THE WORLD CONGRESS IWY

WOMEN
AND |

IN THIS PERIOD OF CRISIS IN THE WESTERN WORLD
it is expected that education should be seriously affected.
For the last 10 years and more, such headlines have been
common in our newspapers and magazines: “If our kids
aren’t important, I’d like to know what is”; “Education for
which class?”; and “Who’s missing out in education?”

In 1974, after a three-and-a-half year study, Loren Lind in
his book, The Learning Machine: A Hard Look at Toronto
Schools, describes the self-destroying “Plan” of the former
minister of education of the Ontario government, now the
premier of the province. Speaking to the Royal Bank in
1964, he gave his dream of technocrat’s utopia:

“In 2064 each student must be taught above all to com-
municate with computers. With his. own, and through it,
with those of others . . . The teacher would be consulted
when necessary, either face to face or by telephone for
direct instructions not available in programs or tapes. But
the greatest innovation of all would come in the administra-
tion, organization and operation of education, in which
large and relatively united districts would be required.”

As one critic put it: “It may be that we in Toronto will
have a chance to survive the fate of so many large cities,
but only if we work out the full implications of turning

neighborhoods into full fledged communities . . . The first

step toward the true community is the rejection of techno-
cratic utopias . . . man does not exist for the glory of the
machine.”

EACH PROVINCE IS IN CHARGE of its own education
system with little aid from the federal government.

In this regard a very important and interesting study was

put out for teachers in 1972 by the Quebec Teachers’ Cor-_

poration: Our Schools Serve the Ruling CJass. It is up to
we teachers to discover the real task of the teachers. To
see our problem clearly, to clarify the interests, and to
merge with those of other workers. To ally ourselves
with them so that together we can begin to build a better
balanced society. Schools are a reflection of capitalist
society. In the current stage of capitalist development,
decision making is centralized in the hands of a few great
monopolies.

-EACH DAY THE SCHOOLS support the belief that the

current social order is natural, as though exploitation were
natural. It is in the work environment that the contradic-
tions of the system are clear. The work place of the teacher
is the school. It is one of the essential mechanisms in main-
taining and perpetuating the social relations of exploitation
and demination — the perpetuation of labor force adapted
to the need of the capitalists, an abundant, skilled and
docile labor force. Because the school is a privileged place
for the reproduction of social relations, teachers must lead
the struggle there. :

The reality of schools is that workers’ childrén massively
are behind in reading skills. Nearly twice as many girls as
boys drop out at the end of secondary schools. Very early
in elementary schools division is made between those who
will pursue higher education and those who will soon drop
out to enter the labor force. The University of Quebec in
Montreal, recruits only 16% of its students from the work-
ing class. The contradiction is flagrant. The school is not
what it says it is. We do not reproach the schools with
training workers but with perpetuating society’s inter-
class exploitation.

IN RECENT YEARS teachers have abandoned professional
agreements for union struggles. We have taken part in
demonstrations of solidarity at the same time. It is neces-
sary to know clearly who we are fighting against and why
we are struggling. To discover the real task of the teacher,
our duty as educators is to align ourselves squarely with
the other salaried workers and together struggle to build a
collective instrument of education which responds effec-
tively to our concern and real interest. We must struggle:

1) Against all schools’ reinforcing existing social relations.
Against repression of genuine students’ problems. Against
paternalism toward children from under-privileged back-
ground. Against inferiority of vocational ttaining, and
inferior status of women.

2) We must struggle for the right of students’ freedom of
speech and action, for the right of teachers to express their
social and political opinions. For control of schools by
those who have an interest for them — students, teachers,
office workers and parents. We must struggle for collabora-
tion of teachers with all workers to define a new type of
school adapted to the real needs of the working people.

EDUCATION

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 3, 1975—Page 4

Editorial Comment... |

End profiteering—build housing!

_ Housing is one of the key and crucial
issues before Canadians today. While
the working people, the unemployed,
the’ elderly, the sole support parents
and countless other “categories” are
expected to subsist on newspaper prat-
tle and excuses, governments make a
farce of doing something about the
problem — and the land sharks and
trust company landlords continue to
make a killing.

_ We are all too familiar with the prac-
tice of big business governments of

_ “talking” for the electorate. We are

familiar with their expressions of con-
cern for working people while doing
what benefits the profiteers.

