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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-02-29, Page 14Page 2_Crossroads--Feb. 29, 1984 The This is the second column instructional emphasis was in a bi-monthly series writ- auditory, Karen was able to ten to answer your questions perform well. All concerns and concerns about your noted in these early grades son's or daughter's learning were of a grapho-motor and education. It will also (writing) nature. As Karen serve as a means of provid- progressed, the instructional ing you with necessary infor- emphasis gradually shifted mation about the changes in to the visual and the grapho- our educational system and motor mode. She began to assist you to help your child- experience more and more ren as a parent or a teacher. difficulty; she tried desper- Letters requesting further ately to cling to the oral or more specific information mode of expression. This should be mailed to "The was to no avail. The only Warning Signs", c -o Wing- areas remaining that allow - ham Advance -Times, P.O. ed her to utilize her strengths were • Music, French and talking to people. The latter activity conflicted with the goals and expectations fo the classroom. Previously ac- knowledged and accepted, her intellectual superiority was now being questioned, supressed, and even denied. Because of her inability to perform according to the ex- pectations of her grade level, she continually experienced frustration and developed an extremely negative picture of herself. She returned this negativism in kind. Like many young people in our school system, Karen has a learning weakness. Given these situations and ents came to dread the sound conditions, this learning of the telephone ringing dur- weakness became a disabil- ing the day, fearing yet ay, This This was not an over - another complaint from the night occurrence, hiit rather school about their daughter. Skipping classes, truancy, Box 390, Wingham, Ont. NOG 2W0. Such letters will be ans- wered and reprinted without signatures to protect writ- ers' identify, beginning next column. WHAT'S WRONG WITH KAREN? Karen has run away — again. The police have been notified; now, her parents can only wait, hope, worry, and blame themselves. Karen's running began about a year ago, coinsiding with increasing problems at school. During the past year, notes and phone calls from Karen's Grade Nine teach- ers have become ''a disturb- ing recurrence. Karen's par - disrespect towards teachers, fighting, incomplete home- work and assignments: all were, seemingly endless. More often than they care to remember, Karen's parents endured the humiliation and frustration of being " sum- moned to the school, listen- ing to yet another_siescri,p_._ tion of Karen's misdeeds, be- fore she would be allowed to return to her classes. Karen seemed to enjoy this atten- tion. ttention. All attempts by her parents and the school to correct her behaviour only intensified her efforts to cre- ate more problems for. everyone — including her- self. Karen is not unlike many young people within our school system today. Sadly, the report card comments made by concerned teachers as far back as Kindergarten were sign posts to Karen's eventual problems. In the primary grades, Karen was described as a bright stu- dent, eager and willing to learn, but having some diffi- culties with her printing and sentence structure. Karen's junior level report cards continued to identify written work as an area of difficulty, particularly in terms of dis- organized notes and note- books and unfinished assign- ments. Also at this time, comments of inappropriate behaviour — not paying at- tention in class and too much socializing — were becoming more frequent. In her inter- mediate grades, Karen was described as being more dis- ruptive in class and display- ing a negative attitude to- wards authority. Her notes were never up-to-date, as- signments were usually late; her ,performance on tests dropped from the high eight- ies to the low fifties. There were two notable exceptions, Music and French. Karen was very attentive, aIWays.. pre'pa tis'tnad'e.an••excellent • effort, and earned high grades -;in these subjects. A pattern is now evident. In the early grades, when the arning Signs Fred G re a succession of gradually in- creasing difficulties. The de- scriptions used in this article were taken directly from Karen's (not her real name) report cards. Over the years, her teachers recognized the symptoms but were unable to define the problem. If you, as parents, or as a child's teacher, see these "sign posts", do not hesitate to seek assistance. There are many qualified and experi- enced professionals in both school boards and this region who can help. As for Karen, she never did get the help she so des- perately needed and wanted. The police have not found her yet. 0 0 0 Fred Gore is the director of St. Jude's Special Educa- tion Private School and Learning Assissment Clinic. He is a qualified Special Education specialist and an educational therapist with 14 years' teaching experience in the field of learning dis- abilities. He is presently the president of the K -W Associ- ation for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities, Central Region representa- tive for the Ontario ACLD and host of the Rogers Cable TV program "All Children Learn Differently". Mainstream Canada ® e Tax terror Shirley Whittington /" the heriig. heights One thing I have always - liked about little sprogs is their acutely personal sense of time. They never say, "It is five forty-nine and a half." They say, "It's almost sup- pertime. Can I have some pop? „ Ask a little kid what time she goes to bed at night and she will say, "Right after Loveboat unless I have a baby sitter and then it's right ' after the rock videos." Kids are equally definite about what it is not time for. Never mind the hour and the second. A small person has an instinctive feel for when it is not time to go home or not time fora shampoo. Kids extend this practical system to weather. It is eitherr neat or yukky. In all my life I never heard a small person say, "Oh, isn't this a perfectly glorious day?" To them it's either a nice day, or not a nice day. They leave hypebole to their elders. Now I hear that our Cana- dian weather reporting sys- tem is achieving a new level of computerized sophistica- tion and this fills me with a certain apprehension. I somehow wish they'd take a hint from the kids and give us the weather in more prac- tical terms. Never mind how cold it is in Bangkok this