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The Citizen, 2000-08-23, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2000. PAGE 5. Other Views If you go down to the woods today... I don’t want to raise your hopes unduly, but it looks like the Canadian environmental movement may have discovered a brand new offensive tactic to ram its conservation message home. Humour. High time, too. Environmentalists have had a rough ride trying to get our attention over the years. They tried shaming us - Brigitte Bardot crouching on an ice floe, up to her eyeliner in cute-as-a-bug seal pups. The public knew a PR guilt trip when they saw one and they didn’t buy it. Next, they tried scaring us with doomsday statistics — the rainforests disappearing at a rate of x acres per nanosecond; the ozone hole widening faster than Stockwell Day’s bald spot. But that was a numbers game which politicians and corporate flacks play better. The public didn’t know whom to believe. So they yawned. Protest marches and sit-ins don't get results. Consumer boycotts are seldom effective. Placards, slogans, fundraisers and satirical folk songs only preach to the converted. So why not play it for laughs? That appears to be the rationale behind a brand new advertising campaign launched by a group called the British Columbia Endangered Species Coalition. They’ve created a series of comic strip panels for print and television called “When Wildlife Strikes Back!” - the A visit to my finance classroom I thought you might like to visit one of my classes, more specifically the one that I teach in international finance. It is not going to be as hard as you think; you as well as many of my students have some background knowledge already. It is only the more advanced material that makes one furrow his or her brow and listen more attentively than normally. First of all, there are 100 students enrolled in my class, over half of which are foreign. There are a lot of Asiatics, but also Europeans, Africans, Latin Americans and some from the Middle East. Some of the Canadian-born students look a bit lost in all this group but they perk up when they realize that a Canadian is teaching them. This may sound strange but there are a lot of foreign professors at the university level and their fluency in English varies. I get to talk to my South Americans in Spanish and have one French Canadian who is pleased to talk to jny South Americans in Spanish and have one French Canadian who is please to speak French in spite of our different accents. The University of Western Ontario is truly a polyglot university. This may sound like a big class and it is, but only by high school standards. Some of the beginning classes in economics have over 400. I see my students twice a week, once for a one- hour lecture and once for a two-hour lecture. They are free to talk to me after the class if they so desire but I also have two hours of what I call “consultation periods” when my office is open for discussions of problems or anything else for that matter. Many of them do take advantage of this. I have found that most students have an attention span of not more than 20 - 25 minutes; after that their mind starts to wander. For this reason I try to inject a bit of humour now and again or tell them a story which has either a direct or indirect connection to what we are discussing. In the two-hour class getting and keeping their attention is somewhat harder but I work at it and by and large we manage to get through Arthur Black theme of which is: suppose animals started doing to us what we’ve been doing to them? One panel shows an orca dumping a barrel of steaming toxic sludge into a kiddie’s bathtub. They poison our water! reads the cutline. Another shows a BC salmon standing behind a hedge, holding a fishing rod, trolling over a park bench with a donut on his hook as bait. They threaten our populations! it reads below. Another one shows a mighty cedar thrusting up through a broken sidewalk right in the path of a confused-looking burgher. What do they want? gasps the cutline. Well, what the BC Coalition wants is to get our attention again. They realize that the silent majority is fed up with loggers screaming at tree huggers and Save-the-whale types screaming at fishermen. They also know that because of past tactics, both parties have close to zero credibility with the public. So why not a jokey, absurdist ad campaign that paints the endangered plants and animals as the true villains of the piece? My favourite: a full-colour panel that shows Raymond Canon The International Scene the material. My classroom is an amphitheatre with plenty of board space (which I use all the time) and an overhead projector (which I seldom use). There are no windows so nothing outside can distract them. They have a mid-term and a final exam and a combination of three tests or essays which make up 15 per cent of their final mark. They naturally complain that these are all very demanding but I reply that it prepares them for the real world. At any rate it all producers a media mark of about 65 which keeps the university happy. They have to pay attention at today’s lecture about derivatives, a word which many people have heard when reading about the financial world, but which very few seem to understand. One of the mechanisms I discuss is called a “covered interest arbitrage” which means that you invest some money in, say, a certificate of deposit or a term-deposit by utilizing the forward exchange market. This may sound a bit complicated and I suppose it is, but it is something like buying fire insurance on your home. We go through it step by step, and they are free to ask questions as we go along. It is difficult to get a Canadian textbook on international trade and finance so we have to make do with an American one. However, I express all my examples in terms of the Canadian dollar or its value in foreign currencies. That helps the students and, as the Americans use the same name for their currency as we do, the adjustment when reading the text is not as hard as if the text was written using an European currency. Toward the end of the year I am graded by a bear wearing a hardhat and goggles, ripping into the foundation of a bungalow with a chainsaw. Destroying