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EAI SE LN EA A TR AREANAREE YS AT 5 as a EE A a = iA EA DRC KOA AER mT ------ KER EERO > 3 a : SE wa Li editoriol comments Postal Strike The government should be commended for not giving in to the demands of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, even though the resulting strike is causing inconvenience to the public generally, and downright hardship for countless small businesses which depend on the mail service. This is the third postal strike in the past six years, and that's three too many as far as most Canadians are concerned. The time is overdue for the government to take the bull by the horns and do one of two things: make strikes by federal employees illegal, or turn the postal service over to private enterprise. The root of the current strike appears to be a union demand that employees be paid full salary during 17 weeks maternity leave. The union wants the post office to pay full salary during the first two weeks and then cover the difference for the next 15 weeks between the salary and standard Unemployment Insurance maternity benefits. Surely this is an unreasonable demand. Even though the amount of money involved is not a great sum, it could be costly if other public sector unions went after the same thing. Union leader Jean-Claude Parrot says the maternity benefits demand is a matter of principle. Well so is a reliable and efficient postal service which doesn't go around looking for reasons to go out on strike. - Most sensible Canadians, including those who believe strongly in organized;labour and the collec- tive agreement process, would agree that this postal strike is a disgrace. It is interesting that wages is not an issue in this strike. The CUPW members who now earn an average of $9.30 per hour, have been offered another 70 cents. They have also won the concession that no electronic surveillance machines be installed in post offices. Even the old song and dance about automation and job security does not seem to be front row centre in this dispute. No, it is the maternity issue, the demand for an extra statutory holiday on January 2nd, and four weeks vacation after five years rather than ten years service, that has left this country without mail service for the third time in six years. The Liberal government in Ottawa has had the gall to tack about $10 in federal taxes on the price of a barrel of oil in recent months (a move which is hurting the average Canadian) yet for some reason it lacks the guts to come to grips with the postal service. It's an intolerable situation and.one wonders just how much longer Canadians are going to stomach it. 0.8 vers 7 yyy Yee, L777 "ty, "Vn ND bn iin VW adsnrrrr) ~~ he, Ee 4 7 Yt, . ~h, .,, , 9% ? Oy Ltor Ys s ad Yr % 7 AWN NANNY BS L/ wy 7 S&S RE AN YN NN <5 2, Hh 5 Nan Bh NW Q HR ARN 7 == = Se 3 8 Ny | yu \N "7hars SOLAR ENERGY AND THE GOVERNMENT 15 SPENDING MILLIONS 70 ENCOURAGE IT!" £0) : = & > 7 Rud (id Verse 2 pu Smits: Sin NES RGR HE] NY TRY % HO A a AAR DN NR A, AR AAANARANN NE MEL IMRT NIN : MAR NY EE SANG swt NG oat Seen Cg YZ, % NON LS 7 7 A 7 NNN SRNR SS Ww EN 3) SITY vet Caution, Please Now that school is out for the summer, we would urge motorists to drive with extreme caution along Water Street in Port Perry. With Palmer Park, the beach, tennis courts and baseball fields on one side of the road, and an assortment of restaurants and shops on the other, there is an incredible amount of pedestrian traffic across Water Street, and many are young children. During the summer months, it is fair to say that Water Street is probably one of the busiest. in the entire community. The hazards are Increased due to cars parked along the lake side of the street. Please slow down. Summer would not be quite the same if a youngster was seriously injured or killed. And with the beach at Palmer Park getting its usual heavy use during these hot summer days, parents should keep an especially attentive eye on the very young tots as they splash about. Lake Scugog water is not clear as a mountain stream. A toddler who did go under might not be spotted in time. The residents of this community are blessed with virtually unlimited recreation facilities, and visitors seem to find the place pretty attractive as well. Most tragedies are preventable. Enjoy the summer, but a little caution, please, no matter what you are doing. EDUCATION STALEMATE curriculum. How can you compress a -- 'In thirty plus years as an editor, a parent, and a teacher, I have been inundated (though not quite drowned) by several waves of self-styled 'reform' of our educa- tion system, especially that of Ontario. Each wave has washed away some of the basic values in our system and left behind a heap of detritus, from which teachers and students eventually emerge, gasping for a breath of cleanair. Most of the "massive" reforms in