HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1981-04-01, Page 4PAGE 4--GODEPT('H SIGNAL -STAR, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1,1 1
dave
sykes
r a,•
BLUE
RIBBON
AWARD
1979
Second class
moil registration
number -0716
The dramatic ' shooting of President
Ronald Reagan and three other people in
Washington Monday brings a sudden
realism to the violent and fragile nature of
society.
People are shot every day, over 250,000 a
year in the United States, but the despicable
deeds aren't, given the publicity until a
national leader or .celebrity is killed or at
least, shot at.
The fact that almost half of the 16.
presidents in this century have been shot at
or killed, offers a sad and gloomy com-
mentary on life south of the border.
Assassination is something' probably every
American President must live with, the
threat hanging heavy with each public
appearance. •
The Washington street scene could have
been Ottawa just a few weeks ago. Several -
threats were made on the President's life
when he visited Prime Minister Trudeau.
But somehow Canadians don't quite view
themselves in the same violent mold and a
shooting in Ottawa would have crushed our
beliefs like the Russians denting our hockey
ego almost 10years ago.
We don't think of ourselves as a nation
prone to violence and most Canadians aren't
politically motivated to the point of
assassination.
But the whole tragic incident brought
sickening reminders of a November day in
Dallas almost 18 years ago when President
John Kennedy was gunned down in a
motorcade. Half an hour later the youngest
president of the United States was dead and
the world mourned.
As a sixth grader at the time, I sensed a
great loss paid a general feeling of despair.
The senselessnes of the act draws society
into a serious, self-evaluation session that
leads nowhere.
Talk of gun controls will surface after
each and every shooting and then bedeftto
die in the verbal stages. Ironically, -Reagan
himself was not partial to the imposition off
gun controls claiming it was the person
behindthegun that was to blame and not the
accessibility of the weapon.
There is .truth to that but perhaps stricter
laws would take guns out of the hands of
many potential killers.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the
shooting was the swift. action of secret
service agents. Six shots were fired in two
seconds and in that time Reagan was
hustled into the back of the limousine and
the alleged gunman was buried under a pile
of bodies. The reaction was incredible and
undoubtedly saved others from being shot.
It is sad to note that in someo areas the
shooting was 'only newsworthy because of
the prominence of the target, President
Reagan. A news correspondent pointed that
Reagan's shooting was sandwiched between
stories of other gun -related deaths in the
New York news. Only the fact that it in-
volved the president put it at the top of the
list.
In Moscow, veteran newscaster Walter
Cronkite reported that communists will
undoubtedly be looking at him with eyes
questioningquestioning
thebenefits of a free and
democratic society. A society that is
heralded as the champion of human rights.
It would be impossible to convince anyone
that our ideals are worth pursuing with -
fervor or defending when respected leaders
are prune targets for demented gunmen or
politically -motivated activists.
And like that Friday in November of 1963,
or the day in 1968 when Robert Kennedy was
senselessly gunned down near a hotel kit-
chen, people are left with a helpless,
sickeningfeeling and the realization that it
will likely happen again.
Our world is not immune and violence
doesn't disappear under a cloud of security.
9
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at's in the future
College' and University graduates now have to be
seriously wondering if their future holds any.profiise of a
job in Ontario or even Canada.
A report released by Statistics Canada suggests that the.
job market for graduates is bleak. Many graduates are
accepting jobs -for which they are over qualified, many
end up workin unrelated fields, some wish they had
gone into a different course of study and still others return
to school.
What the 509 -page Stats Canada report boils down to is •
that .there may not be any relation to education and the job
market. Graduates are working in fields not related to
their studies and are over qualified for jobs they accept.
On the average, about 50 per cent of the graduates were
able to find work directly relatedtotheir studies. At least
25 per cent discovered, once placed in the job market, that.
they should have taken different courses.
The statistics do point to the fact that sufficient num-
bers of graduates were dissatisfied with their jobs. Others
simply couldn't find jobs in their field and settled on
something else.
Another major finding of the report indicated that men
earn as much as $2,000 more than women for the same
work. And the average salary for a university graduate in
June, 1978 was $15,200, compared to $12,300 for community
college graduates.
Many fields such as'engineering, business and the
computer science field offer great opportunities. But
students with diplomas. and degrees in arts and sciences
and the humanities often have difficulty finding work and
often earn less when they do.
Community colleges offer more job -oriented programs
and while college graduates, have a better record of
employment following graduation, they are often' in lower
paying jobs.
University students with the best ' employment
prospects are doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists,
teachers . and computer scientists. Community college
. graduates with " the best placement record were
technologists, technicians, purses and computer
operators. .
