The Rural Voice, 1989-09, Page 8t•160
Gam.
Our. M..e. .,
For service call your
professional Goulds dealer
for a reliable water system.
CLIFF's PLUMBING
& HEATING
Lucknow
519-528-3913
"Our experience
assures lower cost
water wells"
89 YEARS EXPERIENCE
Member of Canadian
and Ontario
Water Well Associations
• Farm
• Industrial
• Suburban
• Municipal
Licensed
by the Ministry
of the Environment
DAVIDSON
WELL DRILLING LTD.
WINGHAM
Serving Ontario Since 1900
519-357-1960 WINGHAM
519-886-2761 WATERLOO
6 THE RURAL VOICE
THE RURAL
BRAIN DRAIN
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and past publisher of
The Rural Voice.
Recently, as part of my job as a
newspaper editor, I had the task of
going to the 15th anniversary reunion
of a class that graduated from our
local public school. It made me see
just how big the brain drain is in our
rural communities.
The yard of the farm home where
the reunion was held was bustling
with people. There were the graduates
themselves, of course, and some of
their old teachers. But there were also
the spouses of the graduates and,
somebody estimated, about two kids
for each grad — all adding up to
nearly 100 people.
Only a small percentage of the
group, however, was still living in our
neck of the woods. They had come
back from Calgary and Kitchener and
other points all over southern Ontario.
It set me to thinking what it would
have meant to the community if we'd
managed to keep even half of these
young people.
I'm not someone who thinks it
would be wonderful if all kids could
grow up, go to school, get married,
and have kids — all without leaving
the security of their home community.
If I'd had that option, I probably
would have chosen it gladly, but I
would have been the worse for it.
Forced to leave home to go to school
in the core of Canada's biggest city, I
gained, as well as an education, a new
confidence in myself. And I also got a
new perspective on things, although
mostly, as I remember, my life in the
city only confirmed that I wanted to
get out of there as quickly as I could.
Still, every time I go to a high
school commencement and hear
someone read off the names of the
students and where they are off to, I
feel sad for what we are losing. It's
not even so much the families that
won't be here to help keep our towns
and villages alive (but will instead add
to the seemingly inevitable growth of
the big cities). It's the minds we are
losing.
Our most precious export is those
bright minds. In today's world, the
solutions to most of our problems lic
in the minds of inventive, well-
educated people. The solutions to the
problems of rural life may rest in the
minds of some of these young people.
They might hold the key to creating
more jobs to keep our communities
alive. They may have solutions that
would keep family farms alive rather
than being swallowed up by the global
rush toward bigger and bigger units.
As it is, though, those minds are
more likely to be put to work making
sure the big get bigger. They will
likely end up working for multi-
national companies which will contin-
ue the trend of sapping energy from
rural communities to feed the octopus -
like growth of cities. They may go to
work for companies that will see the
growth of corporate agri-business as
a goal, not a problem.
Because as you watch those young
people parading across the stage to get
their diplomas, and you hear what they
will be studying in some far-off
university, you realize that virtually
every course they will take will fit
them for life in a city, not in a small
community.
For that matter, nearly every high
school course pointed them toward the
city. They seldom studied anything
about their own community to get a
sense that home is of importance.
And they are all being prepared to
work for someone else, not as the
independent entrepreneurs needed
on farms and in towns.
We spend over half our tax dollars
on education, an education that does
Little to ensure the future of our com-
munities. It seems to me we are fail-
ing ourselves and our children by not
giving our students any option but to
join the hordes crowding into cities.0