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Readers’ Views

Bill could help attract teachers

To the Editor:

In an effort to attract more teachers to rural Minnesota’s classrooms, I am sponsoring legislation that would allow out-of-state teachers to work in Minnesota so long as they are making efforts to become licensed.

From what I’m hearing locally, the days of 150 applicants for one teaching position are long gone. One school in my district waited for over a year to hire a fifth-grade teacher. We need to figure out a way to get more people interested in teaching in Greater Minnesota, and I believe this is one way to do it.

In comparison to some neighboring states, Minnesota offers better salaries and benefits for its teachers. To entice veteran teachers to cross the border, my bill would allow educators with at least two years of teaching experience and a teaching certificate in their state to work in Minnesota for one year. After that, they would need to have their Minnesota teaching license in hand.

For whatever reason, the teaching profession is not as attractive as it once was and we need to come up with hiring alternatives that are outside-the-box. This bill would allow us to attract more quality teachers and give them time to become licensed.

State Rep. Bob Gunther

R-Fairmont

Know real, eternal love

To the Editor:

It seems to be the appropriate month to talk about love, as February is known as the month of love. Primarily because it is the month with the holiday created to promote love. Unfortunately, the love it promotes is superficial and short-lived, nothing like the true love we need which can only be found in God who gives us real and eternal love.

Yet when people are asked who they love the most, they will give a variety of answers, such as parents, spouse, children, pets, self, etc., but you would be hard-pressed to find anyone say Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

How about what love is? Again we hear typical humanistic responses such as soulmate, friend, exciting, forever, material goods, etc., which on the surface seem to sound good but only have human emotion and reason as their standard, leaving them unfulfilling and unreliable compared to the unconditional, eternal, everyday love offered by our Savior.

It is no wonder why we, as a society, are continually failing each other in matters of love. Such misguided love leads to greed, hatred, divorce, single-parent families, spousal abuse and drug use, all of which continue to rise as we look inward for the answers. Yet, even with this trend in the wrong direction, we seem content with pushing God’s word away, putting it into the background of our lives or just pulling out the parts we agree with from time to time. By treating God in this manner, we shortchange ourselves from all the blessings and comfort we could be receiving from God’s word.

Even though we continue to reject God, the creator of us and the creator of love, he never holds back his love from us. He stays consistent and perfect in his love for us, though we do not deserve it. Not only did he show us his love for us by sacrificing his one and only son to pay for our sins, but also gives us all the direction we need to know to properly love him and each other. All these answers can be found in the Bible, where God’s word, in all its perfection, is there in black and red for all to know.

We can continue to look inward (self) and perpetuate this downward trend, or we can learn how to properly love by getting back to knowing and following God’s word.

(Matthew 5 & 6, Mark 12, John 3:16-21, John 14, Romans 12 & Ephesians)

May these words rekindle the real and eternal love that is in your heart.

Anthony Scheff

Fairmont

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