PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE Second Class Mail Registration Number 5540 It was just about two years ago that a eommunityâ€"spirited individual swept into our office, touched by a story in the previous day‘s issue, and nominated four Waterloo youngâ€" sters for Ontario Junior Citizens of the Year awards. What most impressed the individual was the completely selfless actions of the four, who spent great time and energy to create a Haunted House Hallowe‘en attraction â€" with all proceeds pointed towards a worthwhile charity. 8 e n a% L Cl e ce g ie i _ P n t e l e is o 4 D Well, the judges were equally impressed as they selected the quartet of "good kids" OJC winners, a great honor not only for the youngsters, but also for this city and the Chronicle as participating newspaper in this most worthâ€" while program. Coâ€"ordinated by the Ontario Community Newspaper Association with CP Air as patron, the Junior Citizen program was inaugurated in 1981 and has honored 53 individuals and five groups, with the wholehearted endorseâ€" ment of Ontario Lieutenant Governor John Black Aird, without question the program‘s biggest booster. What makes an Outstanding Junior Citizen? Nominees must be residents of Ontario, individuals or groups aged 6 to 18 who have performed single or continuing acts of courage, shown ingenuity, resourcefulness, fortitude or selfless serâ€" vice. Without question, the four Waterloo lads chosen two years ago were worthy winners, even though they themselves admitted to being surprised at their nomination. It is true, a great many of their fellow award winners had remarkably overcome physical or psychological limitations, performed acts of heroism, or submitted eons of community service. But the beauty of the OJC program is that its sponsors recognize the value of our future generation, and are committed to recognizing "good kids‘ and their contribuâ€" tions. In that respect, the four local youngsters eminently qualified, not only for their resourceful project, but for their selfless efforts to make our community a better place to live. Well, it is nomination time again, and as coâ€"ordinating vehicle, the Chronicle would like nothing better than to be able to forward a number of nominations from our city for judging consideration in early January. Awards are presented at OCNA‘s annual convention in Toronto in late February. A pnini not to be forgotten is that for each nomination there must be a nominator, someone who cares enough about their city to take the time to bring forth a candidate. Their interest is every bit as important as the contributions of the youngsters themselves. We‘ll do our part, too, by helping fill out nomination forms and support material. So get busy, Waterloo, thinking of someone who would make an outstanding Junior Citizen. Then contact this newspaper, and we‘ll all take it from there. Hopefully, right to the awards podium in Toronto. In addition to those in our community who display exemplary citizenship, we also have ample reason to be proud of the great number of outstanding young athletes from this city. Latest to grab centre stage is upâ€"andâ€"coming tennis star Jane Young, a steadilyâ€"developing player who two weeks ago became the first Twin City netter to ever win the Canadian women‘s championship, then followed it with a commendâ€" able first showing in the Player‘s Challenge tournament in Toronto where she trubbed elbows with the best in the busiâ€" ness. C Awestruck in the mere presence of stars like Evert Lloyd and Navratilova to say nothing of being in competition against the best women in the world, Jane acquitted herself superbly and we look forward to nothing but more good news and development from this latest rising star. _ Letters welcome Subsrtan Mewspapers of America Good Kids published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd., owner "ie . 225 Fairway Rd. S., Kitchener, Ont. Rising star address correspondence to Waterloo office: 45 Erb St. E., Waterloo, Ont. N2J 1L7, telephone 886â€"2830 Waterloo Chronicle office is located in the Haney, White Law Office Building (rear entrance, upper floor). Parking at the rear of the building. Open Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1985 Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges Editor: Rick Campbell established 1854 In thirty plus years as an editor, a parent, and a teacher, I have been inundated (though not quite drowned) by several waves of selfâ€"styled "reform" of our educational system, especially that of Ontario. â€" 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 clean air. 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. We have tried 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 things that go bump in the night. We have tried "teaching the whole child", a process in which theteacher becomes â€"fa ther/mother, uncle/aunt, grandl’alh({r/j‘grqnd ma, psychiatrist, buddy, confidant, and football to kick around, while the kid does what he/she damn well pleases. And we wonder 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 have learned anything in it 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 yexpress their individuality."‘ New courses were introduced with the rapidi ty of rabbits breeding. A kid who was confident that he would be a great brain surgeon took everything from basket weaving to birdâ€"watch ing because they were fun. And suddenly, at about the age of seventeen, heshe discovered that it was necessary to know some science, mathematics. Latin, history and English to become a brain surgeon (or a novelist, or a playwright. or an engineer, etc.). There are very few jobs open in basketâ€" weav ing and birdâ€"watching or World Religions or another couple of dozen 1 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 sacrosanct instituâ€" tions, where the truth shall make you free, went along with the Great Deception. They lowered their standards, in a desperate scramble for live bodies. They competed for students with all the grace of merchants in an Armenian bazaar. Stalemate Bill Smiley Syndicated columnist Another swing of the pendulum. Parents discovered that their kids know something about a lot of things, but not much about anything. They got mad. The universities, 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 credâ€" it. Nobody, in the 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 excel. The latest of these politicallyâ€"inspired, sloven lyâ€"researched reforms in Ontario is called SERP, and it sounds just like, and is just like NERD . Reading its contents carefully, one comes to the conclusion that if SERP is accepted, the result will be a great leveller. Out of one side of its mouth it suggests that education be com pressed, by abandoning Grade 13, and out of the other side, that education be expanded by adding a lot of new things to the curriculum How can you compress something and expand it at the same time? Only a commission on education could even suggest such a thing inere will be lots of money for "Special Education‘‘ in the new plan. There will be less money for excellence. Special Education is educational jargon for teaching stupid kids Bright kids are looked down upon as an Yelite" group, and they should be put in their place. The universities would enjoy seeing Grade 13 disappear. That would mean they‘d have a warm body for four years, at a cost of about $4,000 a year, instead of three. _ I am not an old fogey. I am not a reactionary. I believe in change. Anything that does no! change becomes static, or dies. Ideas that refuse the change become dessicated. I am not against spending lots of money to teach stupid kids, 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 halfâ€"adoles cent, halfâ€"adulit, and turfing them into classes of 200 or 300, where they are no more than a cypher on the books of a soâ€"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 write, 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 at a podium.