Loading...
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)