HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1973-03-21, Page 2WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1973
-Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Fditor Tom. Haley - Advertisin7
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $4.00 a year, Others
$5.00 a year, Single Copies 10 cents each.
•
Second class mail Registration No. 0562,
Telephone 887-5641.
Sugar and Spice
By Bill Smiley
This. week, some random and ram-
bling thoughts on a variety of topics.
A friend and colleague died yester-
day, and I'll miss him. He was a free
soul, beholden to none, with a mind and
a tongue that paid obeisance to,no man
and no theory. He was ill fora long time,
but fought like a demon, and never gave
an inch to encroaching death.
Since I joined this teaching staff twelve
years ago, six men teachers, all in their
forties and early fifties, have died; Five
of them were World War I i veterans.
That's a pretty high attrition rate.
There are only six W. W. II veterans
left On the staff, including one lady and
one vet of the German army, arid we're
sort of eyeing each other for signs Of
sudden deterieratiOn. Guess, we should •
Make a pool; winner (last aliv) take all.
Don't worry, I haven't a morbid bone
in my body. I've already had about thirty .
years more than a lot of my old mates,
SO life doeSn't owe Mee. thing.
Spring is more a time of birth than
of death, And did we have evidence this
week.
Saturday morning, 'I often grab the
chance to Sleep in 'for an extra hour.
Last Friday night the temperature went
soaring up to about fifty. AbOUt four a.m.,
the word got around among the black
squirrels in my attic that spring had
arrived, and they went stark, staring, raV,
ihg mad.
All winter, they'd been pretty quiet,
with only the occasional Saturday night
party complete with drunken fights,
screaming females, bawling kids and
acorns rattling around like bowling balls
On concrete.
But this week, they pulled all the Stops.
I started out- of a deep sleep, shouting
something about the yarikS invading
Canada. My Wife. WAS cowering, head
tinder the covers.
The males Were bellowing like bull
tribOte. The fen aleS were Chatting
like -well, ,females. The babies were
shouting, in unison, iqley, Ma. d'aii we
go, out? We 'don't heed a COM. We've
never Seen spring before. Wiat'S it
like?"
And all of them running and jumping
arid skiaeritig and slithering and scuttling
right overhead until it 'sounded like mid.
night at the Lumberjacks
11'
Daily
hig. Went: on Until daylight and SO:
did nit/ demands that I do
thing about it. What would you do? I
wasn't going to go up into the attic and
take them on single-handed. I was airaid
to. They sounded like Genghis Khan and
his boys warming up for the raping and
razing of a city.
There was nothing to do but batten
down the hatches and hope that some otter-
zealous little black rodent did not chew
through the ceiling and drop on my wife's
head. That. would have, as they say, torn
it.
At diWn the wild ululations subsided a
little and I peeked out the window. There
they were, gccfing about in the back yard,
stupidly digging in the SnoW for acorns,
looking particularly ratty with their coats
half shed.
The oldtitners soon realized with dis-
gust that it was not spring at all, and
returned, up the big cedar ; flying leap to
the vines, scrabble up to the hole and
back to the attic for a long snooze.
But the little ones were baffled; be-
wildered and belligerent. They ran around
in circles . They, sank to their ears in
wet snow. They ehittered indignantly.
They couldn't find anything to eat.
-.Had I not heard thern talking so often.
I'd not haVe been able to understand.. But
I had. Arid I did. I diStindtly heard one
baby buck squirrel snarling, ,,What the
hell goes on here? We*Ve been sold a
bill of goods. This 18 Spring? where
are the luscious bulbs, the green stuff,
the tender ShebtS? we,ve been had;
brothers. Let's demonstrate."
And detriMittrate they did, lOn di y
and shrilly, for the nexttweivelioursi badk
in the Attie; berating their. elders.
Can't blame thein. it must have been
tratiltatid eXt,erience, Mit ethe Wartil
womb a the attic' into the bleak reality
of a March day. Seine of them ot hope)'
will be scatted for ;psychologically.
tut I can't kick. They've•beeri fairly
quiet since, aside from.a let of mumbling
and intittetig among the young ones, eon
• winced, like all kids, that their parents
betrayed them about life.
'bang ilve run out of space, I
wanted to itientiart the two baseball
Biers have swapped nOt ,only wives
but larrillieS, present some Startling spring
poetry, and disciiss the abysmal stupidity
of the beparthielitoftdrication,buttliere'S
no ;room:
Why do .1 let Squirrels lOOM so iotd
itt tiv life?`
Knowledge and education
A vastly increased total sum of
human knowledge--not 'demonstrably
coupled with corresponding increases
in wisdom --poses a Serious problem
to educational systems.
The store of known facts is now
far beyond the capacity of any one
mind, however brilliant, to absorb.
Long gone are the days when Aris-
totle or Francis Bacon could be
thought to "know everything." Alfred
Einstein and Bertrand Russell may
have been the last two humans for
whom comprehension of the "scheme of
things entire." was even remotely
possible.
Today, therefore, children are
not expected to learn al 1 ' the facts,
as much as 1 earhi ng where to find
them!
Education now consists of trans-
lating into learning the basics and
terminology of subjects, plus know-
ledge of the mode of access to books,
tapes , films and computer memory
banks where the totality of knowledge
about them is stored.
The danger in this kind of educat-
ion, particularly at secondary and
higher levels, is too intensive a
specialization, resulting in people
widely informed in one limited branch
of knowledge, ignorant in all others.
In today's situation, schools can-
not give children an education but
only the tools by which they can get
one for themselves, the list headed
by those very s,ame. "three R's'of a
simpler age.
A less-complex school system for
a more complex age seems like a para-
dox , but i t may be the 1 ogi cal 'sol ut-
ion for an urgently-pressing problem.
This doesn't mean returning to the
one-room schoolhouse ,but would you
believe four? Or, how about a house
every six city blocks to teach the
kids in surrounding houses? (Rural
Canada could work out its own boun-
daries ) . It would certainly be one
way of overcoming the ina dequacies
of huge educational complexes that
cannot do a sensitive indi Vi dual isti c
teaching job.
(united Church of Canada)