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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2016-06-30, Page 5Other Views Honk fyou hate noise pollution One of the greatest sounds of all—and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence. – Andre Kostelanetz n 2007, a research team at Stanford University undertook a study into how we sleep. Over the next eight years, they pored over the case histories of 15,863 subjects. They incorporated data downloaded from satellites to find out how much outdoor light the subjects were exposed to on a nightly basis. For eight years they toiled – amassing, correlating and extrapolating their findings. Here is what they concluded: People living in cities don't sleep as well as people who live in the country. A conclusion to which any reader right down to and including Homer Simpson might respond, "Doh!" But of course city people don't sleep as well as country folk. In the city the night is infested with car horns, truck brakes, ambulance sirens, fire engines and drunken louts staggering loudly homeward. And light pollution – blinking neon signs and streetlights blazing through the night. The Stanford study found that urban dwellers complained more about poor sleep quality, day -time drowsiness and interrupted sleep Grades, Arthur Black patterns. "Our world has become a 24/7 society," opines Maurice Ohayon, author of the study. "We use outdoor lighting, such as streetlights, to be more active at night and to increase our safety and security. The concern is that we have reduced our exposure to darkness, and it could be affecting our sleep" Again, the only response is a massive "Doh!" Eight years crunching data to conclude that? My aged granny could have saved them a bundle. Which is not to say that sleeping beyond city limits is akin to jumping into a sensory deprivation chamber. I live in the country and while I don't have to wear a sleep mask to ward off headlights strobing across the bedroom wall or ear plugs to drown out the din of traffic, my nights are still punctuated with THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016. PAGE 5. sounds. The wind soughing through fir branches. The far-off hoot of a barred owl. The sonorous ticking of the wall clock in the hall. The skittering of my dog's claws on the floor as she dream -hunts some just -out -of -reach cottontail. Difference is, the sounds I hear are all familiar and non -threatening. There are no firetruck sirens, burglar alarms or SWAT teams checking out man -with -a -gun reports in my boondocks neighbourhood. Nothing dangerous going on out there – it's too dark for that. Mind you, it's not ideal for everyone. Not far from where I live there's a charming country inn nestled in a poplar grove at the end of a gravel road. A while back a couple from Vancouver won a free weekend at the place. They arrived Friday evening and settled in for the night. Or so it was thought. The next morning the owners of the bed and breakfast found a note thumb -tacked to their front door. It was an apology from the couple. Nothing wrong with their room – they loved it, but the entire rural bed and breakfast experience freaked them out. Everything was just "too dark and too quiet". measurables and achievables There are few things that mark my frustration with the generations that follow me than the idea that we don't need measurables. Whether it's grading, achievements or some kind of athletic competition, goals give us something to strive for. When I hear the argument that the education system fails people because it encourages them to take tests and not to pursue knowledge that interests them I say, "Of course, because that's how it's supposed to be." It wasn't until I was in my last couple of years of high school that I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in journalism. Why? Well, because I was figuring that I was going to be a video game developer or a comic book writer. Prior to that, I'm pretty sure I had my heart set on Montreal Canadien defenseman, astronaut or outer space hockey player. Children and teens don't realize the wall that they are going to hit, at some point, that forces them to realize that some career options just aren't viable for them. For example, when I was 15 and sure I was destined to make amazing video games, I failed to realize that video game development is pretty much just computer science with a more colourful user interface – that means it takes a lot of math and coding and programming knowledge that I either wasn't good at or didn't want to get good at. It's a good thing that my teachers forced me to learn things about math and science because, if I were pursuing the knowledge I wanted to pursue, I likely would've spent all my time reading J.R.R. Tolkien and hockey statistics and playing video games. As much as people bemoan the fact that there isn't a class that teaches you how to do your taxes or how much to tip or all that life stuff people are supposed to figure out, what education does, at the primary and secondary levels, is to teach kids how to learn and give them the basics so they can figure out more important things later on. Sure, I don't change the oil in my own car, but, thanks to shop class, I know how to break down a weed whacker and build it back up. If I wanted to extrapolate on those skills, I'm sure I could figure out how to fix many of the vehicular problems my family runs into. Maybe I don't know how taxes are figured oak. Denny Scott 1161111 Denny's Den out without the book, but I can tell you right now that what I learned in math class gives me everything I need to unlock the mystery that is my tax documents. Why? Because you had to learn about these things to pass the test and, as much as some people may say they can't remember it, I think they're wrong. I think they use the skills they learned every day and just chalk it up to common sense. Add on to that the fact that, without grades, you don't know whether teachers are worth their salt or not, and you see that evaluation is important. So, when I see someone saying that schools are more focused on grades than what you learn, I feel like I'm in one of those old V8 commercials where I should smack them upside the head for being so thick. Of course they are focused on grades, that's how you know if someone learns something. Unfortunately, what