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i SER NON Ee a Ni ae eg AAI SER A LS 3% - 2 te ) SER, Kx] Da ot FAR 3 vw Eo ENA wi 2 YD Rr AS SEN a od Don't Forget To Duck Space experts are now saying with a fair degree of certainty that July 11 is the big day (or maybe it's July 12). - Anyway, sometime within these two days, one of man's crowning scientific feats will come back to earth in red-hot chunks that could weigh as much as two tons. . Skylab will re-enter the earth's atmosphere and as it breaks up and heats up, debris will fall on a 4,000 mile swath, including some rather heavily populated areas of North America. But not to worry. Those same experts who still aren't sure exactly when or where the pieces will hit; those same experts who programmed the Space Machine to come back to earth in this fashion, also say that the chances of somebody getting clunked on the head are several billion to one (Several billion what). Speaking at a gathering of scientific minds, recently, the president of one of America's most prestigious scientific associations said quite rightly that the debacle over Skylab has raised public suspicions about science in general, and more to the point about whether man is using his considerable talents for the right reasons and the right ends. While the chance of somebody being hurt or injured by a piece of falling Skylab is probably remote (as the experts say) the fact that there is even a chance that a hospital or playground might be hit, is inexcusable. The return of Skylab has spawned a fairly healthy cottage industry for such things as specially- made hard-hats, giant targets for your back yard, and even a potion of some kind which is guaranteed to keep the space junk away from your head. Newspapers in certain American cities are offering their readers large cash awards for. finding an authentic piece of Skylab. It seems odd that an element of frivolity could be- added to a situation which potentially is quite serious. But maybe thats the only way to look at this thing. . While hard-hats, back-yard targets and special - potions are fine, we would offer one further word of advice to anyone who happens to spot a white-hot chunk of Skylab hurling down from the heavens. 'Duck. CA 77 <E=8y vi % SS ; rH - oN AR Sx N RR SN ww ANNNNRRNNNNRNNNNY TD NSN Lee Z % Z RN RR TT EAN ATR Sa Srv ERR AAMT AMR RR OR << SS aS 7) A 3 N\ N NA piste "i NN R Ne 5 - Rr Loréa Luck, PAL! | 547 ON my BaTcy 50 LONG 17 TURNED JO VINEGAR Shameful Immigration Minister Ron Atkey suggested in a recent TV interview that the number of "Boat People' admitted to this country as refugees may ultimately be decided by the extent of the back-lash. In other words, the louder the hue and cry against admitting the Boat People, the number who actually find refuge in this country will be fewer. That's an incredible suggestion. There are a few noisy bahoos in Canada who will object to the admission of even one Asian refugee on the grounds' that we've got too much unemployment now, they'll put a drain on our resources, etc. The simple-minded arguments are nothing more than a smokescreen for racism. Canada, as do the other wealthy industrial countries of the west, has a moral obligation on the grounds of humanity. The bottom line is simple enough: people are dying and will continue to die unless they get help. If Canada doesn't reach out a large hand, who will? bill can barely tolerate. teacher. But I do enjoy teenagers, with their THE YEARS GO BY Each man and woman has a way of marking off the years. With some it's birthdays. With farmers it's getting the crops in. With fishermen it's hauling out the old tub for the winter, after the last catch. With golfers it's getting in one final round before the snow flies. And so on. With teachers, it's struggling through to the end of June without going around the bend. I've just made it for the nineteenth time, and, at time of writing, still have most of my marbles, though I can't say the same for some of my colleagues. They get queerer and queerer every year. But it is only with the silliest and most sentimental that the end of the school year brings tears, a felling of loss, a pang of sorrow. Most of us walk out at the end of June and never really care whether we ever re-enter the old sausage factory. At approximately the same time many mothers are giving a great sigh of resig- nation, looking fearfully at the summer ahead, when they'll have to cope with their kids twenty-four hours a day, most teachers are giving a mighty sigh of relief because they don't have to cope with those same kids smiley at all for two entire months. It's not that teachers dislike kids. Perhaps a few do, but they usually wind up in the looney-bin, or slashing their wrists in the bathtub. On the contrary, most teachers have a basic liking of young people and show them, often, more tolerance and understanding than the kids' own parents do. They'll bend over backwards to listen to problems, suggest solutions and try to motivate the youngsters. But there comes a point, a sort of sticking point, where even the most benevolent of teachers runs across a kid who would drive his own mother screaming up the wall. And often does. One of my younger colleagues is still nursing a cracked rib incurred after break- ing up a fight in the cafeteria and chasing one of the boys involved half a mile to the local park, all in the line of duty. He does not love and cherish that kid. Almost every year, when a teacher is in daily contact with approximately 180 teen- agers, with their sexual repressions, their hang-ups, their broken homes, their depres- sions, there are three or four kids he or she These few bad apples are what make teaching a very arduous profession. They are a daily source of irritation with their bad language, bad habits, and bad manners, But every job has its unpleasant aspects, and if you can't cope with a few rotten kids, you should get a job where you have a rotten boss or rotten customers, or rotten pay. We read recently of high schools in the big cities, where teaching has become some- thing like running the gauntlet of physical and verbal violence. This occurs not only in - "inner-city" schools, with" their masses of poor kids from broken homes and immi- grant kids disjointed by a different culture and language, but also from suburban middle-class schools whose students are over-privileged, also come from broken homes, have too much money, and are extremely materialistic, like their parents. They look on their teachers as something like an orange, to be sucked dry and thrown away, like the peel. , Not for me. I couldn't hack that. I'd quit. I'm no dedicated martyr. I don't want a punch-up with three druggies forty years younger. I don't want my tires slashed or my female staff assaulted. I am basically a _peaceable coward. Our school is not like that, and I guess that's why I've hung in here so long. When 1 started, I had offers to teach journalism at a community college, to do public relations work, to teach at a university. But I began to grow too fond of the teenagers and backed , away from these offers. I'm not I'm no Mr. Chips. I'm not a frea t curiosity, their sensitivity, their sense of humour, their developing selves, even their flashes of anger, and always their honesty. End of term comes, and even the little turkeys in Grade 9 who bedevilled you with their giggling or their yapping or their giddiness all year become lovable because you know they're gone for two months. And you get a nice tie from one shy little girl, and a nice card thrust through your letter-slot by another who has walked eight blocks to do it, and a muttered, "havea goodsummersir" from the worst spalpeen in the class, and it all makes some kind of sense. And at commencement night, you sudden- ly discover that those lumpy girls in levis and work boots, in jeans and sneakers, are really beautiful young women with bosoms and golden arms and flashing eyes. That those lazy, surly, unkempt louts you tried to pound some English into for ten months are elegant, witty, young men, with a shirt and tie on, who have twice the ease and poise and knowledge you had yourself at that age. . And then there's the ego thing. A guy lurches up to you in a bar and insists, eight _ times, that, "Youra bess teacher I ever had." I go down town in July to get a paper or buy some milk, get home three hours ater. Old lady sore as a boil. "Where in the 'world have you been?" Respond, "Ah, all the kids are home from university, and they want to tell me all about themselves, their problems, their love life." - It's a tough life, but it has its points.