The Brussels Post, 1975-05-21, Page 10Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
This week I had the chore of' sorting
through a huge pile of applieations for a job
on our high school staff teaching English.
One job and about 80 applications. That's
the way things are these days in the
teaching game.
It's a cruel world for young people trying
to break into the profession. Armed with
their pieces of paper on which it says right
there in print that they are now qualified
teachers, they sally • forth to put into
practice their high ideals, their warm
personalities, their love for young people,
and the results of four or five years of
university slugging.
And what do they find? A 'Vast
,ndifference, Nobody wants them.
Principals want people with experience.
But how do you get experience if you can't
a job? It's an old story in the world of
.ree enterprise, but it's still a sad one for
-lose caught in the vicious circle.
It's exactly like another facet of the
,'stem of which we are so proud: banking.
sr you're broke and need money, a bank
\•on't loan it to you. If you're rich and don't
eed money, you have to beat off the
tinkers with a stick.
I couldn't help thinking, as I sat toying
ith people's lives, of the vast change that
nas taken place since I began teaching,
,:knout 15 years ago.
Those were the days when the great
:lost-war baby boom was hitting the high
schools.
Principals were raiding industry for
technical teachers, business for
,,-ommercial teachers.
If y ou had a university degree, it was as
much as your life was worth to walk past a
school. A lasso would snake out, you'd find
nourself getting a hot sales pitch in a
principal's office, and next thing you knew
were standing in front of 35 kids with y our
mouth hanging open.
Anyone who was not obviously drunk or
noticeably retarded had a pretty fair
.:hance • of winding up in teaching.
One daily newspaper ran pages and
?ages of teacher-wanted advertisements
.'ach 'spring, and school boards spent
,nindreds of thousands of dollars on
alvert—ing. •
i remember one spring when I could
save taken my pick of 28 ,jobs as an English
'1.‘partment head, by picking up the phone.
Those were fat times for the young
aduating teachers, too. Armed with
°thing more than a puny B.A., they could
retty well pick and choose where they
anted to work and live.
Each spring there was an event which
ime to be known rather cynically as "the
ittle market."
School boards from all over the province
ould take over a big hotel in the city.
Potential teachers would flock in by the
thousands. It was a seller's market.
The student teacher walked the halls,
checked the signs on doors. If he deigned
to knock, be was snatched through the door
by a principal, had coffee or something
stronger forced on him, generally given the
glad hand and usually assured a job, even
if "he" happened to be a bald female with
green teeth.
Of course, the pay wasn't much then,
about $4,000 to start, but' that was worth
more than twice as much as it is now.
When I was hired, I wrote a letter
applying for the only English teaching job
left in the prOvince. The principal was on
the phone the minute he ,,got my letter. He
couldn't believe that I had an honor degree,
in English. Apparently I was the only
person left in Canada with such a degree
who wasn't teaching.
Just two years later,I had a department
headship forced on me. I didn't particularly
want it. Ryerson Institute wanted me to go
there and teach journalism. The president
of Waterloo University wanted me to go
there and handle public relations and teach
some English.
If I were fired tomorrow, with my honorssi
degree and 15 years experience, I'd be
lucky to get a job in Nooknik, teaching
English As A Second Language to Eskimo
kids.
I checked with five of my colleagues in
the. English department, who entered
teaching during those halcyon years. Three
of the five were hired by phone, sight
unseen.
' Now, we sort through a vast sheaf of
applications. Here's a guy with a WA.,
M.A., and Ph.D. inEnglish. Discard him.
Overeducated, no experience. Here's one
with an honor degree, excellent recommen-
dations just out Of teacher's college.
Discard her. No experience.
And when we narrow it down to six or
eight,. they have to show up for a gruelling
interview(gruelling for me too) and many
have driven r300 miles for it, and drive
home with nothing to show for it but a
hearty "Thank you for coming.",
The whole thing makes me sick. There's
a great waste of talented young teachers,
many of whom, in disgust, go into some
other way of making a living.
There's a whole slew of old teachers still
in harness, who are hanging on because
archaic regulations make them hang on
until they are too old and sick and stupid
and tired to be of any use to anyone,
merely to draw their pensions.