inspired this rant, this column, aren't the generations that followed me but those that preceeded me. As a reporter I'm privy to a lot of documents that have been prepared by so-called experts or consultants for every level of government in the area and you know what is the one thing they are missing? Some way to measure whether the document (and thus the consultant or expert) was worth the money and time put into it. Take, for example, the Food Charter prepared by the Huron Food Action Network. I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, but when North Huron Council was presented with the document, they didn't think it was worth their time to investigate it. Why? A good majority of them felt it was 'too utopian' to ever come close to actualization. However Councillor Trevor Seip was the one to point out the biggest problem I saw with the document and many others like it: what is the end goal and what are the steps towards it? How many documents do municipalities have sitting on their shelves that say, "Well, we should do better at X," but don't give instructions, measurables or achievements? I don't want to know. I don't want to know because each one of those documents represents tax dollars being spent and another consultant being given a cushy contract that requires them to have nothing but a feel -good document about how things could be better instead of the steps necessary to make things better. How is this connected to what we learn in school? Grades. Grades give you something to aim for. Ask someone who got a 90 how important their grade is and you might not get a very fulfilling answer. Ask someone who got a 69.5 in English when they needed a 70 to get into their school of choice and you will find out exactly how much that person wishes they could go back and read more and learn more so they did better. Without grades, without achievables and without measurements we have a society of people who are happy to produce a document that says how things could be when they should be producing documents that explain what steps need to be taken to make things better right now. Don't waste my tax dollars producing an infographic telling me about a living wage, show me the steps necessary to make sure every single person in Huron County makes that money and show me how municipalities can contribute to it. Don't waste time saying that people need to eat food produced closer to home. Instead, find a way to make eating closer to home more affordable and accessible. Finally, and this is to municipal and county councillors and staffs, don't waste your constituents' time by continually hiring or funding people who do nothing but produce feel -good documents to sit on shelves. Find people who are going to show you how to make the world a better place and try and follow their steps. Even if the plan fails, at least it had a goal in mind when it started. As far as I'm concerned, we could all use a little more examination in our lives to remind ourselves to strive to be better. 411. Shawn lorni;ii" Loughlin Shawn's Sense Watching some puck This week, Huron County once again proved its insatiable appetite for the one thing we can all agree on. The passion that unites us all. Hockey. Yes, in just over two days residents of Huron County purchased 1,400 tickets to see the London Knights play the Erie Otters at the Central Huron Community Complex in September, a game organized by local hockey fan Brent Scrimgeour. Selling that many tickets, regardless of price, in that short time period, is astonishing, especially in a small community like Huron County. People love their hockey in Canada and nothing is going to stand in the way of Canadians watching 12 guys chase a puck around a sheet of ice, whether it be in person or on television. Denny Scott and I had a chuckle at a comic drawn for a Canadian newspaper last week that perfectly illustrated this nation's love affair with the game of hockey. A man stands on the street, observing three front pages from three newspapers – one American, one British and one Canadian. On the American newspaper, the gun control debate rages, while in Britain, talk of the country leaving the European Union is all the buzz. Meanwhile in Canada, all we could talk about was that hockey guru Ron MacLean would be returning to our beloved Hockey Night in Canada, supplanting George Stroumboulopoulos in his rightful spot atop the hockey world. Yes, it's great to have Ron back. Few people know more about a single subject than Ron knows about hockey. I have often marvelled at the stories he comes up with. Only a historian with decades and decades of research under his belt could possibly know the things Ron knows about hockey. For us in Canada, we understand it and the country's passion for hockey is something we've grown up with, so it's nothing new. Explain it to a non -Canadian. It's impossible. There is no equivalent in the U.S. In other countries throughout the world, their passion for soccer may be comparable, but in the U.S. where so much is always on the menu – whether it's food, sports or music – there isn't one thing that completely unifies the nation like hockey does with Canada. Over the Christmas holidays, my cousin Mike and his family came to Blyth to visit from their native New Jersey. Mike is one of the few, proud American hockey fans and as we sat in a bar and watched World Junior Championship games, he was amazed that he had never heard of the tournament. The tournament that is so popular in Canada every holiday season hasn't even scratched the surface in the U.S. Meanwhile, Mike absorbed ads for the World Cup of Hockey, which will be played in Toronto later this year. He said he'd love to come back to Canada and attend a game, perhaps when the U.S. plays Canada. While I too would love to attend that game, I tried to communicate to him that neither he nor I will have ever accumulated enough money to buy tickets to such a game. There is just no way, but I praised him for being idealistic. So while I was a little surprised to hear that Huron County residents snatched up 1,400 Ontario Hockey League tickets in just over two days, I can't say I was astonished. I pounced early and ensured my fanny would be in the seats. Maybe now I'll sell the tickets – it'll get me that much closer to the Canada/U.S. game at this fall's World Cup.