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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-06-29, Page 5[ Arthur Black Taking the lid off a can labelled EDUCATION All who have meditated on the art of governing have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. Aristotle I question whether we can afford to teach mother macrame while Johnny still can't read. former California governor Jerry Brown There is a can before me labelled EDUCATION and I'm hesitant to take the top off. Hesitant because I know that any remarks I write about The State of Education These Days is bound to unleash a blizzard of faxes, letters, telegrams and Interdepartmental Memos denouncing me as an unlettered lout, an untutored twit and a gormless boob who doesn't know his astrophysics from a hologram in the ground. All true - but it's never stopped me before. Off with its head then: is it just me, or are teenage kids today even blanker than we were? I have no hard and fast empirical evidence for this - just the grim news I read in the papers from time to time. It bothers me to read for example, that the International Scene Canada’s performance under free trade Ever since the Free Trade Agreement was signed by the United States and Canada, we have been waiting for some type of objective report on the pros and cons of this important step in trade liberalization. Admittedly those in favour of the agreement have not changed their minds while those who were far more convinced of its negative qualities than in anything positive have continued to voice their displeasure. For those of us who tried to keep an open mind on the matter, the wait for the first reports was endless. Finally we do have one! The C.D. Howe Institute of Toronto, an organization that can not be said to be in anybody's pocket, has come out with its findings and, not surprisingly, it has both good and not so good things to say about the accord. On balance, though, the Institute finds that free trade has benefitted the country and will likely continue to place Canada in a better competitive position in those industries that are playing a leading role in our economic future. It was a just coincidence that the country went into recession at about the same time as the FTA was coming into effect. This recession, which lasted about two years and which hit the manufacturing sector particularly hard, has ended and our economy has just started to pick up steam. This recession caused the unemployment rate to climb to almost 12 per cent. Because of the labour intensive nature of the sectors of our economy which were considered to be most vulnerable to any trade liberalization, the report considers that the losses in jobs due to the agreement were West German school year works out to be a full two months longer than ours. And that Japanese and Korean kids spend all day Saturday in the classroom. Meanwhile a North American third grader will spend 900 hours this year in a classroom - and 1,170 hours watching television. Norwegian kids can locate 150 major cities on a World Map - in Grade 3. Last week I met a Canadian high school graduate who didn't know where Montreal was in relation to Toronto. An American magazine recently published a compilation of college courses including: Supervised Reading (Cornell); Surfing (Peppercorn); and Choosing a Life (Northwestern). Then there's the impressions I pick up as I travel across the country. From Comox to Kapuskasing to Come By Chance I swear I keep running into kids whose vocabulary seems to primarily consist of one adjective (rilly), one conjunction (like), one exclamatory phrase (no way) and the present tense of the verb "to go." Interteen conversations: "So like I go 'rilly'? And she goes like 'no way'. And I go, like, 'no, rilly?'..." So who's fault is it - the kids? Nah. They don't write the curriculum. The teachers? Nope. Canuck teachers are among the most intelligent and dedicated professionals I've ever met. So who then? Preston Manning? The Devil? Search me. I'd write it all off as Old By Raymond Canon greater than any jobs created in the plus sector. In short, the FTA has had a mildly negative effect on employment but this is nowhere near the claims of some labour unions as to the number of jobs lost; the same unions are uniformly against any trade liberalization and tend to be biased in any of their findings. One of the more interesting findings is that, due to the FTA, those Canadian exporters that gained a freer access to the American market have overall seen their sales increase rather remarkably in comparison to those Canadian products that are competing in other markets. In addition, the composition of the exports that have increased under the FTA consists of the higher value-added sectors of the Canadian economy such as processed natural resources, high technology industries and the business services sector. Wages in those sectors also increased considerably more than in those sectors which have been hurt by free trade. A few figures are in order. Looking at the types of goods which have been liberalized by the FTA, only one, fish, shows any decline in exports to the U.S. Given the shortages that exist, both on the East Coast and in the Great Lakes, this should come as no surprise. Paper, excluding newsprint, shows a 96 per cent jump, office, telecommunication and precision equipment rose 85 per cent, chemical products are up 64 per cent while meat and dairy products climbed by 64 per cent. One notable increase is in the field of textiles which went up a dramatic 92 per cent. Since this was considered to be one of the weaker industries under the FTA, it was fully expected that this sector would show a decrease. Instead the above increase was noted. It certainly demonstrates that industries can carry out an effective rationalization Fogey paranoia except that every once in a while somebody from the other side of the crenelated battlements of Castle Pedagogica lobs a bomb over the wall to land at my feet. Such as this missive entitled History of a Math Problem, which tracks the progress of modem thinking in Education: 1960 A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. If his cost of production is 4/5 of his selling price, what is his profit? 