Surely in a country with our resources,
and in an age when the computer can make
accurate projections, we can do better than
use this outmoded system of supply and
demand, which may be all right for the
cattle market, .but all wrong for human
beings,
Like sausage?
Try making your own
Michael
Michael is a little boy
Who se really brought us lots of joy
Sometimes he's good and sometimes bad,
When I say "No', he runs to Dad!
He's a very spoiled little guy
He takes a streak, it's buy, buy, buyl.
He thinks that money grows on trees
He'll soon find out 'bout the birds and bees.
It's I want this, and I want that
One of these times, he'll get a batl
That will make him awfully mad,
When I say 'No', he'll run to. Dad!.
He's really not a bad little kid
He's always sorry for what he did
So I really can't complain, I guess
Now and then, I do se.y"Yes"!
One day it's guns and then it's cars
And next he'll want some monkey bars,
Then it's dolls and then it's planes
When the novelty's gone, he starts again.
He likes to run, he likes to roam
Sometimes he forgets he's got a home
When he comes back, he'll smile and say,
"Dad, can I go out to play?"
I'm glad he's such a happy boy
He really brought us so much joy
He's always got too much to say
But I'm thankful he can run and play.
So how can one NOT give in
To each and every little whim?
He's only young and wants to live '
So it's got to be give, give, give!
By Diana Dunn
Country style
pork sausage
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2 lbs. lean fresh pork shoulder
1/2 lb. hard back fat
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon.
Freshly ground black pepper
Put the lean and fat pork
through the meat grinder once or
twice according to the texture
desired. Sprinkle seasonings over
meat and mix well. Wrap in a
plastic wrap and store in
refrigerator one to two days for all
seasonings to mingle. Make into
sausages or small patties or shape
into . rolls that resemble
refrigerator cookie dough. (Easy
to slice off circles the thickness
you like.)
Wrap; store in the refrigerator
and use within six days or store in
the freezer up to two months,
if you want to vary seasonings
you could use savory, tarragon,
garlic, chives, coriander,
marjoram, crushed juniper
berrie4, pimento. Anything, in
fact, that appeals to you. To taste
test your-special mixture fry up o
small, sample, just a teaspoon or
two in your smallest frypan.
The first recorded sausage your sausage. These are prepared
makers were the Romans. They from sheep and beef intestines
preserved the smaller parts and and can be obtained from any
scraps of the , pig for winter butcher who makes his own
eating. Probably the word sausage. Soak the skins overnight
sausage comes from a Late Latin before using. Next day push one
word, salsicia, meaning end over tap, run cold water
something prepared by salting. through then slip casing onto your
Today, however, France is the sausage making attachment, Now
country for fresh sausage. In you are ready to stuff sausage. if
every small town you'll find at you haven't a sniffer, with care,
least one charcusterie, a shop skins can be stuffed using a
which sells the cooked meat of the pastry bag with a plain met al
pig. The mainstay of the attachment . . squeeze mixture
chareutier will be transmutations into casings.
of the pig, mostly sausages but he Don't hold back if you don't
will also sell companion foods: like fancy stuffing the casings'. You'll
Olives, breads and maybe a few miss a true gustatorial delight if
salads, as well as uncooked pork. you- don't try Making your own
Wish you had a chareutier in sausage meat, Make it up and
your neighborhood. No need to after it matures a day or two form
because its the easiest thing in it into small patties or balls. They
the world to Make your Own are wonderful in easssonlets,
sausage especially if you have an soups, stews and as companions
electric mixer or grinder with a for eggs or potatoes. Stack; using,
saiisage-making attachment two layers of plastic wrap
Ideally, need easitigasfor, between patties. They'll keep in
10-11-4E BRUSSELS iiciST, MAY 21, 1975
the refrigerator five to six days or
in the freezer, wrapped well, up
to two months. Simply remove
number of patties required,
re-wrap the remainder and return
to the freezer.
For a large sausage, put all of
the sausage mixture in a lar ge
intestine and tie ends. Or, form it
into a roll, wrap it in thin strips of
salt pork or slices of bacon, then
wrap completely with all-purpose
cloth; tie cloth in place. Let it
mature' two days in the
refrigerator then use it within six
days Or keep in the freezer up to
two Months. To cook - sinitrier 1
2 hours, It will be ready-to-serve,
hot or cold.
See above
for redpe