The Citizen, 2013-08-01, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2013. PAGE 5.
Make no mistake about it. Noah
Kilpatrick is a victim of
discrimination. The 15 year-old
student at the Faith Fellowship Christian
School in Waterdown, New York has been
relentlessly bullied and denigrated, not
just by his fellow students, but by members
of the school faculty. “They told me that
[my people] were all stupid,” Kilpatrick
recalls. He says they insulted his home and
made fun of his country.
It’s a familiar story, alas. First Nations
people know the experience only too
well, as do Latinos and blacks. I grew up
in a time when Italians were routinely
referred to as wops, Frenchmen were frogs,
Chinese were chinks and the English were
limeys (or, to my Oz friends, Pommy
bastards).
But that’s not Noah Kilpatrick’s problem.
He’s not First Nations or of European
extraction. Nor does he have roots in Africa or
South America.
Noah Kilpatrick’s lineage problem is – he’s
Canadian.
For some reason, two of the teachers (one
of them is also the principal) started
ragging on Noah because he was born in
Canada.
“They’d say things like ‘Canada’s full of
communists. They club baby seals. That my
opinion doesn’t really matter because I’m a
Canadian.’”
Not to be paranoid or anything, but you
have to wonder if somebody isn’t slipping
moron pills into the Faith Fellowship School
water supply. Quite apart from the fact that this
is a ‘Christian’ school in ‘the land of the free’
persecuting a 15-year-old kid, it’s just plain,
well...out of date. The trash talking students
and faculty are seriously behind the American
learning curve.
They may snicker at Canada, but the rest of
the USA is running as fast as it can to catch up
to us.
Consider: in the past few months American
legislators have been locked in courtroom
battles to legalize gay marriage, marijuana use,
and amnesty for immigrants.
Canadians? Been there. Done that.
Gun control? Wild West insanity in the
U.S. while in Canada – no problem, eh?
We don’t go postal about our ‘right to bear
arms’.
Are we different than Americans? You
bet your Health Care card and Cowichan
sweater we are. Two researchers, Canadian
Michael Adams and American Celinda Lake,
have been studying attitudes in the two
countries for the past 20 years. They have
concluded that we are indeed drawing closer to
one another.
Ironically, the change is almost exclusively
on the U.S. side.
Americans (notwithstanding neolithic loons
like George W., Rush Limbagh and the Tea
Party) are systematically embracing more
liberal-social values every year.
Americans have seen the light. They’re
becoming more like us.
But not fast enough for the Kilpatricks.
Even though they’ve lived in Waterdown
for a decade, his mother has pulled Noah
out of school. “No 15-year-old should
have to question his self-worth at the hands of
a teacher,” she says. He’ll finish his Grade 9 at
home. After that, they’ll probably move back
to Ottawa.
Good move, folks. Seems like your slice of
America is just a little too backward to ‘get’
Canada.
Arthur
Black
Other Views The U.S.A., she is a-changin’
There had been quite a build-up to last
weekend in Blyth and its surrounding
communities. Between the tease of The
Citizen’s front page 14/19 banner ad and the
donation jars strewn around the community for
Saturday’s Kiss a Pig event, it felt like last
weekend had been coming at us for six months.
For over a month, several sets of three jars
could be found at a handful of local businesses,
asking people to donate to either Blyth BIA
Chair Rick Elliott, Blyth Festival interim
Artistic Director Peter Smith or North Huron
Reeve Neil Vincent. Any time Reporter Denny
Scott and I would get coffee, we would throw
spare change, or a bill here or there if we were
feeling generous, into one of the jars. Our
money always went to Smith.
It was exciting watching the money pile up,
or not pile up in some cases, knowing that the
person who raised the fewest dollars would be
kissing the “business” end of the pig, whereas
whoever raised the most money, would be
kissing the pig’s “north” end. The lucky stiff
who fell in the middle, who turned out to be
Elliott, had the admirable task of holding the
pig while this silliness took place.
In addition to the glory of the Kiss a Pig
fundraiser, and it was glorious, there were a
number of things to keep a smile on your face
at Streetfest, despite the less-than-ideal
weather. There were musical performances,
great booths, excellent food and plenty of
friendly faces to keep you occupied on
Saturday. It certainly was a great day for Blyth.
Sunday was an exceptionally special day for
Blyth as well, but in a completely different way
than Streetfest.
The 14/19 campaign, which we now know
refers to the years 2014 and 2019, aims to
reshape the Blyth community forever.
With the plan cloaked in secrecy since last
fall, Smith stood in front of the Blyth
Memorial Community Hall and told dozens of
people that the campaign hopes to turn Blyth
into a cultural community through renovations
to the hall, a complete reimagining of the
former Blyth Public School building and the
establishment of The Blyth Foundation
Endowment Fund.
The plan is ambitious, he admits, but he feels
that in a community as strong and as focused
as Blyth, anything is possible.
There had been rumblings about the plan for
weeks. There was, of course, the purchase of
the Blyth Public School building in September
of last year and then in November it was
announced that a group of four local
businessmen (two Elliotts and two Sparlings)
had purchased the school. After that
announcement, however, all was quiet on the
school front as those in the community
wondered what the future held for the school.