1970 A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of his selling price, or, in other words, $80. What is his profit? 1980 A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment is to find and underline the number 20. 1990 By cutting down trees for MacMillan-Bloedel, a logger makes $20. If clear cutting is stopped the logger will lose his job and will probably turn to a life of crime. - How do the squirrels feel about the logger losing his job? - Would you help the logger keep his job by letting him cut down the trees on your lawn? Your neighbour's lawns? - What do the birds say as a tree is being cut down? The foregoing came to me on official (I won't say which) Board of Education letterhead. Depressing? Not a bit. If teachers can make fun of the absurdities of modem education, then there's hope for us yet. program if they put their mind to it. Given the importance of the automobile industry to this province, a quick look in its direction is in order. In 1988, the last year before the signing of the FTA, Canada showed a net balance of $6.5 billion with the U.S. In four years this had jumped to almost twice that. In both cases this surplus was more than enough to offset the importation of cars, trucks and spare parts from other countries so that Canada ended up with an overall surplus of $1.1 billion in 1988 and $4.3 billion in 1992. I would be remiss if I did not point out that there are other problems besides the loss of jobs which can be associated with the FTA. We need look no further than the Heinz plant in Leamington whose products come under the trade agreement. Unless the workers took a de facto drop in pay, management was prepared to move a considerable amount of the current production to the United States with the resulting loss of hundreds of jobs. The town could ill afford to suffer such a loss given that Heinz is by far the largest industry located there. To the union's credit it recognized a fait accompli when it saw one and an agreement was reached which will save the jobs. Admittedly there will be the resulting drop in pay mentioned above but it should be pointed out that Heinz is not the only one whose workers are taking a drop; it is, to date, one of the most notable. This is, however, all part of the restructuring that has and is still taking place. While some of the manufacturing sector has found itself among the losers, many of the industries that have benefitted are those that are crucial to our economic future. Free trade has given them the impetus for growth that could not be provided in any other way. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1994. PAGE 5. By Bonnie Gropp Empower the good guys Last week they buried a 25-year-old police officer. Twenty-five years old. That's just three years older than my son. That's not much younger than my two nephews, both of whom are cops, and about the same age as one of their wives, who is also a cop. Needless to say, I don't like to hear about police officers dying on the job. My outrage and my sadness are only due in part to this, rather the hurt is there because a young life was snuffed out so senselessly. That he was a cop who was shot while on routine foot patrol simply magnifies the feeling of shock, because his death should never happen here. Police officers are the ones charged with protecting us, the ones who have chosen to put themselves into situations that could endanger their lives. Most would say, however, that this is not a particularly hard job in Canada. We take a certain pride in the fact that our streets are nothing like the streets of fire in the country to the south of us. While drive-by shootings and random acts of violence are commonplace in America, we like to think that's not the way it is here. Unfortunately, this may not be the case anymore. One of the police officers interviewed following the shooting of Todd Baylis said that while a cop used to find himself facing a dangerous situation once in a while, it is becoming a day-to-day occurrence. What's happening? Is it the breakdown of the family and society? Is it really fair of us to burden already guilt-ridden parents with the blame? Others look on unemployment and a sagging economy as the reason for the increasing crime, while others feel that things haven't changed, the media has simply made us more aware. For whatever reason, there is a growing sense of distress among normal citizens, troubled by what they are seeing and hearing. I think we would all agree that violence is nothing new, humans have had a nasty tendency from the beginning of time to inflict pain and suffering on their own. But it is perhaps the perversity of the recent crime wave that disgusts and terrifies us. No one is immune, there is no sense of respect, nor decency. Law abiding people are under seige. There is nowhere to feel safe anymore, either. From the elderly woman, who was recently bludgeoned to death in her urban home to the tragedy of a small town girl gunned down by her ex-boyfriend, violence is indiscriminate. Law enforcement officers used to be almost immune. The penalty for cop killers was once pretty stiff and I remember growing up with the idea that anyone who killed a cop had to be pretty stupid. However, while police officers may use their guns only in special circumstances, they are the ones who must walk amongst the dregs of society, the most likely targets for those with no compunctions, no shame and no fear because they know payback isn't an eye for an eye, anymore. I never agreed with a killer getting jail while a cop killer was terminated; I never felt a cop's life was worth more than anyone else's. But if the bleeding hearts can't bring themselves to find fitting justice for murderers, then at the very least they need to empower those prepared to bring these creeps to justice. Someone should have the upper hand and it had better be the good guys.