The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1975-03-13, Page 18RACING POLES — The poles dig into the snow as the cross-country
skier crosses the finish line The skiers front Libby Walker, from Central
High School, London, and to the rear Lynn Clarke, from SHDHS were
in competition in the past week at a WOSSA cross-county skiing
event, held at SHDHS. T-A photo
Editorial By DEB HILLMAN
As everyone knows there was a bomb scare here last week. A
run-of-the-mill threat which followed the pattern of most incidents
like it, However, the reactions that resulted were not really stan-
dard.
Since no one offered the students an explanation to the early
dismissal imaginations started working. Controversy raged as to
what was going on and even a little panic was evident.
Of course at South Huron such an event provided students with
excitement and pulled everyone out of their apathetic states for a
little while at least. And once the school was evacuated no one
could resist making use of the snowball facilities in front of the
school.
Despite all the laughter and joking about the incident, one
question did arise in the minds of many students and parents.
Why were we left in the school so long after the call came in?
Was there something in the man's voice to insinuate that his call
was a hoax?
If not, perhaps we should realize that we may be were in
danger and were left in the school for . . . for what reason?
Much talking has gone on since last week's scare. Still no one
has explained this discrepancy. Does someone wish to?
Greenway UCW meet
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Monday, March 17
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MONDAY, MARCH 24
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EXETER
NOTICE OF
ROAD CLOSING
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to The Municipal
Act, R.S.O. 1970, Chapter 284, Section 443 and other
powers thereunto enabling, the Corporation of the Town of
Exeter proposes to stop up and close:
In the Town of Exeter in the County of Huron and
Province of Ontario and being composed of:
Premising Sanders Street to have a bearing of North
81 degrees 24' East as shown on Registered Plan
Number 23 and relating all bearings herein thereto:
FIRSTLY: All that portion of John Street lying East of a
line drawn South 8 degrees 33' East from a point in
the Southerly limit of Lot 1189, Registered Plan
Number 20, distant 6.87 feet measured Easterly
therealong from the South Westerly corner of said Lot
SECONDLY: All that portion of Bodman Street as
shown on Registered Plan Number 20 lyng between
John Street and a line which is 6.15 feet Southerly
from and parallel with the original Southerly limit of
Sanders Street as shown on Registered Plan Number
20.
The lands comprising those parts of the said road
allowances hereby stopped up and closed, and the subse-
quent sale or other disposition of the said lands, shall be sub-
ject to easements for existing sewer, watermain and hydro
services on the lands in question.
That subject to the said easements, the lands comprising
those parts of the said road allowances hereby stopped up
and closed shall continue to be vested in the Corporation of
the Town of Exeter to be dealt with from time to time as the
Council of the said Corporation may see fit and deem proper.
And that the Council of the said Corporation will hear, in
person or by counsel, solicitor, or agent, any person who
claims that his land will be prejudicially affected by the said
bylaw and who applied to be heard at a meeting to be held
at the Town Hall in the Town of Exeter on the 14th day of
March, 1975 at the hour of 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
DATED at Exeter, Ontario this 17th day of February,
A.D. 1975
ERIC H. CARSCADDEN, Clerk
Town of Exeter
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a new breed
Running for
track team
By BRENDAJ, PEPPER
Recently in South Huron, Mr.
Fulop organized a group of in-
terested people into running for a
future track and field team.
The objective is to run,a total of
25 miles before March 31. The
incentive is the fact that the
organizers shall pay 10c for
every mile run over 25, and to the
opposite, you must pay a nickel
for every mile under 25.
The purpose behind this is to
train students to compete in track
and field meets.
Interested teacher Doug
Ellison says that the best way to
hope for future track enthusiasts
is to begin now with the junior
grades. Anyone interested in
track and field is asked to see Mr.
Fulop.
Weather cancels
Day of Prayer
By MRS. ROBERT LAING
CROMARTY
The World Day of Prayer
service was cancelled because of
the stormy weather on Friday.
Mr. & Mrs, Murray Christie
and Mr. & Mrs. Elmer Dow have
returned home after a two week
holiday in Florida,
Mr. & Mrs. Robert Gardiner
returned last week, having spent
a few weeks in Australia.
Michael Finlayson.Staffa spent
two weeks with his grandparents,
Mr, & Mrs. Gordon Scott, while
his parents were in Florida.