our system are borrowed from the U.S., after thirty or forty years of testing there have proven them dubious, if not worthless. We have borrowed from the pragmatist, John Dewey, an American, who had some good ideas, but tried to put them into mass production, an endearing but not necessarily noble trait of our cousins below the border. Wehavetried the ridiculous, "See, Jane. See Spot run. Spot, see Jane vomit," sort of thing which completely ignores the child's demand for heroes and witches and shining maidens, and tkings that go bump in the night. Wehave tried "teaching the whole child", a process in which the teacher becomes father/mother, uncle/aunt, grandfather/ grandma, psychiatrist, buddy, confidant, and football tokick around, while the kid does what he/she dam-well-pleases. And we won- der about teacher "burn-out." . We have tried a system in which the children choose from a sort of Pandora's box what subjects they would like to take, and giving them a credit for each subject to which they are '"'exposed," whether or not they havelearned anything init. bill smiley That was a bit of a disaster. Kids, like adults, chose the things that were "fun," that were "easy," that didn't have exams, that allowed them to express their individuality. New courses were introduced with the rapidity of rabbits breeding. A kid who was confident that he would be a great brain surgeon took everything from basket- weaving to bird-watching because they were fun. And suddenly, at about the age of seven- teen, he/she discqvered that it was necessary to know some science, mathematics, Latin, History, and English to become 'a brain surgeon (or a novelist, or a playwriter, or an engineer, etc.) There are very few jobs open in basket- weaving and bird-watching or World Religions or another couple of dozen I could name, but won't, for fear of being beaten to death by a tizzy of teachers the day this column appears. The universities, those sacronsanct in- stitutions, where the truth shall make you free, went along with the Great Deception. They lowered their standards, in a desparate scramble for live bodies. They competed for students will all the grace of merchants inan Armenianbazaar. Another swing of the pendulum. Parents discovered that their kids knew something about a lot of things, but not much about anything. They got mad. The universitites, a little red in the face, suddenly and virtuously announced that many high school graduates were illiterate, which was a lot of crap.. They were the people who decided that a second language was not necessary. They were the people who accepted students with a mark of 50 in English, which means the kid actually failed, but his teacher gave him a credit. Nobody, inthe new system, really failed. If they mastered just less than half the work, got a 48 per cent, they were raised to 50, If they flunked every subject they took, they were transferred to another "level," where they could succeed, and even excell. The latest of these politically-inspired, slovenly-researched reforms in Ontario is called SERP, and it sounds just like, and is justlike NERD. Reading its contents carefully, one comes to the conclusion that if Serp is accep- ted, the result will be a great leveller. Out of oneside of its mouth it suggest that education be compressed, but abandoning of Grade 13, and out of the other side, that education be expanded by adding a lot of new things to the something and expand it at the same time? Only a commission on education could even suggestsucha thing. There will be lots of money for 'Special Education" in the new plan. There will be less money for excellence. Special Education is education jargon for teaching. stupid kids. Bright kids are looked down upon as an "elite" group, and they should be putintheir place. The universities would 'enjoy seeing Grade 13 disappear. That would mean they'd have a warm body for four years, at a cost to the student of about $4,000 a year, instead of three. I am not an old fogey. I am not a reac- tionary. I believe in change. Anthing that does not change becomes stagnant or dies. Ideas that refuse to change become dessicated. I'am not against spending lots of money toteachstupidkids, or emotionally disturbed kids. But I am squarely against any move toward squelching the brightest and best of our youth, and sending off to university people who are in that extremely vulnerable stage of half-adolescent, half-adult, and tur- fing them into classes of 200 or 300, where they are no more than a cypher on the books of aso-called hall of learning. And I have the proof right before me; in the form of several brilliant essays by Grade 13 students, better than anything I ever wrote, who have had a chance to come to terms with themselves and with life, in a small class, with a teacher who knows, likes, and encourages them, rather than a remote figure on a podium.