Community colleges, to a great degree, have organized
programs to suit the job market. If courses have limited
potential in the job market, registration should be limited.
More and more, education will have to.look after the
. needs of the job market in the province and across the
• cuiu►try.
Students should simply be dissuaded from a particular
course if the job prospect is slim. Part of that decision
rests with the student as well.
Many Ontario students` are leaving the province for
lucrative job opportunities in the West. The province is
losing some good young people but they can't be blamed
for seeking security ata higher rate of pay.
Education and business and industry will have to
communicate, especially now with high unemployment
rates. Education will have to reflect definite needs in the
job market.
Unemployment is still unemployment whether the
person has grade six education or a university degree.
D.S.
Lionskeep interest going
The 32nd rendition of the Lions Club Young Canada
Week peewee hockey tournament is now history,
signalling the end of another hockey season.
Throughout the eight-day tournament the Lions Club
and the town of Goderich played host to more than 1,300
peewee hockey players from the 62 participating teams in
five divisions. Considering the number of parents and fans
also attending during the week, the total number of
visitors increases dramatically.
The Lions Club puts a great deal of effort into ttue
tournament and planning is a year-round exercise,
culminating in long days of labour during the tournament.
Only a solid team effort can ensure a smooth operation
in a project of such magnitude.
Over the past several years the Lions have adopted a
standard tournament format, featuring 62 teams in the
400
APRIL FOO-OOLS! Did you wake up to
that greeting this morning?
In case you oldie moldies have forgotten
how to be a kid and left behind all those nifty
April Fool's tricks with your childhood, here
is a handy -dandy guide to frazzling your
loved ones' and working buddies' nerves on
this wonderful day.
There is a whole raft of morning -time
jokes you can play on family members. Big
favorites are the old replacing -stuff -With -
other -stuff tricks. These include replacing
the salt with the sugar and vice verca,
replacing the apple juice with vinegar, and
putting whip cream in the shaving cream
dispenser.
I always got a large laugh out of stret-
ching saran wrap over the toilet bowl when 1
was a youngster.
Of course, there are the old stand-bys,
such as stuffing kleenex in the toes of shoes,
and announcing that there is a foot of snow
outside. . — .
five divisions. The fact that most teams are willing to
return year after year offers complimentary evidence to
the highprofile maintained by the tournament.
But the Lions realize that complacency will detract
from the event. New teams have to be found to retain the
excitement and vitality of the tournament and keep fan
interest at a peak.
This year such entries as St. Foy, Quebec, a Nova Scotia
team and perennial favorites, St. Lambert, spark new
interest and definitely attract fans to the arena.
It is undoubtedly a difficult and tedious chore to hunt
down new entries and find billets for a team that travels a
great distance and stays for most of the week.
But it is that kind of effort that will keep Young Candada
Week at the top of the tournament List for another 32
years. D.S.
i hope the little boys haven't forgotten to
stock up on impressive rubber copies of
snakes, mice, and spiders. These are always
good for about two screams from a sleepy
mother.
Did you remember to stick a 'Kick Me'
sign on the back of dad's suit jacket before
he went to work? Well, I certainly hope so.
Telephone jokes are often fun. I love
phoning a friend and•pretending I'm from a
radio station, telling them if they can
identify the last song played they can win a
trip to California and $10,000.
A quick poll of newsroom cohorts revealed
several schoolday April Fool's jokes, Most
of them were fairly unimaginative, such as
tacks on chairs, telling the teacher she had a
run in her stocking, waiting for the teacher
to bend over then ripping a piece of
material, and hiding the chalk and brushes.
1 was very impressed when I heard about
the falling -out -the -window prank. This in -
:volved a collaboration of three people: One
A
Soggy spring
By Cath Wooden
DEAR READERS
BY SHIRLEY J. KELLER
With any luck at all, this comment 'on the
debate eoncerning capital punishment in the
schools of Ontario, will get in under the wire.
The Huron County Board of Education wants
some thoughts from the public on this question
before its next regular board meeting which is
scheduled for April 6.
The board has put out feelers to obtain YOUR
opinions, but as is usuallythe case, the mothers
and fathers of Huron County have hung back.
Hardly anyone wants to .get involved until
things get to the "big issue" stage. And then it's
.great fun to stomp around in a fit of righteous
anger, deploring the board's lack of un-
derstanding and its members' inability to
communicate with the people of the county.
I'm willing to wager that no matter what the
school board of Huron County decides to do in
this instance, •there will be parents up in arms
about it. It may not be until some future date
when their own sons or daughters ere caught in
the middle of some nasty little incident at the
school, but itis bound to come.