Mrs, John Jefferson attended
the United Church Huron-Perth
W.M.S. Presbyterial meeting at
Listowel Friday,
The Staffa Sleeping Beauties
and their guests travelled by bus
to the Ice Capades in London on
Tuesday.
Tom Laing spent the weekend
with Mr, & Mrs. Alex Zimmer,
Stratford.
The answer to last week's
question of
TUT 292
TUT 292
A is 8
NUT 592
The new question is:
PETER
PIPER
LIKED
RED
RED
PEPPER
(add together by sub-
stituting numbers for the
letters),
MATH QUIZ
CORNER
By Zelda Inthout
By MANUEL CURTS
The United Church Women
held their March meeting at the
home of Mrs. J. W. Horner
Wednesday afternoon, Mrs.
Harold Brophey led in
devotions. She challenged her
listeners to a greater awareness
and appreciation of the beauties
of nature which are around us
every day and particularly now
that the spring season is about to
burst upon us.
Mrs. George Dixon showed
pictures of the trillium camp
where she resides.
Although it was inclement
weather, some 30 ladies attended
the Day of Prayer Service in the
Grace Anglican Church on
Friday.
Former resident dies
This community has been
saddened to hear of the death of
Edward Hartle in Sarnia on
Saturday. Eddie grew up here
and was an active member in the
youth organization of the United
Church. His son, Howard, is
principal of the elementary
school in Grand Bend. Interment
for Mr. Hartle was in Grand Bend
cemetery, Tuesday. Sympathy is
extended to his mother, who lives
in Parkhill and to the members of
the family.
Mr. & Mrs. Milton Pollock
returned on Thursday following a
four week holiday in Florida.
Mr. & Mrs. Cliff Hallam and
family, Clinton were Sunday
visitors with Mrs. Hallam's
parents, Mr. & Mrs. George
Gollen .
By the way: you should file
your income tax, not chisel it.
by SHERWOOD EDDY
ENGLISH HEAD
One of the major concerns of
the educational system in the
past was to produce literate in-
dividuals. This term was applied
to those individuals who suc-
cessfully passed through the high
school program and who
achieved a standard of ex-
cellence in reading and writing
determined by some mysterious
souls who set down the course
outlines and who graded the
departmental examinations.
One who passed those depart-
mentals was duly considered a
prime candidate to enter an even
more restricted group of literate
individuals, the university
student body,
Within the mechanics of
achieving this plateau called
literacy, were included long
classes in grammar, sentence
structure, spelling and com-
position. It was assumed that to
be literate at the high school
level, one needed to participate in
many tedious hours of parsing
sentences, learning grammatical
terms like participles and
gerundives, writing compositions
on topics like "My Summer
Vacation" and "A View From the
Bridge" and memorizing list
upon list of "Hard Words to
Spell."
What occurred was that many
students never learned the game
of descriptive grammar, And
even many of those who learned
to play the game floundered in
frustration when they continued
to find those errors, which they
had worked so hard to try to
remove, reoccurring in their
actual writing.
The obvious response was to
say that the student was
"slacking", and so more
assignments in grammar and
more essays of the sort noted
above were doled out by the
teacher. .
We all worked very hard and
some of us eventually graduated
from grade thirteen. The rest
dropped out of school. Sup-
posedly, the latter group had not
met the acceptable standard.
And I suspect that many of those
who dropped out felt guilty about
their failure.
They felt that they had sim-
ply failed to measure up. But
most of them retained the
assumption that the system was
right and just, and that those who
really wanted to attain the
plateau of literacy could attain it
if only he or she just tried a little
harder.
So when those who had failed
school went into the business
world, they held on to a glowing
idealism which held that a day
would occur when more and more
students would be given the
opportunity to pass through the
high school and to enter the
literate university school body.
Remember, the assumptibn was -
one remains illiterate simply
because one does not try hard
enough.
One of the disquieting riders
that attached itself to the term
literate over the years was the
notion that literate meant and
should mean the attainment of a
standard of excellence in one
area ensures attainment of a
standard of excellence in other
areas.
Thus a man who was brilliant
in his use of the English language
was expected also to be brilliant
in the fields of science, history, or
whatever. Of course, this
situation did not always exist,
Some of our literate individuals
indulged in petty snobbery,
egotism, and one-up-manship.
