.

Jim Weidner, Minneapolis

On Dec. 16, a letter writer wrote "I went hungry. Others shouldn't." I grew up at about the same time but with a different perspective and outlook and have a different attitude about the free school lunch the writer is suggesting for all. I am the last of seven children and lived on a farm. When going to school, we all "brown-bagged" it because there wasn't money for school lunch. In my sophomore year, I saw a sign on the high school cafeteria door asking for help in the cafeteria at lunch, which I applied for and was hired. I also worked in the dishwashing line, cleaning fellow students' dishes and silver and pushing the four-wheel garbage cart to the kitchen. It was hot and sweaty work, but for that work, I enjoyed a free lunch and was paid $1.75 a week and could eat all I wanted.

Because I pushed the garbage cart, a few of the classmates called me "Slop Wagon" for a nickname, which was a little hurtful. That name was repeated, and believe it or not, in the class yearbook. Someone on the editing staff decided to do a cartoon drawing of me — crew cut, jeans, saddle oxfords and pushing the "slop wagon" — and a full page of me was in the yearbook. Fifty years later, that picture of me is in my office at my business, and now I think it's funny but didn't then! My feelings were that I was thrilled to have a free lunch that I worked for — yes, worked for; it wasn't handed to me.

If you are hungry and have no funds, free lunch is good. At a recent class reunion in my hometown of East Peoria, Ill., I learned that 50% of the students were at or below the poverty level. That shocked me but made me aware that many need and deserve a free lunch. But those who don't, don't necessarily need a handout.

Lee Waldon, Buffalo, Minn.

Harmon Killebrew playing out his career in Kansas City; Brett Favre coming back for the Vikings in 2010; Walter Mondale valiantly trying to step in at the 11th hour for our beloved Paul Wellstone in the 2002 Senate race. I feel like one of those guys. I have outlived my effectiveness.

After COVID and distance learning, I knew I needed a break from teaching. I took a one-year leave for the 2021-22 school year. Little did I know that I would be returning to a whole new world this fall. I had no idea that I would return to a world where collaborating teachers were simply using the distance-learning-inspired, online COVID curriculum with little traditional interactive teaching.

I returned to a world where students preferred to be left alone on their electronic devices, who just wanted to know what they needed to do to pass the class, who showed very little interest in really learning, who had lost so many social skills, who largely were not at all interested in engaging with their teachers and demonstrated little respect to staff — and who knew there was no need to use class time for schoolwork since there were no real deadlines and they would be afforded multiple opportunities to do the work later. I returned to a world where admin had decided that the best way to cater to the needs of the most disruptive, COVID-affected students was to lower the expectations of all and to question teachers who expected more. To a world where colleagues accepted students' word over mine in situations where students blatantly defied my attempt to teach, and where they swore at me and said I was "disrespecting" them when I asked them to put away their phones and get to work. To a climate where phone calls home to families and referrals to the administration were discouraged and mocked and where disruptive student behavior has led to the removal of bathroom doors (due to student substance use), to the closure of the a la carte lunch option (due to theft), and to hallways where the F-word and other choice language has become the norm.

I returned to a world where my 25-plus-years of teaching is not only not appreciated but is actually looked at as irrelevant and as a detriment to what education is today.

A still relatively young and prematurely retired teacher,

Nathan Kreie, St. Louis Park

I was struck by the opinion piece "The great American bailout goes on and on" (Opinion Exchange, Dec. 19) and in particular college debt, which has been gradually growing as a problem for decades. Some short-term, modest, top-down relief — maybe. But let's start the process of fixing the problem from the bottom up. A couple examples: Incentivize colleges to focus less on prestige and more on affordability. Encourage financial literacy courses at high schools. How widely known are 529 college savings plans? My wife and I put very a modest amount of money into 529s when our grandkids were born. They are now just graduating from college debt-free.

I graduated from an Ivy League college and lived in southern Connecticut for many years. In church or other settings, I encountered many high school students pondering where to go to college. I encouraged them to consider good community colleges. I particularly liked one local community college. It recruited large company executives, retired or still working, to teach mini courses. The "teachers" loved doing it and so did the students who emerged with real-world perspective and not just what was in textbooks.

Austin Pryor, Plymouth

I'm writing in support of the Dec. 19 letter, "More librarians would help." The author, as an English teacher, knew of the need for high school students to learn how to find reliable information online. Not only is this skill critical for research papers, it is a skill necessary to become (among other things) a knowledgeable voter and, often, a healthy human being. Speaking as someone who has worked in libraries K-12, I can tell you that children at any age need a qualified librarian in their schools. I am amazed at districts that boast to be one of the best in the state yet cannot afford librarians.

Reading and researching are among the most important skills student learn. Teachers should not be required to carry the responsibility of teaching these things alone. Many parents do not even know whether the school their children attend have a qualified librarian.

Parents are often interested in the books their children choose. Shouldn't someone with training on how to select books be stocking these libraries?

Gayl Smith, Eden Prairie