Shelter, once considered an essential.
of civilized society, is how skyrocketed —

into the luxury class because the profit-
eering developers, the monopoly build-
ing materials corporations like Domtar,
the mortgage vultures, and their nu-

merous underlings grabbing for a bit °

of the spoils, are permitted by Ottawa
and the provincial governments to prey
on the rest of the population.

The organized power of the trade
union movement across Canada — the

' strongest voice the working people have

when it speaks from positions of united
strength — is a necessary part of the
battle for housing at costs workers can
afford. The Canadian Labor Congress,

appropriately, includes housing in its

urgent nine-point program.

The Communist Party advocates that
land grabbed by the profiteering devel-
opers be taken back at cost by public
authority to provide low-cost housing
— housing as a public utility. Commu-
nists demand rent controls to protect
tenants from the rent robbery now go-
ing on. Communists point out the job-
creating quality of a genuine housing

sectors of the economy.

program, which permeates dozens of |

There. are some potent ideas on the |
table. The thing is to pressure govern- |
ments, as they have never been pressur- |
ed before, to meet their responsibility |
for housing.

It is time to sort out and-get at the
financial, real-estate and industrial cor- |
porations who are the bandits of the |
housing business. It is time to dislodge |
the profiteers and house the people.

Cut ties with Spain!

Eleven states, who could not sto- |
mach the actions of fascist Spain no-
longer, have quickly withdrawn their
ambassadors in the wake of the Sept. 27
murders of patriots.

What of Canada? To go on dealing |
with Franco Spain is to support the |
hell of fascist prisons, tortures, firing —
squads, the garotte, the oppression of |
yet ae See young generation of Span- |
iards. ‘Ss

What of Canada — Canada which |
voted with the USA in the recent |
NATO political meeting, to extend the |
hand of welcome to Spain, while the
majority of NATO powers resolved to |
keep the Franco fascists out?

When the youth of Spain dare to de- |
mand labor organizations, political —
rights, the rights of the Basques, and |
the bare essentials of democracy so |
long denied them, is Canada to be one of | |
the countries to embrace their fascist |
oppressors?

Every decent Canadian should tell
Trudeau and his government to stop |
consorting with the fascist killers of
Spanish youth—cut all ties with Spain!

———

Proposals that aid disarmament |

The Soviet Union has taken two mo- |
mentousg initiatives at the United Na- -

tions — initiatives dedicated to disar-
mament and to peaceful co-existence of
the opposing world systems.

First, Soviet Foreign Minister An-
drei Gromyko sent a letter, Sept. 11, to
UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim,
asking for a new item on the agenda,
a draft treaty for “the complete and
universal banning of nuclear weapons
tests.” ;

(In Geneva, at the same time, nego-
tiations were going ahead for a joint
Soviet-American draft convention ban-
ning environmental and climactic modi-
fication for military and other purposes
incompatible with the interests of inter-
national security, human health and
welfare.)

The second Soviet initiative, in keep-
ing with the best interests of people
everywhere, was put before the 30th
UN General Assembly on Sept. 23. It
is a proposal for an _ international
treaty barring the development and
manufacture of new weapons of mass
destruction.

The proposals will be welcomed by
millions of people who not only desire
world peace, but realize the extent of
the costly. squandering of the economy

or the weapons game. Millions live on
the brink of starvation. Millions more —
in poverty, including people in Canada —
and the USA, millions more lead a hand —
to-mouth existence paying for those
luxuries of capitalism: food, shelter;

heating, clothing, education and trans~ —

portation.
One would expect at least readiness
to study the rather detailed drafts for
these two treaties proposed by the
USSR. as
But such capitalist poison sheets aS |.
the Toronto Star pretend to see in it |
a plot. What plot? A plot to have peace |
— and bring to an end the super-profits |
built on blood and suffering. a

What do the defenders of the arms |
ghouls say? For example: “The annual
effort to appear to be at the forefront —
of world disarmament is seen by West- —
erners here (at United Nations) as 2 —
propaganda ploy.” S

A propaganda ploy! a

While the workers of Canada have to —
fight for raises in pay in order to pay —
$3-billion a year into armaments — aS |
dictated to Ottawa by the U.S. Penta
gon and the NATO generals — we are

asked to swallow the swill that a dis

armament plan is a Soviet trick.

ee!
=