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The Brussels Post, 1975-10-15, Page 15gned by %meter r 43.50. A ;rte Lowe lbs„ sold signed by 890 ee heifers ;chmecker averaging 1 Feeder he special Forty.fl ine hn Jeffer. averaging `5. Choice ,th sales to 0 to 22.00. o a high of a high of to a high :ocker and. Stockyard r 21st. 73, many in the have been via the e "Anik", purely a they ate n variants 'ulture. • JohnNintar, Director Huron Perth Roman Catholic Separate School Board: • Educational quality isn't suffering- HPRC .heeld • P The stress on education in the 1960's, and the spending of billions of dollars on our schools from a ,belief that came . "education was going to solve all the problems in the world", John Vintar, director of education for the Huron Perth Roman. CAtholic Separate Schools says. The 1968 Hall-Dermis report with its recommendations for change in the way Ontakio children were educated, revolutionary change really, "raised expectations among the educational community". Although it was never officially adopted by the provincial government, Mr. Vintar says that doesn't matter, because much of what the report suggested was implemented by the Department of Education. Mr. Vintar says the Hall- Dennis report and the subsequent changes in our schools stress "the fundamental things that everyone buys, like •' the importance of the individual person." Itt was a view, of education as being a preparation to meet experiences that formed the core and the reasons for the changes. In the 1960's education was the answer,' now a decade later, Mr Vintar says a great percentage of the province's money is being spent on health programs. "Every department seems to get a turn," he says. In the 1970's there no longer is- as much money for educational spending. John Vintar acknowledges that he doesn't know if education could solve all our problems today even if a lot more money was available. But he does have strong feelilngs about our schools and the changes in them. • "Say 120 kids graduate from high school these days. Years ago only 20 'would ever make it that far. I'd match 20 of today's graduates against the '20 who graduated several years age and today's kids would come out on top." That's how he answers the criticism that quality of education is being sacrificed, since the educational revolution. Mr. Vintar says • he doesn't think it's time the schools got "back to the basics". "We've always had the basics", he says, citing studies that show that even with all the options they face, kids today in high schools choose to take the basics. Critical Of university professors who complain that increasingly they are getting students who don't know busy to read, the director of education is critical. "Where do their facts come from? I'd like to see it researched," Mr. Vintar, who has headed the 19 school H urori Perth board since it was founded six years ago, says he thinks kids today, are more competent and have More general knowledge than earlier generations. More go on to university because they are not counselled out or forced to drop Out by financial pressurs as the majority once Were, "How do you develop teal in a society that is permissive, with no perfection in it's automated Products?" he muses, talking 4bOat\vhether or not it IS good for their charactet if kids discipline ti)ttiseives to work at subjects the y have trobible With instead of atie0Phig them, "These kids have toneY. security, they've never tetillY had a need to sacrifice.“ o *e go back to reading out 10114f to tote leitning", he wonders. Although he says with a grin what did 'latch do for your his it tethers hith that hp,13 son doesn't Want to learn rtdrith. lint he fightek the end "when you've got to learn, you learn." . • 'What about the criticism that while today's kids are sure of themSelves verbally, they don't have too much experience at writing things down? A lot of parents think they do projects instead of essays and cut coloured pictures out of magazines instead of writing book reports. , The 'director Of education said he heard recently that the Ontario Institute for Studies, in Education, the province's mecca for educational research; had turned down a PhD thesis because it consisted only of slides. Mr. Vintar; who is 46; has had recent eXperiente 'With higher education. in 1973-74 ,11e, took a leave of absence , 'without pay, from the Huron-Perth - board to complete his doctorate at OISE. He studied educational administration and his thesis is "pending". Mr. Vintar has done a lot of thinking about the differences between educating city kids and kids from small communities. he agrees that in this area things aren't so permissive and says there' is more feeling of family and community here "People are creators first hand" he says, because they are close to nature. Perhaps some , of the so called sophisticated changes in education are irrelevant here, because kids are in touch with the bastes. They have their feet on the ground and they have, especially in the, case of farm children, responsibilities. Mr. Vintar says the schools under his jurisdiction, perhaps With the exception of Stratford, haven't changed all that much. There is a time lag between When educational inovations catch on in the cities until they get to the smaller areas. Perhaps small *town childten should be aware of new trends though because more and more they will end up in'the cities,. he says, The strictly , structured authoritarian school system of a generation no more ago Was okay ,for that time but it wouldn't work these days, Mr, Vintar says. But he's careful to insist that schools rid* aren't the complete opposite of the authoritarian ones - "there -warless choice then than now but it's not a reversal.'' "I'm not convinced that the Schools should lead society," he says. They perhaps should reflect and Mirror What kiddy is, because after all, they are itshig public money. Fairly Mr,Viritar points tint that the big changes' hi classroom operation and in how subjects are taught has come in the elementary schools. The high schools still have a fairly rigid period system with each teacher speciaNing in a subject area. He feels they should look at making changes. All the • HPRCSS schools are elementary level and Mr.Vintar thinks high schools and probably the universities will have trouble with modern students as they try to adjust to the different ways of teaching: He wonders why the structure hasn't 'changed in secondary schools and.why courses continue to be narrow and specialized. He suggests• teachers Could try teaching in groups so that the students get say geography, Science and literature lessons so that they touch on the same country or period in history, complement each other, and form part of a whole. High schools could work on the house idea, with students and teachers working in teams. He says restructuring along these lines is being tried in South Porcupine, in Northern ;Ontario. Home Ec He'd like to see home ec and industrial arts courses taught to high school kids in grade 12, or near the time that they graduate from high school, "when they're closer to leaving home , so that they can take care of themselves," There are