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Oakville Beaver Weekend, Sunday, July 3, 1994 467 Speers Road, Oakville, Ont. L6K 354 845â€"3824 Fax: 845â€"3085 Classified Advertising: 845â€"2809 f Circulation: 845â€"9742 or 845â€"9743 ; The Oakville Beaver, published every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, at 467 ‘ Ian Oliver Publisher _ cauk ko ul one of the Metroland Printing, Publishing Distrbuting! Robert Glasbey Advertising Director Kingston This Week, Lindsay This 3 gston This | “T Y Tim Coles Production Manager consent of the publisher. Lid. gvou;i‘ol suburban newspapers which includes: Ajaxâ€"Pickering Advertiser, Barrie Advance, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Col‘nml Connection, Etobicoke Guardian, Geoweol::nhlfl Eml Acton Freod ho am Economist and Sun, GeoRBii buecor _ mm lintee on marketâ€"Aurora Eraâ€"Banner, North Yo lrror, il ver, Orilli Geoff Hill Circulation Director Today, Oshawa/Whitby This Week, Peterborough This Week, Richmond MIIF Teri Casas Office Manager ThomhilWVaughan Liberal, ugh Mirror. . 4 All material published in the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Any reproduction in whole or in part of this material is strictly forbidden w’l‘oln the Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of the advertising space oecurbd by the â€" erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for ; at the appicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to calegorize and reject advertising. in the event of typographical error, advertising goods : services at the wrong price, goods or services may not be sold. Advertising is merely an offer to sell and may be withdrawn at a or iny time. Time to listen Sometimes an idea is so obvious that it gets overlooked. Perhaps that‘s â€"EpiToriAL why when such an idea is put into practice, people wonder why it didn‘t happen earlier. That‘s the case with the justâ€"completed Royal Commission on Learning, which took the unique (and obvious) step of not only consulting young people for their views on education, but also had a Cornwall high school student as a member. Although the final written report won‘t be presented to Queen‘s Park until December, the Commission‘s findings are interesting to say the least. When asked what was their most important educational concern, the majorâ€" ity of respondents placed ‘respect‘ between students and teachers at the top of their list. That‘s no small observation, given that the Commission heard from a wide variety of young people both in and outside of school. The Commission even went to detention centres, homes for pregnant teens, alternative schools and other social service agencies to get comments. Many young people said they‘d like to see their high school courses changed to include more courses on life skills such as money management, nutrition and parenting. They also want courses to include more handsâ€"on experience as well as field trips that are more relevant to the material being covered. No doubt, that means killing some of the ‘recreational‘ field trips such as skiing junkets that serve no educational purpose. And here‘s a finding that is a shocker...many students polled said they want more classes in Canadian history and current national concerns. Wow, there may be hope for us yet. Now if only our educators would do some listening. Students also said they should be allowed to participate in all decisionâ€" making bodies including boards of education. One teenager put it best: "When it comes to making decisions, it‘s like we‘re invisible or something...they never ask us for our opinions." This all goes back to the premise of boards of education. If you start from the premise that all decisions and ideas percolate from the top down instead of the bottom up, you‘re operating the way YOU want to and not necessarily the way that serves the students better. Businesses operating in such a manner soon find themselves with no clients and go bankrupt. The same has been hapâ€" pening with our educational system except the downside is far greater...how do you put a price tag on a wasted mind? That cost from a personal, social and economic viewpoint is incalculable. The Commission also found different concerns in different areas of the province. In urbanized centres, young people wanted to see student welfare payments increased saying that it was hard to think of school with no place to live, food to eat or bus fare to get to school. And students from minority groups also wanted more teachers that reflected visible minorities. But all those who commented on violence, drugs and weapons in schools said there should be a zeroâ€"tolerance program. That‘s heartening. Ontario‘s education has been placed under enormous pressure over the past few years. Some boards have been forced to deal with rising enrolments with less cash support from Queen‘s Park. They‘ve had programs shoved down their throats that they didn‘t want and