A6 Terrace Review — Wednesday, September 5, 1990 : a ‘ : s. . - . Lo _ The first dominoes: - he manner in which the minds of children and young adults work is individual, unique and varied. Yet.at this time of the year all of them assemble in groups of 30 or more for 10 . months of learning established to serve a non-existent average. The — development of individual learning skills and the ability to think well is far from assured in the public education system. Classes in School District 88 opened yesterday, and this year there will be a different approach in the lower grades, a system without distinct grades and with different standards for success. It is the beginning of the vast educational experiment brought into being by the Royal Commission on Education. The outcome for students is far from certain and will not be apparent for years, but the odds for success are far better than the crapshoot most critics are trying 10 make it out to be. ‘In an objective review, there are substantial reasons for not feeling nostalgic about public education as it been delivered up to this point. Although the basics of mathematics and literacy must remain in the curriculum, no one should regret the disappearance of rote learning and memorizing of global and historic trivia that defeated many a “young mind with boredom and conferred virtually nothing on those ’ that succeeded in taking in and regurgitating back endless lists of virtually meaningless dates, names, places, terminology, esoterica and ephemeral trash. _ Kids should be taught how to think, how to use and develop their innate creativity to solve problems and establish a working relation- ship with the rest of the world, It sounds as though the concept of the Royal Commission changes is working in that direction. Rather than memorizing the national capital cities of the world at a time when even the map makers can’t be sure of names and boundaries from one month to the next, how much more useful it would be to under- stand the political and geographic reasons for the naming and loca- tions of capitals. Perhaps now there will be an emphasis on the refining of intellectual appetites rather than learning to tolerate mental force-feeding. Cooperative learning is another concept put forward by the Royal Commission that has come under fire, but that reaction could be viewed with a certain amount of validity as the response of parents whose standards of success are based on competitive performance. It’s a challenge to a system we all take for granted as being valuable, one that too often equates success with the number of hoops a well- trained seal can jump through. There is a certain value in knowing how to work the system; there is none whatever in accepting it as an absolute. The real discomfort that is being expressed about these changes may have to do with the realization that parents will have to take a more active role in their children’s education. School District 88 administrators have said there will be few noticeable changes in the classrooms this year. 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(qe tion No. 362775 and cannot legally be rapro- ~ VICTORIA — What I did on my summer vacation, class, was to take a bit of the “political pulse of British Col- umbians who live in the lower half of the province. Meandering through the Okanagan, the Kootenays, the Columbia River Valley, the In- terior and the Fraser Valley, I - chatted with coffee shop patrons, bartenders, waitresses, business people, gas station at- tendants and owners, politi- cians, golfers, and others. Your correspondent sounded them out primarily on the Bud Smith tapes affair, and also on whether or not they viewed Mike Harcourt and the New Democrats as indecisive chameleons. (The NDP report will be in this corner next week), I make no claim at all that my findings are an accurate portrait of the political climate in the province, but they are in- teresting, methinks. In Kamloops, Cuddly Bud- dly’s home riding, loyal So- creds hammered the NDP and justice critic Moe Sihota for their handling of the tape re- cordings of Smith’s ‘‘private’’ car radio-telephone calls — which forced the former attorney-general to resign in - July. But a number of Socreds I have known for 15 or 20 years acknowledged that they had lit- tle sympathy for Smith. They felt that the nudge- nudge, wink-wink rumblings about married-man Bud’s close personal relationship with former TV and radio reporter Margot Sinclair were far more damaging than the questions about Smith politicizing the A-G’s office. And that point of view was Fo MLE, ieee fe ‘—~