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the tkiblne thursday june 21 1973 established 18ss cliahlks i nolan publisher james thomas associate luwijirr and editor bobebt mccausland advertising director published every thursday by inland publishing co limited at 54 main st stouflvijle ont tel 6402101 toronto phone 3611680 single copies 15c subscriptions 600 per voar in canada 1500 elsearhere member of audit bureau of circulation canadian community newspapers association and ont ario weekly newspapers association second class mail registration number 08s6 editorial choosing the easy way out the announcement that the originators of so called new mathematics have come to the point where they admit that it doesnt work too well and possibly we should return to basic arithmetic cannot help but draw smiles from some of the older generation who have always believed that addition subtraction and multiplication were basic ontario liberal leader robert nixon has called the ontario school offerings a cafeteria of curriculum pablum suggesting that todays curriculum choices allow students to avoid basic subjects mr nixon a former science teacher himself said the province should insist that students study english arithmetic conversational french and canadian history anyone who has had the problem of trying to make sense out of some articles which reach the average newspaper office will agree with mr nixon it has always been a conundrum to many of us how a student can spend a year or two or more in a secondary school and still be at a loss when faced with the necessity of writing a sentence or punc tuating a paragraph its also a mystery that a student has the same trouble unless provided with an adding machine of adding or multiplying a few figures so called broadening subjects available to students can contribute to their well- being but only if he has first learned the basics there is little use in a communications course for the student who cant spell or doesnt recognize a sentence when he sees one the present generation is no different than others and students will be quite happy to select what appears to be the easier courses and avoid those that require some con centration the difference is that today you can get away with it we agree there is not much glamor in maths as compared to instrumental music or consumer education however a student who is required to master arithmetic and other basic subjects will in the years to come appreciate the fact he was not allowed to take the easy way out o tjd n o a charge for attending church oi4our4 buce of tftfjfjt oaf for the first time a period known as police week was proclaimed in the region of york the idea undoubtedly authorized by chief bruce crawford and endorsed by the com mission was meant to focus public attention on the work of the force and enhance the image of its members unfortunately what was accomplished during those seven days has been torn to shreds with the report out of regional council that 52 officers requested and received overtime pay for attending a church service organized in their honor on their week ray twinney outspoken regional councillor and police commissioner appeared tight- lipped and embarrassed when questioned by auroras mayor evelyn buck on the issue and no wonder embarrassed too should be the executive of the police association who we suggest must accept a degree of responsibility for conduct of this kind rather than approve additional pay the commission in our opinion would have been within its moral right to have admonished the individuals concerned and slapped them with a penalty sugar and spice spelling down the drain fair board criticism unfair according to reports filtering into this office a feeling of opposition is mounting over the likely sale of the markham fair site located on the southeast intersection of hwys 7 and 48 there are those who point to the scarcity of park property in the former village they suggest the land should be used for this purpose rather than residential or com- mericai development but who is to pay the price hardly the municipality at least not at todays inflated figures is the agricultural society then to give it away play santa claus and simply hand over the site to the town not likely since replacement property must be acquired in the immediate area we would suggest the board negotiate the sale of twentyfive acres and reserve the editors mail dear editor i wish to comment on a recent article published in the toronto star under the heading grade 13 literacy appals professor as robert hayes and jill conway both university professors stated the degree of illiteracy among high school graduates is appalling it is a deplorable state of affairs when students entering university have no knowledge of english grammar as a result of the dept of educations recent decision to abolish compulsory courses in high schools it is now possible to graduate without having studied english past grade 8 jeanne valentin trent university dear sir your editorial enthusiasm for the park way belt is hard to understand why should we be expected to get excited over a corridor a few hundred feet in width that will contain trunk hydro lines local utility lines the spine of a sewerage system highway 407 the main cn freight line and a maiton pickering airport transit system if that misguided airport were ever to be built must we cheer every time bill davis plans to pave a little more of ontario the toronto centre- regional plan of 1970 did propose a real green belt several miles wide that might have done toronto and us some good that went out of the window with the pickering airport proposal this parkway belt will no more provide seperation of metro and the municipalities to the north than highway 401 provides seperation of agincourt and scar borough nor will it have any recreational or open space value it will be a fume filled noisy tunnel recreationally suitable only for the reading of such development crazy publications as the tribune andrew j g patenall rri stouffville remainder five acres for recreational use to be purchased by the town in this way both sides would profit from the transaction the old town of markham it has been said has insufficient park land for its present population who is to blame certainly not the fair board then why should the executive feel responsible for baling the municipality out of its predicament it shouldnt however in the interest of continuing close cooperation the board might bend a little and seek a sawoff set tlement that would benefit the two parties concerned my views on education dont seem to upset the minister one whit he just goes around with his eyes shut droning that hypnotic chant the standards of education are not declining the standards of education are not declining the stan however my views do seem to strike a cord or a nerve or an open wound among a good many other people a recent column on education has at tracted more mail than anything ive written since i churned out