library closures in Victoria

[Yvonne Rolston <yrolston@CLN.ETC.BC.CA>]

The following are extracts from an article in the Vancouver (B.C.) Sun on April
 11, 1994 written by the paper's regular columnist Stephen Hume.
This is in response to the closure of elementary school libraries in the Victori
 a B.C. school district. Members of the LM_NET may find it interesting!

LET'S THROW THE BOOK AT THOSE WHO CLOSE SCHOOL LIBRARIES

Every day some peculiar new meaning is squeezed from that battered, bruised and
 much tormented word "education".
In B.C's capital, where spring is advanced and thinking is not, education now me
 ans getting rid of libraries.
Costs must be cut, so now we are dumping librarians, closing elementary school l
 ibraries and slashing English-as-a-second language instructors.

What a prospect - kids who can't read, with nothing TO read and nobody to help t
 hem learn how to read beyond the curriculum rote.

How teachers are supposed to teach to Ministry standards without access to a lib
 rary is a mystery to me. As for kids, presumably they'll learn to use a library
  by mental telepathy or watching videos. Now there's a vision for public educat
 ion.

Education in what, I wonder, is the law of the jungle?
The Victoria School Board's decision - it judges books for young children a disp
 ensable luxury- reveals the poverty of spirit that drives our so-called restrai
 nt agenda. What's bankrupt here is not the treasury, but the mean spirited valu
 es to  which our
spineless elected leaders now grovel and pander.

... Most distressing in this is the way baby boomers - of which I am one- seem
 a
 bsolutely determined to celebrate this bashing of the educational system that p
 rovided us with the advantages we now say we can't afford to share with the nex
 t generation.

...We boomers so distort the political, economic and cultural demography of Can
 a
 da that our worries assume disproportionate weight with our leaders.
Clearly, when the politicians stand up to say libraries are expendable frills in
  the school system, they are delivering a message they believe a materialistic
 electorate of TV addicts and literary philistines wants to hear.

The result is a public education system on the run. Teachers burn out and bail o
 ut.
Morale deteriorates because teachers we expect to achieve the impossible, are ro
 utinely and repeatedly told they are incompetents who do little for too much pa
 y....

But the difference between a school with a functioning library and one without,
 is the difference between a place of genuine scholarship and a training cage fo
 r parrots.

... Public education is society's affirmation of its own future.

It is an altruistic investment in benefits that most of those who pay will not b
 e around to enjoy.

We should stop whining about what a burden it is and start exploring ways to mak
 e it better and more productive for teachers and for students.
And when politicians treat it with contempt, we should not hesitate to back them
  to the wall.