no home ec or industrial arts classes in any of the Huron Perth schools, although the subjects are taught to elementary . public school students in Huron County. The Huron Perth separate schools do have facilities f'Or children who have problems in school. Superintendent Joe Tokar handles this area, Mr. Vintar says an itinerant special education teacher helps slow learners. Students can also be withdrawn %front the regular classroom into another class where they can get extra help in areas where they need it, P erth schools have pioneered hi making speech therapy available to their students, A speech therapiSt from London works regularily With a number. of children front sabots in the two cettritieS. Mr. Vintar is frotri Timmins and lie went right to work in a garage fot a year after he finiShed high scho6l, A Mei-idly fandly doctor lectured lihri and told hint to get back to school. Ah English teacher who had really it fitieneed hint in high also persuaded him to Centilitre his Mutation, After A year, he did. "Everybody's got to school board days when the question things .:.maybe I just ministry set the curriculum for all did it sooner", he says. schools. After teachers' college in North Teacher trnstee relationships Bay he taught school for eight can be a touchy ProtOm years, was a principal for five and • especially at salary negotiation taught on the staff of the Toronto Teachers' College. Before he came to the Huron Perth office in Seaforth in 1969, he was an inspector for the Metro Toronto Separate School Board. The separate school board had just been created following the closing, of rural schools when John Vintar came here. When he first walked into the Seaforth building, he says, looking around his comfortable office, there was- only a table, no phone and no secretary. It was two weeks before he succeeded in getting a phone• installed but thingi gradually came together and he says he enjoyed the challenge of making "something out of nothing." At the beginning of the School term, the board offices moved to the former tIrsuline Convent in ' His father had a saying "What Dublin. ' you say has got to be meant". Some of Mr. Vintar's, Not an earthmover administratiVe and management . A friend told him, Mr. ,Vintar experience comes from longtime says, "Sohn, you're too open." stints with the army reserves. He But he says "I believe a spade is a first served with the Algonquin spade, and not an earthmover." Regiment in the north and then He doesn't like to think of with the Royal Regiment of education in extremes. But Canada with the rank of Major. humans, he says don't seem to His work with the reserves move in intermediate steps. On included some teaching of many issues, including education, Canadian forces personnel who we swing hard in one direction, were being sent to Cyprus. He missing the middle where the says the soldiers are merit lies and then we "get depersonalized so that they can alarmed and swing right back." destroy someone "the only way What we should do, he war can be fought." believes, is "slow up in the Not so tough now middle and have a good look." That's what " he hopes is There is a toughness in statements like that which ,‘ happening. in education new, ; contrasts with the gentleness of a rather than a backlash against man who says he likes plays and permissiveness taking the schools b literature and nature and back to the other extreme. comments that Europeans PrincipalS very much :set the emphasize people while we stress tone in each of the schools in. the machines, system.,"You could have the best He says that he's not so tough' staff on earth and a bad principal could ruin things", he says. Teachers who are strict . can operat e in the fashion that letS them be most effective. There is room for both traditional and more modern teachers in the same schools, he believes. "In society everyone'S different 'and so it's good for kids to expect that and learn to work with various types of people". Parents with complaints about their child's schooling should go continues. to the teacher first, with the John Vintar says he doesn't problem. If not satisfied, they think you can' arrive at a final should go to the teacher and the "philosophy of education". He principal, Mr. Vintar says. The hopes that education means worst thing to do , is to go straight exposing a person to things, to the top past that developing an awareness of self In fact Mr. Vintar says that he and of others and a sense 'of doesn't see parents, or teachers worth. "This can't develop in all that often, He says the isolation", he says, "we have to problem of teachers and . be part of other people and they administrators who don't live in are part of us." the town where they work can't Not Details really be resolved as long as we The director of education sees are democratic. It helps though. if the role of the elected trustees as they become aware of what's as one of policy making, but he happening in the area. It's a feels they don't have to be problem in 'the city too, where involved in small details. He Says there are so many different h neighbourhoods, he says. lie's concerned about duplication A Target involved in admhistration. of effort if trustees got too Mr. Vintar knows that school board administrators face a lot of "It Struck me coming: out of the criticistri. "A man in authority is city that people Were prepared to always a target". And he says dig in and work Much more if he's not known as a person, here , he saya* speaking about that inakeS hitt), a better tat get:, the early days of the board's . John Vintar s present salary is operation. Too many board emit/tutees 30300 and he says he hasn't had can become like royal a raise yet this year. The IIPIteSS eenutissiens, lie says, -tiOtt adds supetitttetidents, Mr.Tokar and hired Alexander Easton are that he's not se sure the board .tiewlY should even have, Standing "i th e tiiC/00 s itar " :ran e. (Continued on Page 10) tontritittees aS they do at reSent School booth now have more room to set policy Within the Ministry of Education gUidelines, he says, than they did in the local• 1141 BRUSSELS POilt i time. ere John Vintar played in i interesting role. In January 1974 Huron-Perth teachers resigned and were out of the classroom for several•days until a wage se ttlement was reached with the board, Both sides were probably a little skittish when they went into the 1976 negotiations this spring. In an unusual move for a director of eduction, John Vintar took on the job of chairing the salary negotiation meetings of board and teacher representatives. Why did he put himself in what could have been a difficult position? "It's a challenge," .he says. "I had faith we could do it if we were honest, with no manipulations under the table." anymore, he's mellowing. "You have children...." He likes to ponder and have "sympathy for humans". He wonders too if kids these days aren't more concerned with their fellow man. "They don't see that some of the tinsel that we see as happiness is worthwhile." Maybe adults are being had and 'maybe its good that kids aren't so imbued with our blind faith in progress, he Brusseis ost Want Aiig 00.013EA -15 4 i9/5 fl 1. F. •