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Page 4, News, Wednesday, April 27, 1988 TERRACE BAY SCHREIBER ~ The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, POT-2WO. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. Second Class Mailing Permit Number 0867 Single copies 40 cents Subscription rates per year in town $15.00/yr. two years $25 out of town $21.00/yr. Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The EGUtOM ....ceecssessccccsscersssoeesssncsnsneesssseessnnsnsneneanseeenerens Greg Huneault Manager/AdVertising........sssssssesssssreresecerenesnsesennenats Paul Marcon OFFICE .....ceesecssessecereeceeneensnenenensenesereeseaesenanananatsesanaees Gayle Fournier lan PLOCUCTION ...-case--sesccnnccsestssssessssorsssnerstecnsssncerescosees Saila Leinonen Association Canadian Community Newspapers Dare to dream, but keep a grip on reality Last week, the local schools celebrated Education Week with this year's theme "Dare to Dream". One message the students hopefully understood is: If you want to get anywhere today, you MUST have an education." Unfortunately, too many people still believe you can become the presi- dent of a company if you work hard despite having having left school somewhere during Grade 10 or 11. Wake up! Parents must realize that things are a world away from when they left school 30, 20 or even 10 years ago and had a choice of jobs from which to choose. There are more adults returning to school then ever before, which should be an indication of how things are today. Today even a college or university degree is no ticket to the secure and cushy life we all would like. Engineers from Kimberly-Clark were on hand during career day to talk about prospects in the diverse fields of engineering, and spoke of how the outlook for jobs appears good. But they also did a commendable job of stressing how important it is to obtain a good education . Across the hall in a classroom with 23 students -- some there looking to learn a few things and some there because they had to be there -- Mr. Webb of Kimberly-Clark told them that the minimum education require- ment is Grade 12. Anything less than that, said Webb, and "you may not be employable." It's not enough anymore to think a job will be waiting when one feels like dropping out of school. Sure, there may be something that gives enough of a salary to buy a few necessities, but what happens if there is nothing more. If there is no chance to learn more, to challenge yourself, to have an opportunity to advance and to realize that you play an important part within the context of your job, then there is nothing. If there is nothing to dream for, then you don't dream. That is why it is important to understand what an education can do. You have to realize what opportunities there are, and set goals and dreams accordingly. Many respected educators feel that this is the basic flaw of the educa- tion system in North America. Technology has changed the way we live and work, but educational values are still tied to a time when school was arranged around the harvest. Summer was a time when children had to help with doing chores and planting and harvesting crops; therefore, the school year was held from September to June. It still is. = In the statement of the 1987 Ontario Budget, the title of the section on education is entitled 'A Responsive Education System.' That is the funda- mental problem. Rather than continually responding to changes, the insti- tution of education ought to be set up to initiate and thereby control change.. Since it is presently not, it is imperative to understand how changes will affect you and your children. Dare to dream, but keep a grip on reality. Letters to the editor Our teachers should be commended Dear Editor: With Education Week taking place in our province from April 17-23, it seems only fitting that we should salute those who are often taken for granted or go unnoticed in our education system, those who educate our children....the teachers. These individuals. who dedicate their lives to educating our young should be commended for all they do. Often they provide more than their positions call for. They are our children's friends and mentors edu- cating them in life as well as the three R's. They bandage scraped knees, play referee to disagreements among the kids, heal disappointed souls with encouragement, often see "Driving" on page 5 Have a beef? Don't like some turkey's opinion? Don't be a chicken. Wnite a letter to the editor today. Please include your name. Give others some food for thought. The They said you was high class That was just a lie... supposed to say this about anoth- ler columnist, but I'm kinda fond lof Jeff Greenfield. Jeff's an American who scribbles political pensees for a number of newspa- pers on both sides of the border. I like him because he's come up with the only original idea I've heard in that whole annoying third-rate road show known as the U.S. Presidential Primaries. Greenfield finds the Primaries annoying too -- not to mention trite, predictable, shallow and banal. But he does not blame the campaigners. He thinks they're just not being asked the right questions. Better, he says, we should ask them questions like: | I don't think one columnist is .When did you lose your tem- per -- and why? .What do you most regret doing in your life? .What has most impressed you about one of your oppo- nents? Pretty good questions alright, and it would be fun to watch the slow rise of panic in the eyes of a Bush or a Dukakis as he tried to Isnoole with them Rut Greenfield was SO provocative it drove the thought of stumbling politicos right out of my mind. "Name three songs" wrote Greenfield, "that compel you to stop and lis- ten no matter where you are or what you are doing." That's easy, I thought to myself. God Bless the Child by Billy Holiday. Can't Find My Way Home by Ellen McIlwaine and, said... Oh, for crying out loud -- You Ain't Nothin But a Hound Dog. It's true though. The moment someone cranks up that ancient, tinny-sounding, primitively recorded early Elvis number I will put down the coffee cup, park the car, stop the conversation -- do whatever it takes to hear those simple-minded lyrics one more time. I know why. too. It's because the song was an underground classic in my day. This was back just after the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel, when parents regarded Rock and Roll the way we feel about child pornography. As for the practi- cioners of the evil craft -- faugh! My parents would have sooner taken tea with Kadafi and Bible Study with the Ayatollah than let swivel-hipping, guitar-twanging nerverts like Elvis and Chuck But they came in anyway. If not through our televisions and radios then over the grapevine in the schoolyard and, inevitably, under the counter at the local record shop. xs Black I remember when I first laid eyes on a .45 recording of Hound Dog (You ain't nothin but a,) by Elvis Presley. My pal Tommy Farmer bought it with his paper Arthur home in a plain brown paper bag. Tommy was the guy who led us all into the paths of adolescent evil and perfidy, such as they were -- smoking punkweed, man- hunting each other with peashoot- ers, writing graffiti on the school walls after dark. It was fitting that Tommy Farmer should be the one to introduce us to rock and roll. e There were three or four of us, all pre-pubescent, all keening to hear we knew not what. But it wasn't easy. We needed to get the record player to ourselves, away from adult ears. Finally the magic day arrived. Tommy's mother was out of earshot, working in the garden, his father had disappeared for the afternoon. Like thieves we sneaked into the Farmer rec room, lifted the lid on the old Motorola Hi Fi, threaded the record onto the spindle, dropped the stylus down and cranked the volume knob as far to starboard as it would go. If what happened next were to happen to me today, I would probably call the cops, my MP and possible Amnesty International. The music was so loud you could feel it through your shoes. Conversation was Secret of the Brown Paper Bag each other and grinncd. We slapped our thighs to the beat. I was glorious. Well. to us it. was glorious. It was less glorious to Mister Farmer, who, it turns out, had been catching an afternoon nap in the bedroom directly above the Hi Fi. He appeared at the rec room door like Zeus coming down from Olympus. He asked, not kindly, just what the hell that ungodly noise was. And that's when I learned the most delicious secret of rock and roll: that it:was Not For Parents. For the first time in my life I had! something that was exhilarating, captivating and utterly unrespon- sive to adult supervision. Control?) Adults couldn't even understand it, much less throw a bridle on it! Which is why to this day, the crash of those opening chords to Hound Dog can transport me back to Tommy Farmer's rec room of 30-odd years ago. So that's how I would answer Jeff Greenfield music question. Now all I have to do is get myself a change of citizenship, a few campaign posters and I'm in the race for Oval Office. Hey, don't laugh. Against this year's competition, I just might|