Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 30, 1983, Winnipeg, Manitoba Wifi Era must pm sufi was name win 66 and tettes Are to education articles hit your under standing of the Manitoba assessment program is to put it in a kind in the editorial test the school free March 22 you imply that the program is an annual test of Basic it is these assessments Are Given every three years in curricula areas such As Reading and Mattes and less frequently in other curricula such assessments do not occur Only at grades and As evidenced by the recent assessment of Art a grades and because the program began in Only writing has been tested twice and the final report of the second testing is not yet All students do not write these tests As the department of education re quires Only a 10 per cent random the decision to have All dents write such tests up to the school you seem to think that All students in All divisions have writ ten these tests and the results Are closeted away from Public such an accusation Given a reasonable de standing of the format and purpose of the assessment is Ludi the assessment program Vides data that leads to curricula and program it is not an evaluation device aimed at individual students or the article by Maureen Brosnahan in the same Issue is further evidence of the Sloppy journalism of the free press relative to the education in the space of several timely article your article learning disabled Field a free March 22 was both timely and parents should be concerned if the following Behaviours Are persistent in Early childhood in Early infancy there could be trouble with nursing and sucking or digesting Resis Tance to cuddling and body Lack of response to excessive response to trouble following movements with absence of creeping or delay in standing or walking and delay in learn ing to in preschool parents May be concerned when the child persistently shows inability to follow impulsive and uncontrolled excessive crying and disturbed sleep poor sense of uneven fear of swings and fre quent Falls and a tendency to bump into purposeless unusual quietness and excess Ive craving for sweets and a tendency to be More upset with people around than when language problems and a tendency to be fear climbing counters and roofs with no concerned parents Are encouraged to discuss these problems with their Pedi who is familiar with child development problems and the Community resources some Chil Dren with symptoms of attentional def i Cit disorder have been helped remarkably by diet modification elimination of food the together with the Childs May become the Childs advocate while working with the other professionals and available Community coordination of information and re commended remediation can be done by the paediatrician or the family phys my Winnipeg of bemoans the Lack of special classes for learning disabled children and then condemns the use of such classes As dumping she criticises educators for the failure to identify such students and then flails away at the negative effects of Label perhaps most irksome of All is the underlying theme of the latter supported by quotes by education mite ister Maureen that suggests school divisions Are receiving monies in the name of special yet have not developed adequate programs nor have been accountable for such expend each fall for the past three As a part of the requirements of the education support we pile and Forward to the minister a special needs plan for our school Sion that outlines our philosophical programs and child specific action plans for the coming Calendar we file a Mountain of documentary tort with the Public school finance Board that substantiates our expenditures in the special needs for the minister to suggest that we have never stopped to see what is done with it the Money says far More about the state of her department than it does about the level of special needs ser vices in school i would Welcome an Opportunity to enlighten your feature the min ister of education and anyone else who is interested As to the significant Progress made in our school division in special needs you might find in such a visit some temporary Relief from the optical problem so evident in your namely perimeter that causes you to generalize to All of Manitoba what you see in the myopic View from Carlton Colin Jamieson superintendent of schools Western school division 47 misperception received the editorial test the school system free March 22 was of particular interest to me As a Public school while the description of the shortcomings of the old departmental exams was somewhat to the i was taken Aback by some of the writ ers the suggestion that mul tips Choice tests Are always bad ignores the fact that considerable improvement in some types of these tests has occurred Over the in for the various answers to select from could reflect the kinds of errors students might make and thus even a wrong Choice would Tell the teacher what kind of remediation is the suggestion that it was thought important to let teachers do what they Felt like with the time previously used by teaching to the test ignores the More important desire by teachers to use the time to explore All the aspects of the provincial curriculum or to re mediate identified weaknesses already known through teacher made the writer surprised me with a num Ber of misperception about the provincial student assessment suggesting there is standardized province wide testing May Lead some to think that standardized tests where norms Are established to ensure that half the students fall below average Are what is used in this most provincial tests of this nature Are in fact which Means that specific skills Are selected for testing and then a judgment is made by a representative committee As to whether a sufficient level of accomplishment has been reached by the provincial Sample of As to the comment the Grea test secrecy surrounds the results of the provincial tests i note the Many preliminary and final reports of each assessment program sent to superintendents and boards since the program not Only have Lan arts and mathematics been co Vered but also science and the skills assessed Are More than just rudimentary ones As was reported in the there Are summary reports which the department provides for