sex and the editor that was when i was a weekly editor and it was a hot number i can tell you there were no leftover papers that week i know you want me to reprint it sorry im a school teacher now and as everyone knows except a lot of teachers school teachers must maintain the highest standards of morality sobriety and taste besides it was harmless just a device to sell papers when circulation was slumping a bit where was i oh yes letters about education following are some excerpts from letters received from ordinary readers if there are such creatures ive never yet met a by bill smiley iown sahics its sr citizens june 17 to 24 is sr citizens week in whitchurchstouffville and across on tario a program of events under the theme living is ageless concludes with a service of worship in parkview hume sunday here pam smusiak of the stouffville nursing home staff lakes martha basnctt for a stroll along shady- obrien avenue jim thomas person who considered himself ordinary and why shhould i were an extraordinary lot if you dont believe me take a good look at yourself then at your neighbors then at our leaders they may be a lot of riffraff but theres not one who is ordinary from a merchant you have stated 1 publicly what a great many of us think but our means of communication is not as wide as yours the mickey mouse and donald duck courses they have in high schools and so- called colleges now would be a big joke if they were not doing harm to our young people and were not so costly it would appear from the reports of the meetings that all is beautiful n education land and seldom is heard a discouraging word in our local brain factory thhe students seem to be running the sideshow from a mother we have seen the system deteriorate rapidly we have a son in last year law and one daughter in her last year universitiy who managed to be outstanding students who could read write and spell and didnt have wise and wonderful sex education in the school what has that brought us an epidemic of vd and related social problems she goes on another problem is too many working mothers womens lib will hate me one of our finest teachers told me he could tell in a week which children had mothers in the home and which ones had working mothers from an ex teacher i am one who was educated in the old way and used to love grammar class my daughter who is a grade 2 teacher says what terrible english the children use im sure that the high school students of today who are dropping their language courses are doing it because they dont have the basic english grammar from a minister let me put in a word for poor spellers teachers insist that spelling laws are like the laws of the medes and the persians unchanging unchangeable as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be so generation after generation we persist in foisting or is it foysting the spelling quirks of the middle ages unto our children its foisting but i agree from a teacher i do not wishh to needlessly send your blood pressure up another point but sorrow likes company and your may 24th article was welcomed in our school as a most timely and healthy coun terbalance to the irresponsible articles from the bland county board of education our board likes to be very avantgardc in the rush towards doomsday hey teach theres a split infinitive in your opening sentence well thats just a sampling cf the letters i dont agree with everything they say but im pleased there is evident concern about the quality of education and i dont plan to keep hacking away at the subject theres nothing duller than a farmer who can talk about nothing but far ming an editor who can talk about nothing but newspapers or a teacher who whines all the time about education its near the end of june and im too hot and tired to get excited about much of anything ive just crawled out from under an avalanche of 255 essays and short stories which i marked in my spare time and i have almost ceased to care how anybody spells anything and i must say that theres a trmendous interest in education during that last week or so guys and dolls who have spent ap proximately as much time this year on their school work as i have spent being i toqunp its in the book by jim thomas it was late saturday afternoon and i had just returned to the office to pack the camera away due to the hour i expected no business so left the front door unlocked but i was wrong for right behind me came a potential customer he indentified himself as a restaurant owner and explained that he wished to insert an advertisement in the help wanted section of the paper i want to hire a waitress he said full or parttime sorry i answered but you cant specify a waitress it must read waiterwaitress but i dont want a waiter the gentleman protested i want a waitress you know a girl a woman a lady not a man sorry i repeated but a change in the human rights code says i dont care what it says the man in terrupted impatiently its my restaurant and i know what i need a waitress a girl to wait on tables sorry i said again but were not allowed to discriminate wed be in serious trouble if we did and so would you you never mind ill look after me the gentleman replied growing hotter by the minute but wholl look after us i enquired moving a step back from the counter okay okay you win concluded the customer but ill tell you one thing our patrons are sure going to be shocked shocked what at i bravely enquired being served by a waiter in a miniskirt he answered walking out you know the guy had a point he knew what he wanted and for what purpose but yet he couldnt say it at least not in print so in fact the act is doing the very thing it attempts to stop others from doing discriminating of course there are exemptions but to qualify an employer must apply to the commission that at the snails pace of government motility would take maybe six months not to mention a couple of onsite inspections by the womens liberation league of ontario theyre interested in men too you know although none would ever admit it and where pray tell does an employer draw the line do girls drive coal trucks ive never seen one but i suppose they could can they operate bulldozers perhaps is there such a thing as a lumber jill maybe however while laws are stringently enforced in this regard theyre being flouted in other areas every day for example i pack five kids into a v8 ford the annual licence fee for the car that is is 40 my neighbor has two children and owns a pinto his licence costs only 25 thats discrimination i own a 5bedroom splitlevel house on a standardsize lot the taxes are 495 my neighbors house is a bungalow with 3 bedrooms his taxes are 465 that too is discrimination there oughta be a law millionaire have suddently lost all their apathy they come up to their teachers with the most appealing wistful smiles and wonder whether they are going to be recommended or whether theyll have to write the exams theyre pitiful and pathetic but theyll see that old smiley has a heart of solid steel or butter