DEAR EDITOR:

So Dick Yarbrough — college teachers “live in a dream world because they’ve never had to make a living in the real world.” (Dec.5)

Really? Gainesville State College isn’t part of the real world? I wasn’t really working during those years I spent teaching there? And those years teaching at Oklahoma U — I was in dreamland?

Darn, I should have been writing amusing newspaper columns. That’s real work in the real world, right Dick?

Actually, I believe your amusing columns amount to real work in the real world and enjoy reading your perspectives most of the time, including your views on education.

You’ve always supported teachers but now it turns out that college teachers are excluded from that profession. They don’t get your seal of approval. And that’s because some of us admit to being liberal.

Do I have this right? Colleges and universities aren’t part of the real world because too many professors are liberal? It follows that higher education would be more real for you if more professors were conservative. True?

No need to guess how you feel about liberals being part of the world of journalism. You’d prefer that conservatives dominated there, too, yes? So it’s:

Conservatives = real world/good world.

Liberals = dream world/bad world.

Such a tidy world, Dick.

I’m going to speculate that you didn’t mean to generalize so badly about all colleges and all college teachers. You undoubtedly acknowledge that good journalists, like good educators, refrain from making generalizations that distort reality.

That’s a real-world lesson some people might learn from one of your dream-world college teachers.

Sue MacFarland

Canton