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a". Fr - =Shrp rN FI RATAN BTA TLS a "wat y 4. ry oN LA ML BOS PR ER 0 00 Sal SS BORE Sy Fadler oF 300A AA ¥. 25% NSE RBS FRR EE EWA ate (Sat UR id REI FR AAP SETI ET HS editorial poge Disappointment The first annual general meeting of the Durham Region District Health Council held last Thursday evening at the Whitby municipal council chambers was a disappointment. The meeting got off to a bad start when Health Minister Dennis Timbrell, who was scheduled guest speaker, couldn't make it, and sent instead his parliamentary assistant John Turner, the MLA from Peterborough. Anybody from the general public who attended the meeting hoping to hear some kind of definitive speech on health care services by Mr. Timbrell came up badly short-changed with the eight-page address that Mr. Turner read. ' In fairness to him it must be said that he was pressed into service for the meeting on short notice, but his address contained precious little hard data on health services in Durham Region or anywhere else. What he did do in places was give the Conserv- ative government in Ontario a pat on the back for such. projects in Durham as loans for servicing residential land and expanding the industrial tax base, the re-location in Oshawa of the Revenue Ministry head office, and the $200. million York- Durham servicing system. These are important projects to be sure, but what the devil do they have to do with the work of the District Health Council? - But a more important question that really wasn't answered last Thursday night concerns the real function of the Health Council; how much power does it have, and just what might be its ultimate affect on the health care services for 250,000 citizens in Durham Region? In an information brochure handed out at the meeting, the DHC is described as an advisory body to the Minister of Health for planning and co-ordinatior® of health care services. And in an almost classic example of understated bureaucratic jargonese, the brochure goes on to say that the DHC has 'no authority to demand anything of anybody', but it does "expect that (its) recommendations will be listened to at Queen's Park and in the Region." Exactly. And the fears stemming from this are that the DHC will eventually render local hospital® boards powerless, and the DHC will be a convenieni bureaucratic buffer between the health care needs as expressed by the local people, and the Ministry of Health in Toronto. Anybody looking for a clarification of the real powers and ultimate goals of the DHC would have been disappointed in the eight-page address given by the chairman Henry Polak, an Ajax lawyer. Mr. --A~y Polak repeated what was contained in the printed brochure, and being charitable to Mr. Polak, it is safe to say that his speech was nothing more than a Continued on Page 5 ty Dominion Day bill TEACHING PROBLEMS SOME of the most refreshing thoughts about education I've read in many a day are contained in a recent article in the Toronto Star by W.E. Franke, principal of a new private senior high school in Hogtown. As he points out, our educational system today consists of people blaming other people for the slipping standards of educa- tion. The universities point the dirty finger at the high schools, the high schools at the elementary schools, the elementary schools at the parents. Only the poor bewildered parents don't have anyone to point at. All they know is that their educational tax bill goes up every year and their kids don't seem to be learnin' nuthin. Mr. Franke would launch a holy war against the present sludgy system, "a war that must be fought for our intellectual, spiritual, and economic survival." He would make French, English and mathematics compulsory subjects. Gram- mar would be an integral part of any language course. The compulsory French would not be for political reasons now attributed to its study but because we cannot smiley be called "educated" without the knowledge of a foreign language. How right he is. I can well remember the days when high schools offered Latin, French, German, Spanish. Today, Latin has almost disappeared, French and German are hapging on by their toenails, and it is a very rare school that offers Spanish. And what does that say about our teachers? I'd be greatly surprised if more than 10 per cent of the teachers in Canada know more than one language. The man wants a powerful stimulation in the arts from the federal government. He says: 'the soul is undernourished in our schools, and the emotions are not addres- sed." He's not far off. For too many years there has been the attitude that only a talented few have any ability for the arts. Any good teacher of drama, music, dance, and fine arts knows this is a lot of hogwash. There can be a spark of artistic fire in the most unlikely lump of a kid. He'd push this further and have every province establish schools for the artistic elite, as they do now for slow learners. The Dominion Day, Canada's Birthday, will be celebrated this year on Saturday, July 1, and in accordance with government legislation, retail stores in Port Perry and across the country will be closed. That means if you usually do your shopping on Saturday, you better make plans to get it done earlier in the week. With very few exceptions, all stores must close on Saturday, July 1 to cele- brate this national holiday. Scugog Township offices and banks will be closed on Monday and employees -of General Motors will get both Friday and Monday off to celebrate. The Port Perry Star will publish on Wednes- day next week as usual, but the office will be closed on Saturday. Persons wishing to adver- tise, or have articles in the next issue should have them in our office by Friday evening. system has swung to the extent that it is now the brightest and best who are neglected, who wither on the vine in frustration and boredom. Mr. Franke would like to see a return from mediocrity, which is now the standard, back to the excellence which it once was. But his article is not all just pie in the sky, an airy-fairy repetition of what most pro- gressive educators have been saying. He has some practical suggestions, One of them is to cut the provincial governing apparatus in half. As he points out, a move of the government, in Ontario at least, '"'merely shifted its top civil servants into the newly-created positions of directors and superintendents. Their enormous sala- ries now come out of the pocket of the home-owners."" That argument has a hole in it, but he's on the right track. He claims that "a 75 per cent reduction in administrative jobs would not make the slightest dent in the 'quality' of education." And he adds that the wall-to-wall, air-condi- tioned - palaces of these administrators should be rented out to somebody who can afford them. Right on, Franke, baby. He suggests that boards of education are little more than a nuisance, that they have grown into small empires, that "schools should be run by schools, not by a bombastic outside apparatus." I'll buy that. There's so much paperwork involved that teachers will often give up on a good and valid project rather than wade through it. He thinks teachers and principals should be carefully examined before they are hired, and should be ruthlessly fired when they don't do an excellent job. Fair enough. Industry does it. Most teachers and principals give it their best shot, but they might give a little more if they were less secure. Mr. Franke would eliminate faculties of education. He says the universities should be the judges of those who have mastered their subject. I don't agree there. Universities are far too impersonal to know a brilliant academic who would make a lousy teacher, from, a less-brilliant type who would make a fine one. But he has a good idea for training teachers. After doing away with teachers' colleges, he would select young teachers from among the best university graduates, put them in a school on nominal pay for a year, with half a teaching load. This would be an excellent training for the aspiring teacher, wouldn't cost a fortune, and would provide jobs. He feels the same about training students for specific industrial jobs. He thinks industry should train its own people as they do in Europe. Again, I must agree. A first-rate apprenticeship system would give Canada the large pool of skilled workers we don't have now, one of the factors that keeps us in the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water. He'd like to make it a privilege to go to school, not a duty. He doesn't say what he'd do with all the thousands who don't want to go. - The man isn't the only one crying in the wilderness for an improvement in our -sludgy, apathetic, bureaucratic educational system. Buf he says it trenchantly, and I hope he goes on yelling. y LJ