And when it does happen, who can blame the
board members who say as one board member
did not too long ago, "Thanks for your opinion
folks, but we make thdecisions around here."
+++
As a parent and a former school teacher, I
think capital punishment should very definitely.
remain in the schools.
There is one good reason for this as far as I'm
concerned. It is that children - even the pam-
would sit on the windowsill of an upper
storey classroom window. -
After he made sure the teacher noticed
him there, he quickly ran downstairs and
draped himself over a fence directly under
the window. At this point, a girl screamed on
que whereupon everyone ran to the window
and look down.
The teacher fainted.
I also heard about the old stealing-the-
clothes-while-gym-class-was-in-progress-
trick.
tealing-the-
clothes-while-gym-class-was-in-progresstrick. Very impressive.
Ah, yes. There's no better Way to herald
the arrival of spring than with a few good
jokes. After all, spring itself is the biggest
joke player of t4em all.
April is the time of year when the weather
always has the upper hand. You can go to
work first thing in the morning that hap-
pened to dawn beautiful, sunny, and warm.
By lunchtime, it may be pouring rain and
windy and you are stuck with the car win-
dows rolled down. or without an umbrella.
pered disciplined darlings from your very own
home - can be so troublesome to a teacher that
capital punishment is the only thing that finally
controls the kids' naughty natures and saves the
teacher's sa nity.
I happen to believe that a swift swat fairly
administered by a conscientious teacher is as
valuable in education as the three Rs.
Oh I know. Everyone can cite incidents where
a teacher got out of control and became a
terrible tyrant.
I had a teacher like that one time. This teacher
thought girls should be tolerated because they
were necessary in the production of more boys,
and he thought boys should be toughened down
like battle -ready soldiers for every eventuality of
life.
This particular teacher carried a sturdy meter
stick with him at all times. He loved to wield it
like the extension of his arm, bringing to at-
tention this young man who was slouching past
him in the hallway or intimidating that shy,
frightened, little girl as she crept by his
classroom door at lunch hour.
There were always students claiming
atrocities of one sort or another because of this •
one teacher.
But never to my knowledge did anyone, get
hurt. All that was damaged seemed to be a few
egos. Maybe the occasional weak spirit was
goaded into surprising fits of self -assertiveness.
---in fact, as I look back now on that teacher and
his meter stick, I think that combination taught
me more about dealing with the real world
outside my sheltered existence than any other
facet of school life.
When I taught school, I didn't use the strap one
single time. I found other suitable methods of
Regardless of Mother Nature's pranks
and the smell of dead worms and uncovered
dog poo. I love April with a passion. It
means that summer is coming. It means
that lawn mowers and motorcycle sounds
will replace snowmobile sounds in the
middle of the night and early in the morning.
It means waking up to the sound of the
eerie foghorn, which everybody has to admit
to loving.
If you're a kid, April means getting your
boots stuck in the mud on the way home
from school. In desperation, you abandon
them and run the rest of the way in your
socks.
April means waking up at dawn with an
incredible amount of energy that spire as
heck wasn't there in February. You get
irresistable urges to got for long walks with
,the old dog and a stick on Sunday afternoon,
and to sweep out the garage.
All in all, from start to finish, April is a
good laugh.
keeping order. Sometimes. When I was lucky.
To be perfectly truthful, I don't really know
whether there was a strap in the classroom.
But then, I was only 17 years old when I was
teaching the full span of grades in a country
schoolhouse. I had to be mighty innovative to
keep ahead of my crew .of students and some
days, I failed miserably. To haul out a strap after
such an exhausting session would have been
futile. I wouldn't have had the strength to lift it
and lower it.
° The net result in my classroom was a less than
adequate education experience for my poor
pupils. I suspect those kids would have learned
much more from an intense regime such as my
meter stick waving friend would have evoked.
And finally, as a mother I know that in some
instances the only message a child understands
quickly enough to avoid further anguish for him
and others, is momentary bit of physical pain.
Whether it is a biff with a wooden spoon, a tug
on the ear or a firm squeeze at the elbow, it
sometimes takes applied pressure to get a child's
full attention.
As long as the teachers are interested in the
children - and I assume they are - and as long as
parents want their children to learn some of
life's more important lessons along with their
geography - and I assume they do - capital
punishment has a place in Ontario schools.
If you have an opinion about this whole matter,
write to John Cochrane, Director of Education,
Huron County Board of Education, Clinton,
Ontario.
Tell him how you feel now while your opinion is
being sought. Don't wait until treatment of your
youngster is in question before you make your
ideas known.
cath
wooden