they‘ve had to deal with changing and often conflicting directives from the Ministry of Education. And it‘s at the Ministry level where most work has to be done. We trust Education and Training Minister Dave Cooke will give the Commission‘s report more than just a cursory glance. WEEKLY FOCUS mss Organic gardeners Number of adult gardeners and percent who regularly use organic fertilizer by age, 1992 All gardeners â€" 60.6 million Age Percent Source: Organic Gardener Magazine NEA Graphic â€"ANP SMOKERS PY REDUCED TAXES c ON OUR. y "PLAIN PACKAGIN6" MODEL Dancing naked with Great Expectations... other fine books f[*~ t‘s become an annual tradiâ€" ; tion â€" an event people long for, clamor for, and await with breathless anticipation. No, it‘s not the summer adjournment of parliament, it‘s my annual selection of Great Books For The Beach, my personal picks of Perfect Prose For The Poolside. For a book to earn entry on my esteemed list, it must be writâ€" ten in a style that stands up to sun, surf, and sand; that mixes well with tall, cool drinks; that can be enjoyed between innings of Blue Jay baseball broadcasts... For those who are counting â€" and I‘m almost certain some of my readers can count â€" this is either the fifth or fourth or sixth annual edition of my picks. Anyway, here goes! Trying To Save Piggy Sneed, by John Irving. Six short stories and two essays compiled to help Irving addicts survive until they can get their next full fix (a novel due out in 1995) of one of America‘s finest storytellers. The two essays are especially interesting. "Trying To Save Piggy Sneed" takes readers into Irving‘s childhood, and explains the role played by Piggy Sneed in Irving deciding to become a writer. Piggy, by the way, was a pig farmer/garbage collector "who smelled worse than any : man I ever smelled." The other essay â€" The King of the Novel â€" is Irving‘s tribute to his literary idol Charles Dickens and to Dickens‘ novel Great # Expectations, which Irving believes has "the most wonderful and most perfectly workedâ€"out plot for a novel in the English language." A reviewer in the Sunday Telegraph said Irving‘s homage to Dickens made him "want to dance naked through the streets brandishing a copy of Great Expectations." Which is precisely what I did. That Summer In Paris, by Morley Callaghan. Callaghan, who spent a summer some 65 years ago on the Left Bank of Paris with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, captures the time, the place, and the people in this memorable memoir. Callaghan â€" who died in 1990 â€" proved over time that he belonged in literature‘s big leagues; the author of a handful of true Canadian classics should be declared a national treasure. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. My eightâ€"yearâ€"old son received a copy of this book for Christmas. He was thrilled to learn that this was, indeed, a "big guy book" that had been read, and loved, by his parents, his aunts, his uncles... The day after Christmas, he pointed a bookâ€" mark at my head, which was still filled with visions of sugar plums and the fog of rum, and forced me to begin reading to him. Within minutes, he was hooked on The Hobbit, lured into Tolkien‘s magical world of Bilbo Baggins, of trolls and wizâ€" ards and elves and dwarves and dragons... The Hobbit is a long, pleasurâ€" able read. One night many, many months after starting the book, we read well past my son‘s bedâ€" time and finally came to the conâ€" clusion of Bilbo‘s great journey and the end of Tolkien‘s great ] book. The next morning as I ] staggered downstairs to mug a coffee, I found my son sitting in a chair, Hobbit in hand, beginâ€" ning what I‘m sure will be one of many rereads of this classic. A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley. This saga does not need a whole lot of hype; it won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it ranks as one of the best books I‘ve read in the past 10 years. Chronicling the rise and fall of an American Midwestern farming family, tackling issues such as incest and child abuse, A Thousand Acres is a ratity in publishing; a remarkably researched, ambitious (its plot parallels King Lear), intelligent, austere book that managed to inch itself up the bestseller lists. Dave Barry‘s Greatest Hits, by David Barry. Dave Barry is a Pulitzerâ€"prize winning humor columnist for The Miami Herald. His life is now hopelessly misâ€" represented each week by actor Harry Anderson in the sitcom "Dave‘s World". Nevertneless, Dave Barry is a very funny man â€" or, as it was so sagaciously put in The New York Times Book Review: "Mr. Barry is the funniâ€" est man in America and we should encourage him. Buy this book." Then prepare to laugh. Sweet Grass, by Andy Juniper. A book for the generaâ€" tions! A masterwork of such breadth and width and depth and circumference! Did I mention its humor and texture and clarity?! Truly a remarkable novel by a Canadian genius!