morning. What I want to know is how cold is my steer- ing wheel going to be? Do I need to wear ski mitts or can I get by with leather gloves? How many of you know -that yeu1r me n -i -ng- newsy paper carries weather re- ports from all over the world? Did you know that yesterday it ' rained in Casa- blanca, snowed in Oslo and By W. Roger Worth Taxes, taxes, taxes. Why the national furor about unfair and heavy- handed treatment by the country's income tax depart- ment? Suddenly, normally apathetic Canadians are coming out of the woodwork to talk openly about specific experiences they've had with the people at Revenue Canada. Indeed, some of the horror stories are more akin to what life might be like with officials behind the Iron Curtain than they are about everyday happenings in a free, democratic society. Why is it that taxpayers now seem to feel threatened by the civil servants that check their tax returns, ap- parently thinking of the tax people as adversaries rather than fair-minded Canadians with a modicum of common sense? The answer lies some- where in the bowels of Revenue Canada where the top mandarins have develop- ed policies and practices that have forced many of the na- tion's 3,000 or more tax audi- tors and collectors to act the way they do. Here are a few factors that may help explain the over- bearing Revenueperson, and thus the public's distrust and fear of the tax people. Quotas: By this or any other name, quotas for tax officers 'do exist. In effect, the civil servant's uuward mobility, ands;' on the 1' iill -'add dollars. pe .trity'(or'Rao Ottawa's • revenues. This the courts, thereby proving means the.tax auditor cant that the tax collectors and possibly be fair. The money the department are indeed has to come from individuals fair and aboveboard. and businesses through higher tax assessments. The. government's Assessment officer isn't allowed .to be reasonable. Collections: The. horror stories suggest that busi- nesses are being closed down and individuals placed in bankruptcy, even though they are prepared to pay Revenue Canada over a period of time. In many in- stances, the tax collector acts more like an execution- er than a public servant. This sort of thing just doesn't make sense. Attitudes: Ottawa com- pounded its problems by re- leasing a $195,000 film per- sonifying the assessors' right-hand person as a de- spicable computer that be- lieves most Canadians are cheats and thieves. The mes- sage: 1984 has arrived and Big Brother is watching you! Civil servants: Tax asses- sors, like other civil ser- vants, were restricted to raises of six and five per cent during the recession. But to the ordinary Canadians who didn't get a raise, took a cut in pay or actually lost their jobs during that period, civil servants seem a pampered lot, particularly considering their perquisites, such as in- dexed pensions. The question, of course, is how to get the system back on track, renewing the trust that existed for so long in our voluntary reporting scheme. One answer? Force ,job, is �,;:; Revenue Canada to pay the • t'S. .legal and accounting costs died -',100110ple who win after )to fighting the department in !'�f.5ae7GUWb+.' f. ssroads Published every Wednesday by Wenger Bros. Limited as the lifestyle and entertainment section in The Listowel Banner, The Wingham Advance - Times. The Mount Forest Confederate and The Milverton Sun. Members of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. Ontario Community Newspaper Association, and the Ontario Press Council. Controlled distri- bution in Elmira. Palmerston. Harriston, Brussels. Millbank, Newton. Atwood. Clifford, Drayton, Wallenstein• Moorefield and Arthur Display and Classified advertising deadline — 5:00 p.m Thursday week prior to publication date. Advertising and Production The Listowel Banner 188 Wallace Ave. N., P.0• Box 97, Listowel, Ont. N4W 3H2 Accounting and Billing The Wingham Advance -Times Josephine St P.O. Box 390 Wingham, Ont NOG 2W0 The Listowel Banner 291-1660. The Wingham Advance -Times 3517.2320 The Mount Forest Confederate 323.1550. The Milverton Sun 595-8921 was partly cloudy in War- saw? With a general know- ledge' of world geography you might have figured that all out for yourselves, but did you know that Dakar was vocered in dust, Peking in smoke and Churchill in ice crystals? I bet you didn't even care, because what you really wanted to know was how long you should leave the puppy out for tinkles. Weather reporting wasn't always `so complicated. Re- member the TV weather girls of yesteryear? They had lots of teeth and lots of hair and when they stood in front of a map of North America their natural pro- truberances blotted out most of Upper New York and the seaboard. Still they boosted ratings, and there wasn't an occluded front in the bunch. Now, I think we've gone too far the other way. My nightly weather person wears a suit and tie and talks about kilopascals and mov- ing lows. He dosen't even toss his chalk. What I want, my dears, is less learned and more useful stuff: This is what I mean. You are in the kitchen with a fourteen -year-old person who has just eaten a plate of cold spaghetti and coke for breakfast and is now ready to plunge into the snowy February morning. He is wearing unlaced boots, his brother's baseball jacket and a Walkman headset. _ `Put_ nn_a_ hat. Lace up those boots. Wear mitts," you say. "Lighten up," says he. "You're giving me a trauma. Anyway, only coneheads wear laced -up construction boots. This is where useful wea- ther reporting comes in. Suppose you could flip the radio on and hear something like, "Listen up, cats. This is Boy George telling you to boogie down in laced -up boots today man, 'cause Jackie Frost is doing a cool thing this morning. And cover up those ears, babies, cause you can't hear the Stones if your earbones get all froze up." And the suburban air would be loud with grunts and thwackings as juvenile appendages got stuffed into mitts, hats and other warm gear. As for me, all I really want to know in the morning is this: can I bull my way through the snow in the driveway, or do I have to shovel? Oh well, I'll probably keep on shovelling even after the snow's all gone. DURING NicarLIAND and STEWART'S PAPERBACK SALE MARCH 7 TO MARCH 17 ^, Novels, biographies, poetry, collections of short stories, humour, fine art, cookbooks and books by -your favourite authors... Choose from any of these popular paperbacks. Pick three and the cheapest is tree! gAri 125 Main St. W. 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