HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-04-15, Page 5A Final Thought
Follow your bliss, and what look like
walls will turn into doors. —Joseph
Campbell
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1998. PAGE 5.
Arthur Black
O Canada
any place
you'd rather be?
Canada's bird ought to be the grouse.
Anonymous
Old Anon was on to something there. Has
there ever been a nation on the face of the
earth that did more complaining?
We grouse about the GST. We moan about
the fate of Canadian hockey. We yammer
and mewl about Ottawa, potholes, the Banks,
big cities, the cost of living, the seal hunt,
too many immigrants, not enough
immigrants.
We fill the pages of our newspapers with
letters to the editor about the price at the gas
pump, the lineups at the hospital, crummy
television from the US and the plight of the
beluga.
And of course there's the weather. Every
Canadian worth his Stanfield trap-door long
johns can deliver a 20-minute peroration on
the lousy Canadian weather.
Without notes.
Spring is 'way too late. The summer is 'way
too hot. The autumn is 'way too short.
That brings us around to the Canadian
winter, which needs no introduction.
Canadian winters are ... challenging. The
rest of the world doesn't call us "frostbacks"
for nothing.
No question about it: Canada is just Too
Imperfect to support life and foster
happiness.
School reforms
in the air
School systems do not operate in a
vacuum, although one might be excused for
wondering if that could be used to describe
the current situation in Ontario lately. I don't
think the provincial government really
knows, and I doubt whether the teachers do
either, in spite of the illegal strike to which
they resorted last fall.
There are too many inconsistencies for me
to think otherwise at this point.
We should, however, be aware that a great
debate on education is taking place elsewhere
in the English-speaking world. The
Americans are experimenting with greater
numbers of privately-run schools, in spite of
opposition from the teachers' unions. The
British are carrying out wholesale changes in
that they are throwing out just about
everything that has been considered as
hallowed during the last quarter of a century.
In so doing, they appear to be re-inventing
the more traditional system which prevailed
before the progressives took over in the
1960s.
Here are some of the latest changes in the
British system: streaming, tests, mental
arithmetic, phonics, spelling, grammar,
competition, rewards and sanctions.
It does not take too long before one
realizes that this is remarkably like the
system that my generation experienced and
So I put it to you: where in the world
would you move to be happy?
At first glance, the answer seems obvious.
Somewhere with lots of sunshine and
perpetual blue skies. A place where no one
understands the concept of umbrellas,
earmuffs, block heaters or thermal
underwear.
A lot of winter-weary Canucks do go that
route — at least for short breaks. The beaches
of Florida and the Caribbean, not to mention
Hawaii and southern California, are speckled
each winter with the fishbelly-white bodies
of Canadians looking for a little natural
Vitamin D.
There are trailer parks and beach villas in
Texas, Arizona and other southern U.S.
states that, come December, fly more
Canadian flags than even Don Cherry could
stand.
But those are tourists, not citizens. Most of
those "snowbirds" fly back north with the
geese each spring.
So I put the question again: where on earth
would a person move to have the best chance
of happiness?
You're not going to believe the answer.
Iceland.
.1 am not suffering from cabin fever and I
haven't been into Grandma's blackberry
cordial. Ruut Veenhoven, a Dutch
psychologist, wondered where the happiest
people on earth call home. Veenhoven
analyzed longevity figures from almost every
nation. Then the professor initiated follow-up
public opinion polls that delved into quality
of life.
By Raymond Canon
which was subsequently thrown out as being
inadequate. Was it, I wondered, just another
case of throwing out the baby with the bath
water.
The Blair government in Britain has
criticized, among other things, lessons where
self-expression is more important than
acquiring specific skills and knowledge,
where teachers try to help students working
on individual projects and where constant
effort is made to build a child's self-esteem.
If Mr. Blair has his way, and he usually
does, students will be required to spend an
hour on math each day. Even the structure of
such lessons is being laid down.
Furthermore, another hour in the day must
be devoted to literacy where students actually
learn to read and write. I can only say
"hallelujah" to this since my years at the
post-secondary level have been filled with
students for whom the word "functionally
illiterate" takes on added importance.
However, much as it seems that the British
are going back a considerable degree to the
traditional method of teaching, I would not
like to think that the current system is being
totally rejected. Surely there are aspects of
what has come to be called the "progressive"
way of teaching that should be kept in the
system.
Regardless of the system that is in vogue,
teachers should be able to instill self-esteem
into the students without being obsessed with
it, Part of growing up is the development of
self-esteem and this is something that has to
be taught at home, and at work, as well as in
the school system.
The findings were subsequently
extrapolated to calculate how many years of
happiness an average citizen could expect.