distribution to that is hardly sup pression of to Date the reports have presented Clear evidence that the general state of education in Manitoba is where areas of weakness Are Ridenti those concerned about the Quality of education can act to overcome these through renewed instructional Emp a increased or curricular Vaughn Wadelius the student Calls for More exams i read the editorial test the school free March 22 and i agree with your thoughts about the Way in which the Manitoba school system handles the students departmental examination i disagree with one statement in the you there is no important evidence that students need a whole lot More testing or More uniform testing than they Are getting i believe that students should be tested More often than they Are so that teachers will be Able to detect those difficulties that students May this would enable teachers to focus More on their difficulties until each student fully under the More tests Given in a Short period of the i agree that the results of the Educa Tion departments annual Basic skills tests should be made Public so that Manitoban can see what kind of Job the schools they pay for Are doing for them and for their publicizing the test results would inform the Public of How Well or How poorly Stu dents comprehend the facts and formulas thrown at teachers should not be teaching exam passing skills they should teach those skills that might have some use in there is no real sense in the need to prepare students for an exam or in teaching them How to write an because it would hold no meaning for them in adult i disagree with those at the school trustees convention who oppose the resurrection of departmental exams because even though educational Stan Dards May be higher today than years today our requirements for jobs Are it is important that students be taught the necessary skills to Cope with future jobs and daily Ken Doran student Kelvin High school Winnipeg Fiona Gordon holds two of the cats that have caused her trouble with the readers stick up for cat run i am concerned for miss Fiona Gordon and her How proper of her to have had so much consideration for her neighbors in the first place by assuming the expense to have a tiered cat run i could understand the neighbors concern if the 20 cats were allowed to run freely in the miss Gordon is giving her cats the Best possible exercise and fresh air without letting them Loose on the it would appear by the pictures that accompanied the article that miss Gordon seems to have very sanitary i wonder what the cites variance and conditional use committee is going to do when and Kallenbach complain about the Birds and the squirrels watching their Pool the Kallenbach could find some thing better to complain about than their quiet Martine Mccall unfair treatment i wish to come to the defence of Fiona the lady who has been ordered to ban her cat run built behind her i agree with the views of Paul the general manager of the humane Here is one person who is actually taking the responsibility of caring for her she is allowing them the healthful benefits of sniffing fresh air and seeing the outside without letting them roam the neighbors How Many cat owners go to that trouble and expense miss Gordon has just As much right to complain about watching her neighbors splash around in their if there is no perhaps they should consider building one and sharing the miss Gor Don is being unfairly treated when she is not even allowed a trial period for her cat to allow her a trial period to be a cat breeder and not let her do it properly is rather Inconis Carole Rogers Winnipeg thanks i commend your Dave for the pictures of my cats and the facilities provided which appeared in the free press March Johnson has definitely indicated his professionalism in in just a very few he captured on film the situation As it is showing my Beautiful cats Are housed in Good Are Well cared for and Are not allowed to thanks to the free press for print ing these pictures showing the True Story so there would be no misunderstanding on the part of readers that my cats in any Way could be consid ered a Public Fiona Gordon by and persians Winnipeg Csc documentary defended a considerable Campaign has Eman ated from the psychology department of the University of Manitoba in an attempt to discredit a Csc fifth estate program entitled the hooded which dealt with the growing use of political torture by nations otherwise considered the latest example is a lengthy letter from pro Fessor Morgan psychology University of Wright tells us that it was ridiculous for the fifth estate to make any connection Between the work of the late John Zubek and the torture techniques used by British forces in Northern Ireland in he further claims that the in making such a merely reflects past student hysteria in the Vietnam he also claims that the program implied wrongly that uzbeks death by suicide was a of the guilt he must have Felt at being a party to the sad events in the Wright tells readers of the free Are very indeed they at Issue Here Are the experiments conducted at Mcgill and Manitoba by Donald Hebb and John Zubek involving so called sen Sory in these expert volunteers were confined in a virtually featureless enclosure for up birthday Celia May Maples personal care born april to 14 and subjected to noise of a constant tone often called White which was introduced through earphones that were never the experiments were funded by the defence research and there can be no doubt that the motive was a concern with the brainwashing that had been used on in troops in the korean Hebb said so explicitly in an interview on our the department of National defence has confirmed that the reason for the Origi Nal contract was concern re attitude and behaviour conversion attempts on Canadian soldiers captured in Wrights letter carefully omits any reference to White and would have us believe that the Only tortuous aspect of the experiments was the Monotony of the Bologna Sand Wright is Correct in stat ing that later contracts from the and gave As the purported reason for the experiments a concern about space but he omits the original Rea which was to study psychological brainwashing from it is beyond dispute that the work of Hebb and Zubek to a considerable degree provided the