our habitats! is the caption. And in that spirit, not to mention in the public interest, I’d like to use this space to pass along a Bear Alert recently issued by the British Columbia Ministry of Natural Resources: In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear conflicts, the government is advising hunters, hikers and fishermen to take extra precautions in the wild, particularly in bear country. We advise everyone in the outdoors to wear little, noise-making bells on their clothing so as to forewarn bears of their presence. We also advise those people to carry at least one canister of pepper spray at all times in case of an encounter with a grizzly. Encounters with black bears are seldom dangerous, so it is a good idea to watch out for fresh signs of bear activity, and to be aware of what type of bear is most likely to be in the vicinity. Accordingly, it is helpful for outdoorsmen to be able to recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly manure, or ‘scat’. Black bear scat is smaller and contains a lot of berries and nuts. Grizzly scat has noisy little bells in it and smells like pepper. the, students as to the effectiveness of my teaching. This, by the way, is done on all professors. There are no less than 14 different questions with the 15th question being on your overall effectiveness. I would be less than honest if I said that some of the students do not like some of the things I do; the same things seem to appeal to other students so it is frequently a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Overall I am happy with the results but it is wise not to dismiss all criticism out of hand; every teacher should know that there is always room for improvement. Incidentally these assessments are made public to the student body. I am looking forward to teaching the same course next year when I will have another 100 students wondering if I will live up to my past reputation. The course is never the same two years running as I have to make sure it is as up to date as possible. It is an enjoyable, if at times hectic, task and I am pleased to put to good use my many years of experience. Letter Continued from page 4 and Donna Taylor. Winners of landscaped businesses are: first, Remember When, Elaine Scrimgeour; second, Blyth Festival Theatre, Karen Stewart; third, The Old Mill, Dick and Glenyce Snell. A big thank you to all the folks who have looked after community flower beds. It has really shown the civic pride that abounds throughout the village. Bill, Murray and Ken, our village crew, were always there when they were needed. We couldn’t have done it without you. Now is the waiting game. The awards ceremony is being held on Sept. 30 in Edmonton. We will have a delegation to represent the village at that time. Regardles: of whether we will win an award, we are all winners. Our village is beautiful. Sincerely, Bev Elliott, Chair of Blyth Blossoms Nationally in 2000. Bonnie Gropp The short of it I’ll miss you, Hugsy! You cannot possibly imagine how eagerly she is counting the days. Soon after you read this my daughter will be embarking on a much anticipated adventure, a new beginning. Moving to Toronto, into an apartment, starting college in a course of study that both excites and challenges her has been a greatly discussed topic for,’well, years at our house. And it’s a good thing my husband and I don’t suffer overmuch from inferiority complexes, because she has made no bones about the fact that she can hardly wait to leave. We know, you see, that it’s nothing personal. Mark and I have reminded each other time and again that her desire to fly, or perhaps flee the coop would be more apt, is proof that we have at least done something right. As parents there is satisfaction in knowing that you have raised a child who is independent, strong and fearless enough to meet the challenges that will come before them, not to mention eager to do so. Nonetheless, her hope is my despair. I am, though certainly caught up by her excitement, fighting a feeling of dejection. Two children before her brought on the same disquiet until I ultimately came to realize things really don’t change all that much. I cried rivers of tears after dropping each of them off at their respective new homes, knowing full well how blessed I was that they could be taking this new adventure, here to enjoy yet another step to maturity. Then, much to my surprise, when they returned home for a time after graduation, it was with the recognition that much as I loved them being around, they no longer seemed to fit. Surprisingly to me, their independence has been rather pleasant. Not in each other’s space nor on each other’s nerves has made for a more harmonious relationship, all grown up but still my babies. And so I came to accept the new phase of my life and enjoy being more of an observer than an active participant in theirs. Thus, having been in this situation twice before and I believe matured by the experience. I’m rather nonplussed by my increasing, and all too familiar, sense of melancholy. I would have thought I was prepared, ready. Not even close. As I walk into her room, she is busily packing things, planning what she will take, what she will leave behind. She is animated even carrying out these ordinary tasks, and I drop off what I was bringing to her and turn away. Or stand foolishly, looking for things to do or say that will keep me with her long past the reason for my initial visit. When with verve and energy she answers others’ questions about her plans, I practise fhe trick of every, if they’re honest, mom and shut her out. There is nothing new I can hear about the school, the apartment, her hopes, that I haven’t heard before. And right now, anyway, it’s really hard to match her excitement. I know that in time not so far ahead, I will welcome her phone calls, her chats, her stories of new friends, new escapades, new education. I will soon be eagerly awaiting her visits home, and though a touch sad, when departure arrives, quite likely heaving a sigh. For we will become used to her absences, we will adjust to the quiet spaces once constantly filled with her lively personality. I will adapt, but I would be dishonest if I didn’t say I wish I didn’t have to. I will miss you, Hugsy.