Some of the findings are not eyebrow-
lifting. The citizens of What's Left of Russia
can expect only 34.5 years of relative bliss.
Americans came in with 57.8 years.
Switzerland took third place with an
average happiness expectancy quotient of
59.8 years, and contrary to it's sour
reputation, frigid, gloomy old Sweden
emerged as the second most blissful nation a
body could call home. According to
Veenhoven, Swedes can expect, on average,
to experience 60.5 years of good times.
Iceland, as I said, was first with an average
of 62 happy years per lifetime.
Aha, you say, but where does Canada rate
in the Delirium Sweepstakes? Good question.
Professor Veenhoven didn't produce any
statistics for Canada.
Perhaps the Dutch psychologist
unconsciously assumed that Canada is just an
extension of upper New York state.
I prefer an alternate explanation. I like to
think that Canada is so far ahead in the
happiness category that Professor Veenhoven
deliberately left us out so as not to skew the
results and make all other countries
hopelessly jealous.
After all, the United Nations declared
Canada the best place to live in the world
three years in a row.
We must be doing something right.
I wish someone would tell Professor
Veenhoven,
And then I wish they'd tell Quebec.
Last year I commented on the results of the
Third International Maths and Science Study
which saw Canada in the middle of the pack
in both subjects. Although Oriental students
such as the Japanese, Taiwanese and Koreans
fared much better than the Canadians and the
Americans, too, for that matter,
educationalists in the Far East believe that
their students are not developing the power
of creativity that seems to be the norm in our
schools. We must be doing something right
in spite of the mediocre results in those two
subjects.
I also commented on the studies in Europe
that showed students with a greater emphasis
on the arts such as drama and music were
able to reach higher levels of achievement
than those without any or just a minimum.
With this in mind, it does not seem feasible
to cut the arts subjects to the bone in order to
concentrate on core subjects.
In short, each system has something of
value to retain and I would hate to think that
the moves in Britain or anywhere else for
that matter would be nothing more than the
pendulum swinging all the way back in the
other direction. In spite of all the verbal
tarring and feathering going on, perhaps we
can derive an education system for our young
people that is in tune with the times.
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
A new day dawns
Its brilliant fire ignites the landscape
behind which it had once hidden, a blaze of
orange exploding above the horizon, an
illumination of a new beginning, a promise
of something special.
A sunrise is undoubtedly an inspirational
way to begin a day. The appropriateness of
a sunrise church service brought many to a
gravel lot in the early hours of Easter
morning. However, the pure spiritualness of
the experience need not be contained within
formal religion. The sunrise I described I
watched early Monday morning enroute
from Wingham.
As I, undeniably not a morning person,
marvelled at this wonder, acknowledging its
omnipotent splendour, my awakening was
shadowed somewhat by the reality of our
insignificance in this big picture. It was a
whisper of vulnerability that attempted to
obscure the shout of my newly uplifted
spirit.
The feeling began as I thought back to my
Easter and I was reminded of a comment I
had made that day. Glorious weather and
family gathered together, the hands of the
clock, rather than taking their typical frenetic
spin around the dial seemed to move more
slowly, creating a day of perfection. It was, I
noted, one of those good feeling memories
to store away, a cherished memento to pull
out when needed.
Then a phone call — and a family friend
telling us of the death of a 21-year-old boy
we had known. An aneurysm had, in a split
second, changed the lives of those who
loved him forever. Such sadness on a
wonderful day left us pondering how unkind
life can be.
Then later that day, and closer to home a
youth was tragically taken, as the result-of an
accident. A brief instant out of time again
and another family grieving.
How quickly a day that began with a
sunrise full of promise can be altered.
As I watched the splendour dawning
around me on Monday this thought came
back to me and for an instant I felt a little
less carefree. For that instant I wondered
what this day beginning with such colourful
intensity might hold in store for me, for
those I love, for those we know. There are so
many wondrous things welcoming us day in
and day out that acknowledging the start of
each one as a gift and a celebration is easy.
What is more difficult to face is the
uncertainty following each new dawning.
And so it makes sense that we do not do
more than pause over the unknown. Life can
be unquestionably sad. It can be difficult. It
can be unfair. But, for all its perils, its
sadness, its injustices and senseless
tragedies, life brings riches, magic and
miracles, too.
There will be those for whom today will
be the ultimate trial. We don't know what
life has in store. We just know we can't wait
and wonder.
And so we greet each day with a certain
optimism. We try not to dwell on what may
be, but rather on what is and has been. We
continue to build lasting memories in the
hope that they can sustain us when the day
that began with a blaze of promise takes
only an instant tofigken. ,
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