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p weekenbfersafokbavbtcemeri 997 st saturday december 13 1997 vol 13 no 50 the tribune send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial getting better results if parents have new concerns about their childrens education in light of recent grade 3 testing statistics theres one thing you can do to improve the quality of education at your local school get involved becoming active in your childs education is the simplest most significant thing you can do to improve his or her educa tion experience if the parents of each and every student were to get more involved in their education the entire schools per formance would improve not every parent can or should start volunteering every day in their childs school there are simple things parents can do at home to support their childs learning efforts one of the most obvious involves the key to all learning reading if children spent more time actively involved with books instead of passively sitting in front of the television their read ing and writing skills would definitely improve parents of children as young as kindergarten age can read to their children every night buy books as presents on special occasions and set good examples themselves by reading news papers magazines and books parents of successful students know what homework their children are doing each night help them when they need sup port or resources but resist doing homework for them whether parents simply rehearse spelling words each morn ing or take an interest in the drawing or assignment their child brings home each afternoon they can make a critical differ ence in their childs education if youre not pleased by how your childs school ranks against others you can start making improvements in your own home eddie shack a star of oxymoron game you ever play the oxymoron game its fun my dictionary defines oxymoron as a combination of contradictory or incongruous words there are a lot of natural oxymorons in the lan guage such as bittersweet and deafening silence but its fun to make up your own oxymorons such as airline food government promise and civil ser vant how about police reports that list stolen goods that were found miss ing zombies described as the liv ing dead a computer manual enti tled advanced basic those arent bad but ive got one thats better its better because its brand new and perhaps even com ing to a town near you its an eddie shack book i should explain to youngsters in the audience that eddie shack is an ancient canadian he goes all the way back to the time when canada had a game called hockey played by men who got paid not much more than the average working stiff down at the meat packing plant there were only six elite teams then and eddie shack played for two of them the new york rangers and more famously the toronto maple leafs as a player shack was urn enthu siastic he wasnt a great stickhan- dler or skater or scorer but you always knew when shack was on the ice he tended to run into things mostly opposing players the knock on shack was that he was a buffoon a big goofy lollop ing clown with a huge bugle of a nose a loud braying laugh and well not much in the way of gray matter holding his jug ears apart they said that shack was dumb as a goalpost so dumb he couldnt even write his own name it wasnt true actually shack him self was responsible for the rumour when he first became popular as a basic black arthur black hockey player he quickly tired of signing his name for endless streams of autograph hounds so he had a rubber stamp of his signature made up eddie figured the rubber stamp would save him time all it did was bring him grief pretty soon the word got around that shack could neither read nor write even players on rival teams took to taunting shack for his stupidity as usual the rest of the world was underestimating the shackstcr once in a game against the boston bruins shack was weathering a vicious ribbing about his supposed illiteracy from the bruins bench teacher pension plan the real issue dear editor i recently watched the ontario leg islatures debate of bill 1 60 on the par liamentary channel and the mpp for scarborough west jim brown whose wife is a teacher brought forward information about ontarios education system that has received little public scrutiny brown raised the issue of teachers unions complaints of underfunding of ontarios education system and point ed out that ontario teachers have the richest most lucrative pension plan in north america a fund that owns a major share of maple leaf gardens 46 per cent of the sun newspaper letter chain and myriad other investments brown pointed out that because of a deal arranged with ndp premier bob rae the government read hard- pressed taxpayers was committed to paying 8 billion dollars above its reg ular contribution into the teachers plan over the next 22 years that means we taxpayers arc this year contributing 11 billion into a fund with a 18 billion surplus pro jected to be a 810 billion surplus next year in other words almost 10 per cent of the education budget of 14 billion goes into a very rich teacher pension fund and teachers unions have the gall to complain about an underfunded education system i hope with all the rhetoric about education underfunding that parents and others might ask teacher union reps how they can justify draining this kind of tax money out of the system while they moan about underfunding and at the same time have a huge growing surplus in their pension fund it strikes me that honesty and the interests of students have taken a back scat to sclfiritcrcst donn ml fowler cd late in the third period shack inter cepted a pass powered in from the blue line and blasted a shot between the bruins goalies legs shack skated straight over to the bruins bench stopped in a shower of ice chips and chanted goal spelled goal not that eddie would ever be mis taken for a shakespearian scholar when he showed up at our local bookstore to sign copies of his new book actually its an as told to written by ross brewitt shack held up a copy and deadpanned i havent read it but a lot of people who have say its quite funny our paths had crossed before i remember sitting beside eddie at a lobster banquet in prince edward island years ago thats the image of the guy ill always remember a big lug in a cow boy stetson beside me tucking into his lobster as enthusiastically as he used to body check incoming for wards and lobster juice and butter running down his big thick fingers onto the huge stanley cup rings he wears a lot of people forget that shack played on four stanley cup teams during his nhl career just like they forget that hes made a very comfortable life for himself since his retirement doing commer cials for razors and garbage bags and motels he has also owned a chain of donut shops a bar called hillbilly shacks and an entire golf course on the out skirts of toronto and now hes on the book tour circuit along with margaret atvvood peter gzowski carol shields and nino ricci dumb oh yeah to coin an oxy moron dumb like a fox stouffville tribune weekender a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 9056402100 retail sales 9056402100 classifieds 9056402874 distribution 9056402100 fax 905 6405477 email thetribistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 the stouffvihc tribune pub lished every tuesday thursday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distribution group of commu nity newspapers which includes ajaxplckcring news advertiser alhslon hcramcourjor barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparent coiiingwoodwasaga beach con nection east york mirror etobi coke guardian georgetown inde pendentacton free press 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