To the Editors,
First, I want to thank you on behalf of my whole family for your publication. My parents read your newspaper and draw my attention to some items that might be of interest for me. Personally I see as most important those concerning the Kyiv Mohyla and Ostroh Academies. My dream is to enter one of them. Meanwhile, my major goal is to study at school as well as I can.
In reply the newspaper’s question “What children dislike most in adult behavior?” I would like to pose some questions myself.
There are many of them; and here are some:
— Why do only a few of the 25 pupils in our class do their homework themselves, while the rest copy it from Ready Homework, and where will this bring them?
— Why don’t we have any extracurricular activities and athletics at school?
— Why aren’t truants punished?
— Why did our father have to drive us to regional and inter-region school contests in his own car and at his own cost?
— Why, after winning six times in region and inter-region school contests, did I never receive any diploma or other insignia?
— Why did we spend two weeks getting ready for a visit of a people’s deputy to our school and had no classes during this time?
— Why are the computers they brought to our school and village council staying idle, and the adults avoid them as if they were scared of them?
— Why did they open three stores next to our school (people now call it the Bermuda Triangle) where anybody, including schoolchildren, can buy cigarettes and alcoholic beverages anytime?
— Why does a sober person feel out of place at a disco in the village House of Culture?
— Why doesn’t the village intelligentsia subscribe to newspapers and magazines, being content with a tabloid publishing television programs, and why do their disputes come to nothing more than discussing Dmitry Nagiyev’s “Okna” [Windows: a lowbrow Russian— language television show whose author seems never to have discovered how to use shampoo — Ed.]?
— Why are there no television programs for children except for “LG-Eureka” and “Living Nature”?
— Why don’t they tell much about children living abroad on television and in printed media?
— Why is there no Ukrainian language sector of the Internet or Russian language one for children (except for games)?
— Why don’t they sell quality Ukrainian-language educational CDs?
— Why do Ukraine’s people deputies speak Russian at parliamentary sessions and why are most television channels and newspapers in Russian?
— Why, although we have over 2000 residents in our village, fifty of whom have a higher education, can’t my father think of whom to pass his copy of The Day to after reading it himself?
— Why, though my father gives currant saplings to everybody who wants them for free, do they still come to steal them at night?
— Why do our fellow villagers through out their garbage onto side streets, in the river, or deserted farmsteads?
— Why don’t we have any traffk lights in our village?
— Why do the district and oblast newspapers appraise our village’s renamed collective farm, while the steppe remains fallow, farmsteads empty, and winter crops unsown? Does this mean that in other places things are even worse?
— Why do officials talk about great future crops, while it is hard to find even one plot of winter crops around our village?
— Why do they speak on television and the radio about our economy’s rate of development being the highest in Europe, while my fellow villagers wear homemade valiantsi felt boots and galoshes?
— Why did I have to pay eighteen hryvnias for a book about animals in the Ukrainian language for my little brother?
— Do I have to start dreaming about emigrating from Ukraine while still a child?
I could add many more questions. I would like to get some answers from adults holding executive positions from the bottom to the top levels.
About me: I was born simultaneously with independent Ukraine in 1991. I am in the eighth grade. My mother works as a kindergarten teacher, and my father is an agriculturist working at home, growing saplings, early-ripe vegetables, fruits, and berries. My family is very nice.
My best to all,
