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With jobs vanishing, there is little chance of promotion for the young person who wants to rise in the profession. The others, who don't give a diddle about being a department head or a vice-principal, but like to eat and couldn't make a living at anything else, are clinging grimly to their jobs, looking over their shoulders to see where they stand on the seniority list, and lying awake nights thinking about the dread statement, “You have become surplus" This land was "sold" by the Hooker Co. to the Board of Education of Niagara Falls for 81. A school and housing deve- lopment were built on top of this "time bomb". The Love Canal episode was just the tip of the iceberg. Becoming surplus these days is almost as bad as becomin- g pregnant used to be, for a woman teacher. For a man, it's LETTERS 'Ill-Il-ll-ll-ll-l-l-gill A critical situation Other dumps have been found to be equally as bad in Louisiana; Iowa, Tennessee, New Jersey, England, Mex- As a result, along with the pill and wives who want to work rather than procreate. enrolment in our schools is dropping rapidly. Many of those red-brick shoe factories built so lavishly and triumphantly by the government in the 50's are standing empty. Others echo hollowly. only half- filled. A direct result of this, along with the stupidity of the go- vernment, has made a teaching profession a very hairy one. Those who chose it as a career are almost stopped in their tracks. Tragically these wastes were often care- lessly dumped. By the ton these wastes were packaged in 55 gallon drums and cast into Mr. Love's canal. From the 1920's through 1953 Hooker Chemical Com- pany admitted dumping 21.800 tons in the Love Canal and so did the US. Army. First, let's look at teaching. The post-w-ar baby boom. a natural phenomenon after four or five years of sex starva- tion, is long gone. Immigration has slowed to a trickle. People were delighted with new products‘creat- ed by chemicals. Our wardrobes, homes and cars became filled with nylons. rayons, cello. phanes and plastics. New "miracle" pes- tic1des and man-made fertilizers multiplied our food. Scientists were then praised for "creat- ing new things that na- ture forgot." But mil- lions of gallons of chemi- cal waste came with these "things" It's a rotten November day and I have a rotten, unshaka- ble cold, so I think I'll have a few words about what is rotten in the _stettof, edycatom And there's plenty. Well, the presidential election, the constitution, and the dog-fight over energy have been thoroughly probed and massaged and turned upside down and inside out by the media. So what's a poor weekly columnist have to turn to that hasn't been beaten to death? "Better things for bet- ter living through che- mistry" was a slogan that was heralded In the 1930's However, little did anyone suspect these "better things" would create an environmental F rankenstein's monster. BILL SMILEY There is one aspect of working in Downtown Waterloo that IS par- ticularly frustrating. And that is the way in which the city govern- ment feels it must give downtown workers and shoppers parking tick- In the last month or so, our friends the meter maids have even begun double ticketing cars, Here we are, em- ployees and in many cases, owners of com- panies located in a struggling downtown area - an area which has been neglected and allowed to degenerate by the city - an area which is supposedly con- scious of attracting new business. Frustrations of downtown parking loo. Japan and Canada. I note that every mm ute 152.700 pounds (69,260 kg) of deadly chemical wastes are produced by American industries alone and less than ooe-tenth are pro perly disposed of, So the chance that some of this flood of poison entering your life ls very real, Dioxin from these che- micals is so poisonous Here we have a city eager to spend thou- sands of dollars on stu- dying ways to improve The simple fact is, the city of Waterloo is mah- ing a big, mistake by their liberal issuing of parking tickets. It is an unfair, inappropriate and just plain foolish po- licy. its downtown. but unable to recognize the harm It is doing by penalizing people for working and even shopping in it. What a pleasant sur- prise to shop in down, town Waterloo and come out two hours and fifteen minutes later to find a parking ticket on your windshield! Is there any justification for this? Does a shopper or worker have any choice? No! - because there is very limited metered parking, and it is always full. "that three ouncestm g) In New York's water supply would wipe out the entire city ., Is there a satisfying answer to this critical situation? Yes! And It IS found In Matthew " 3, Psalm 37HO..ii-29 and Rev, “:18, Richard Hendershot Waterloo Westmount RAN Waterloo Ask a principal. It's almost as difficult to fire a teacher as it is to fire a postal worker. As a result, and I don't care if they keel-haul me for saying this, the profession is riddled with teachers who are incompetent, emotionally or mental.. ly. But it would require a Hercules to clean out this par" ti ular Augean stable. And educational leaders are not er a‘chJy built along Herculean lines. More like Mickey Mouse, So what have we? Teaching staffs that ard getting smaller. older and scareder, Some atmosphere for great teaching. It's a vicious circle, arid partly to blame is the teachers' unions. bong without rjuch political clout, they now have quite a bit, and because of the past, they have an obsession with security, Problems m our school system I can think at the moment of three young women, gradua- tes of University of Toronto's Faculty of Education. Each has an