For a couple of months seven years ago I was a program instructor at Close Up. I thought John Cloud’s story (“Tour of Duty,” 5/17) was pretty accurate.

I took the PI job as a dry run for being a high-school government teacher, and Close Up served my purposes well. I learned some teaching techniques that I still use, now that I am in my sixth year as a public-school social studies teacher.

It is too bad that Cloud did not meet students and teachers from diverse backgrounds, as I did, at Close Up. He should have also mentioned that PIs have several periods during the week when they can be creative. Cloud failed to mention that while all Close Up students bus through Adams Morgan, Cloud’s students from the rural West got to see Adams Morgan for themselves and make their own judgments because the PIs chose to let their students eat there on their own during their three to four hours of creative programming.

Silver Spring, Md.

via the Internet