Some internalized their lives to
the point that they had little to
offer to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, many who had
failed to become literate were, in
fact, fitting into the community
and even making temendous
contributions to society. But this
could not be. Our leaders were to
be the literate, They were our
hope.
Obviously then, society saw
that the literate individual was
not necessarily the paradigm
case for all society. In fact, some
individuals came out of the elitist
system ill-prepared to contribute
to society and what was worse ill-
prepared to even cope with life.
The question that arose then, was
- what is important in the
development of men?
The Ministry of Education
attempted to answer this
question in the 1960's, There was
a change in emphasis. Now
emphasis was placed on
preparing the student in this age
of rapid change to adapt to and
cope with his life after school.
The school adopted new roles -
the study of technical and
commercial subjects in many
high schools in order to prepare
the student for his choice of jobs,
the study of sociology, man in
society, world religions, theatre
arts, and others in order to
develop the student's affective
domain.
The emphasis in the
educational system had been
reversed. Rather than the
student fitting into the system,
into society, the system tried to
adjust to the needs, aptitudes of
the individual student, The tail
was wagging the dog.
What an experiment! Can you
imagine any other high struc-
tured entity trying to adapt itself
to people? It was a time of
enlightenment. It was a period of
experiment and expansion.
'"But the venture was to be short-
lived. Costs spiralled and the
general public balked. Few
understood the nature of the
change, and even fewer wanted
to wait to see the long range
results. Momentous changes
were not immediately for-
thcoming and we have all been
well trained for immediate
gratification.
The sceptics crawled out of the
woodwork. Why were we not
producing grand numbers of
"whiz kids" at a time when the
school system was expanding?
Why was there not a significant
increase in the literate in-
tellegensia ?
These were upsetting
questions. The money was there;
the increase in enrollment was
there; but not the corresponding
increase in literacy. In fact, the
universities, and the community
colleges were suggesting that
k 16„ • S.., Se".
when one spoke in terms of
percentages, a larger percentage
of the student body was entering
post secondary institutions
without the standard of ex-
cellence that had been achieved
during the time of the depart-
mentals.
The cry went out for the high
school teachers to resurrect the
old grammar programs. U.W.O.
immediately sent out a flier
stating that grade 13 English
would be a requirement to enter
U.W.O. in the fall of 1975.
The Ministry of Education
backed down on an earlier policy
of no required courses, and last
year demanded that all students
intending to graduate suc-
cessfully from grade twelve must
have four credits in English,
And all of this was a result of
the fear that literacy was
degenerating in the school
system. But is it?
It seems to me that we still
graduate an elitist group of
students from high school, And
this group still writes and reads
well. What is new is that we also
graduate some students in grade
13 and possibly forty percent of
those in grade twelve with a
lower literacy level. Under the
old system these students were
forced to drop out because they
did not Meet the rigid
requirements.
According to the old system,
these individuals had no chance
at developing any part within
themselves beyond any level
except that of the lowest common
denominator. If one could not
read or write beyond the grade
eight level, then one dropped out
of school in grade nine. Now, we.
The
Creation
work with that student
remedially in his weak areas and
try to stimulate him beyond the
grade nine level in other areas of
his personality.
And if a. 4ttiOnt is able to
achieve beyond grade nine or
in areas other than reading and
writing, do you. want to support
this achievement or do you want
to "pull the rug out". 'ram under
the student and say that he has
not reached the appropriate
standard or level of excellence in
writing.?
In other words do four year
programs make sense? Do
remedial programs make sense?
Do occupational programs make
sense? Should we eliminate the
general student in order to
maintain the term literacy to
apply uniformly to all graduates
from grade twelve?
I think my point is clear. We
have always had students who
have failed to keep up with their
fellow students for whatever
reason blocks develePed In skill
areas in earlier years in school,
lack of stimulation in one's en-
vironment including the home,
anti,or lack of ability from the
moment of birth. And as long as
there are limits on facilities, staff
and students, there will be
"failures"in the school system.
But these "failures" do not
need to be failures in life. And we
can assist them in the school
system. And many can even
graduate in a general program at
grade twelve level. But let us not
make the mistaken assumption
that all of these individuals will
meet or can meet the literacy
level that others attain in the
system.
Many students who graduate
today are a new breed, And they
need to be recognized as such,
And many have attained suc-
cesses in various aspects of
themselves that are as important
if not more important , than the
old literary skills.
CANADIAN
FURNITURE
RESTORERS
EXETER