basis upon which British forces in Ulster used monotonous confinement and constant White noise As a technique to extract information from suspected terrorists for a Brief period in this connection was not invented by the fifth estate it was established by the Royal commis Sion report of the lord High Chancellor of the United lord Gardiner in tracing the origins of the torture referred to previous experiments particularly in Cana nothing in the program attacked uzbeks Honor or Bona fides As a pure it did not criticize the exis tence of his the program pictured him sympathetically As a scientist who saw his dedicated work misused by the fifth estate program on the widening use of political torture by purportedly civilized nations was an important and effective documentary other members of the academic Community obviously Richard Yvon of Mcmaster uni department of wrote to us after the program to say i wish to congratulate you for the excellent program i found your program both poignant and accurate in its depiction of the sensory deprivation research and its i Hope that you will make this pro Gram available to educational i understand Wrights sensitivity on this for i prefer to accept the unequivocal conclusion of the lord High Chancellor of the United kingdom that research in Canada was influential in inspiring torture techniques in Northern Ron Haggart senior producer the fifth estate Csc Toronto Mulroney a True Canadian conservative tory leadership hopeful Brian Mulroney May be the sole Progress Ive conservative in the in his Affinity to the ideals and attitudes that form the original base of Canadian conservatism could turn out to his major problem in Canadian tories seem currently mesmerized by Reagan Republican they do not understand the immense differences Between the his tory of Canada and that of the Republic to the Reagan republicanism is As foreign to Canadian traditions and culture As the shoot pm up history of the american Frontier is to the opening of the Canadian never if tories persist in turning their packs on the political heritage of Canada and their own they will find Mulroney Mulroney a conservatism is Canad lie accepts that Canadian Conser unlike the american advocates an Active and he re minds tories Trtat compassion is a key component of their party in his Campaign Kickoff in Ottawa Frances Russell last Mulroney made this very significant statement but most of we conservatives must show the Canadian people that we have about us As Well a dimension of it is that vital responsibility of government to demonstrate compassion for the needy and assistance for the disa Dvan the equalization of Opportunity for All and an elevated sense of social responsibility that must continue to find favor with every thoughtful Cana of All the challenges of government none is More no obligation More sacred we shall be judged both As individuals and As a political party by the manner in which we care for those unable to care for such sentiments have Seldom been heard in tory circles since the Days of John if they Are voiced at it is usually in the context of an obligatory bowing to conventional wis an afterthought not out of but out of where other tories say these things with a notable Lack of Mulroney not Only volunteered but made them the Centrepiece of his leadership of the former president of the Iron Ore company of Canada int without his tory he told a Winnipeg news conference on Friday that the Liberal party under Pierre Trudeau Lias been put fundamentally at variance with its who was the most sought after speaker at nip meetings in Quebec in the 1960s it was Pierre Trudeau has used the party As vehicle to impose his collectivism democratic socialist ideas on the he fundamentally believes in winding Down the private Mulroney knows All the trigger phrases and cliches to employ to con Vince his audience that he is no Liberal in conservative but he still has this other and right it provides a fresh Breeze in the somewhat Musty and fusty tory leadership at his Winnipeg news conference last Mulroney said other things that reinforce his position As a progressive in a party which is turning asked How he would Deal with Winni Peg Assiniboine tory Dan a Oneman crusade against bilingual Mulroney replied this is a bilingual and the conserva Tive party upholds that bilingualism and stands ready to do whatever is necessary to preserve and enhance that he denounced reaganomics As simplistic and not applicable to he sees the Validity of retaining Petro Canada As a window on the Oil his moderate right position was the common thread in All Mulroney said his message May not bring liberals and new democrats flocking into the tory put he will cast a wider net than any of his other including former incumbent Joe Clark also took on the tory Leader ship in 1976 As a so called red but Clark never managed to Rise above being a party he tried so hard to be All things to All tories that he lost his own ideological identity and lost the respect of the disparate right and left factions he tried so ceaselessly to if appearances Are any seems the chief asset he offers tories is his ability to Appeal in the party Quebec More comfortable in French than it is unlikely he will tolerate the kind of outright rebel lion against official party policy that Clark Mulroney opinions contrast sharply with those of former party president Peter the other tory Leader ship hopeful from at last january fateful tory annual Blaikie attempted to define Canadian conservatism to Blaikie epitomizes Why tories Are seen As elitist and Blaikie Are More respectful of the True nature of Man is capable of Good and liberals Are they believe Man is Good and liberals talk about conservatives talk about liberals believe people Are entitled to unemployment conserva Tives believe people Are obligated to take a whether it is what they whether it Means lower liberals believe in the essential Good Ness of Man and concern themselves with the rehabilitation of the conservatives believe in the Protection of conservatives Are suspicious of the state and Are sceptical of social programs which churn Money around the Middle class Mulroney greatest liability could turn out to be his biggest asset with he Hast been around during the party aberrant fling with the far 4 ;