Portland State Magazine Winter 2017

WINTER 2017 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 3 Portland State Magazine wants to hear from you. Email your comments to psumag@pdx.edu or send them to Portland State Magazine , Office of University Communications, PO Box 751, Portland OR 97207-0751. We reserve the right to edit for space and clarity. Deinum’s influence lasts a lifetime I was interested in seeing Andries Dei- num’s name in the short article about a film student’s plan to document a refugee family in the fall 2016 issue of Portland State Magazine . I was one of hundreds of students who took his film classes during the school year 1968-69. Dr. Deinum was one of my heroes. I remember many of his comments (like making light of the movie Sound of Music by calling it “The Sound of Money”). I use this phrase and many others to this day when discussing the power of the moving image. After taking every film class Portland State offered, including classes with Tom Taylor, I went on to receive a master’s degree in film education from Columbia College in Chicago in 1972. I began teaching Film Study, Film- making and Mass Media at a high school in Illinois for 10 years during the 1970s until the district dropped the film classes because they thought film study was “frivolous” and students needed to learn about the “important serious” subjects such as English and math. However, I soon became involved in adult education classes and continued my “Deinum” (and Columbia College’s) approach to leading discussion about the art of film. I retired from full-time teaching but have stuck with adult education. For the past 12 years I’ve been teaching a class I call Passion for Film. Many of Andries Deinum’s ideas about the art of film discussion became part of a book I co-authored, Understanding the Film , with five editions published between 1975 and 1995. Now that I’m retired and have more time, I’ve gotten back into film pro- duction in a local community college film production program. But instead of working with physical film on a Moviola as I did at Columbia College, I’m now working with digital images on a computer. I just completed my first short film, Uncle Ken , which can be viewed on Vimeo. Ron Johnson ’69 Defending English language classes I just finished reading the article “Culture Challenge” [Fall 2016 Portland State Magazine ]. I am an ELD [English language development] teacher, and I take issue with this statement: “English as second language classes aren’t always best for Korean students even if they’re not yet fluent.” Please tell me what you are bas- ing this rather extreme opinion on? Can you cite some research for me? You seem to be equating SPED [special education] classes with ELD classes (which is what they are called in Oregon). If a student doesn’t know English, and if their parents are not going to pay for private tutors, the only way a student is going to get instructed in learning the English language is through dedicated English language learning classes. In Ore- gon, ELD teachers have an extra teaching credential for teaching ESL [English as a second language] and are highly qualified teachers. I think it was irresponsible of you to imply otherwise. Maureen Ray EdD ’15 Milwaukie, Oregon Letters Andries Deinum, from the 1969 Viking yearbook. It’s the easiest way to maintain a connection to Portland State University and our community of over 170,000 alumni worldwide. Membership is free! Just sign up online at pdx.edu/alumni/join-now to unlock a host of benefits and services. Become a member of the PSU Alumni Association