honor degree. One is teaching in Newfie, another in the interior of B.C., and the third at an end-of-rail village in Northern Ontario. Ten or twelve years ago, these bright girls would have been beating off hot-breathing principals who wanted to hire them sight unseen And yet, the government still churns out dedicated young teachers who will face nothing but heart-break and frustra, tion. as they try to get a job. even worse, if he has a family. a mortgage. car payments, and is near the bottom of the list. For the young teacher, emerging from teachers' college, it's a nightmare. There's a solid line of older teachers. hold- ing hands, to hurl back anyone who wants to get into the charmed circle. The UW media man writes "the only pop at- traction at the moment is the Waterloo market. which is in danger of choking itself off, Norm Socha's gallery is outstanding, the universities and some of their small museums are fair, but appeal to a much smaller audience." "Mtitton feels the answer may be developing plans for a museum, performing arts festival. super recreation complex, "or whatever." He pointed in his letter to a study by a tourism consultant. which indicates that Waterloo is at the bottom of the list in Ontario in terms of the money spent in ratio to the number of people who visit the city. Bob Whitton, manager of the news bureau for the University of Waterloo, has come up With some good food for thought for the tourism com- mittee of the Waterloo Chamber of Commerce Whitton, who 'serves as a member of the com- mittee, recently wrote his thoughts about the city's attractions, or lack thereof", In a letter to the committee. considered at Its Nov. M meeting, Whitton writes “I have a continuing concern that there isn't much at the moment within the confines of the City of Waterloo to promote, Maybe there never will be! Or maybe rm wrong and there's a lot already," In an interview last week, he said the same study showed a visitor to Waterloo spends an average of $26 a visit, while one to Kingston spends double that and visitors to Toronto spend an average of $80 a visit. “Theré should be more things to hold them here," he said. In a nutshell, Whitton seems to be saying there isn't a heck of a lot to promote in Waterloo in the way of tourist or visitor attractions. The study, according to Whitton, indicates "they (the visitors; don't stay around. because there's nothing for them to see. What does Waterloo have to offer visitors? WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER to, moo - PAGE , PHILIP JALSEVAC From this comes vandalism, retreat into dope or booze and all the rest of the sad story. Some mess, eh? ICs enough to kill off many a good teacher in his/her prime. Thank goodness Um an excellent teacher, and not one of my students is like those described, Otherwise. you wouldn't see my tail for dust. They have almost nohnowledée of the Bibiedot basic human virtues. of ordinary courtesy, but base everything on the two dimensional teaching of television. Those are the older students. The younger ones, again in many, many cases, have not the slightest idea of good man- ners, co-operation, or self-discipline. They are boisterous. unruly, mouthy, foul-tongued and generally obstreperous. That would open the sluice for fresh blood, young ideas and new enthusiasm. It would be a real shot of adrenalin for education. Solution? Dangle a couple of years' salary in front of everybody over fifty-five who would retire voluntarily. and accept a smaller pension. Many who are hanging on by their toe-nails. emotionally, would leap at it. But they're not giving the best. either. Many. many stu- dents are clinging to school as desperately as their teachers are. They know it's a cold, indifferent world out there. Thus, with either a good allowance from parents, or a weekend job that produces plenty of spending money, school is a place to stay warm, be with friends. and not have to get out of the nest. Now we come to the students. They are not getting the best. because of the suggestions I've presented: tired old blood teaching tired old courses in a tiring old way. Course, that's not the way things work, is it? Or, is it? I'm sure this parser would pay for the pizza and pepsi for an all-night session. It would save the thgusands of dollars it costs to go to the OMB. It's hard to figure out what gives in the dread- fully drawn-out "bus battle" between this city and Kitchener. _ Ymounk two councillors from both cities, or Morley and Marjorie could Just sit down and hammer something out. Minutes of the committee meeting say there was much discussion about Whitton's memo and chamber manager Jack Middlemass finally sug- gested members come up With ideas on promot- ing existing attractions or developing new ones Committee chairman Dave Sandrock wants the possibilities to then be outlined in a note to the mayor and consideration given to possible go- vemment grants If there are any worthwhile contributions, they'll be published in future columns here and provide further thought for the chamber's tourism committee, How about it? Put on those thinking caps and let me know what you think. Probably everyone but the people who want the bus service in Maple Heights are fed up with the issye and wish it would go away But every time either auncif moves, it seems to_rynuddyr the waters more. In other-words, Whitton may have provoked some earnest barn-storming on the part of com- mittee members. I'd be happy to hear from any readers who have ideas themselves about what can be done to pro- mote tourism and visitor attractions in Waterloo, As for other members of the tourism comnur. tee: Whitton/aid "they seemed to agree"