Then there would be a mention of 14/19 in
passing, but with no further details, leaving
many people to wonder what it was all about.
Well now we know and the plan is one that
could change the face of the Blyth community,
and all of Huron County.
Congratulations to all of the dedicated
members of the BBIA and business owners
and community champions who made
Streetfest a successful afternoon and to Smith
and the members of the 14/19 committee and
the corresponding service groups, such as the
Blyth Lions, the Blyth Legion and Ladies
Auxiliary and generous entrepreneurs like the
Elliotts and the Sparlings for July 28, 2013. A
day that was chosen for a specific reason, we
all hope it will be a day we will look back on
years from now and smile thinking of how it
shaped a better future for us all.
What a weekend!
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Much of what I write seems to
come from one fear in particular
about how the next generation will
be ill-equipped to face the real world.
In my mind, there is ample reason to fear for
their well-being.
They are coddled. They are driven by their
technology instead of using their technology
to accomplish another drive and they are
taught, now from a very young age, that
competition is something to be avoided at all
costs.
From the school system to sports, there is a
growing movement to treat every child as a
winner and to never, ever point out that they
need to do better if they want to be the best of
the best.
It’s scary to wonder what will happen
the first time these children get to some
kind of co-op placement, or post-secondary
education or some kind of apprenticeship
and they are flat out told that they aren’t
doing well and need to step up their
game before they find themselves out
on their rears looking for something else
to do.
A lot of people want to blame a lot of
other people when bad things happen in
the world, especially when children are
involved.
I won’t get into any specifics here, but it is
sufficient to say that I think a lot of the
troubled kids out there are troubled because
there isn’t any way to challenge themselves,
there isn’t any way to meet a goal because
they’re constantly being told, as one cartoonist
has pointed it out, that they are “unique
individual just like everyone else.”
There is no way to distance yourself from
the pack anymore because we’re taught there
is no pack.
I say that’s fundamentally wrong.
There needs to be a pack.
That pack will all do some things
sufficiently well, but each member of the
pack will also excel and it’s important to
recognize the people who do exceptionally
well, but it’s also important to recognize the
people that may need help or may need to be
challenged so they become better at what they
are doing.
That’s why I was incredibly happy when I
visited the Walton Raceway this week for its
Outdoor Sports Camp.
The program, designed for childrens aged 7
to 12, ran all week and I visited on Friday
when they were spending time on two bicycle
tracks at the site.
The children were having fun, playing a
game of capture the flag when I arrived, but
soon they found themselves on their bikes
preparing for some time trials.
I wasn’t there for the whole camp, so I’m not
sure if the archery, horseback riding,
motocross, survival skills and canoeing and
kayaking were done similarly, but each one of
these kids was being challenged to compete
and do their best.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it,
a time trial is where people run a race course
on their own, attempting to post the best time
and excel beyond not only their peers, but
themselves.
To me, it’s the best kind of competition.
Sure, I love soccer because it’s a great
measure of skill and teamwork and I love
hockey because it measures the grit,
determination and physical ability of each
team, but there is something pure about a
sporting event where you are the only person
on the track.
Those kids, whether they know it or
not, were competing against themselves as
much as they were competing against each
other.
With no one else on the track, there was no
one else to blame or to attribute their success
to.
If they fail, they did so on their own, if they
got first, they did so on their own, but either
way, they were setting a bar not only for other
people but for themselves.
Maybe they won’t get to be on that track for
another year, but I can guarantee that those
kids, somewhere in the back of their mind, will
always remember what that time was if it was
an activity they enjoyed.
They will remember that and it will drive
them.
For me, when I was young, my closest
experience to this was when my father put a
skating rink in the backyard.
I would spend my nights circling the tiny
rink, over and over again.
I don’t remember keeping track of how
many times I had gone around the circular rink
and I don’t recall how fast I was, but it was just
me versus my limits and the ice.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of lacing
up the skates in the morning for a game of
hockey.
Secondary to the idea of competing
against yourself, the second purest feeling in
sports is when your skates bite your ankle,
your blades bite the ice and, at 6 a.m., you take
that first long stride and feel that exhilaration
as the cold air of an arena bursts into your
lungs.
However, back to the point here, those kids
were given the opportunity to measure
themselves and find out if this was a sport they
could do right now.
If they found that they couldn’t, if they
found they fell or went slower than everyone
else, they have a decision ahead of them.
They can either practise, work out and
prepare for the next time they jump on a bike
and try to race around a course or they can
focus their energies elsewhere.
While it may pain some people to admit it,
there weren’t a dozen Tour de France winners
on that track, there may have been one or two.
Showing those kids that biking is fun, but
that they may not be the best, is one of the
healthiest things I think they can learn.
You need to find what you’re good at and
focus on that in life, or find what you want to
do and become good at it.
Being told that everyone’s equal doesn’t
help anyone and any opportunity like these
time trials allows a kid to enjoy themselves but
also think about what their strengths really are.
Kudos to you Walton Raceway on your
Outdoor Sports Camp.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Finding hope for the next generation