Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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Thus far the choices in education have to a very great extent been made for you. They have been made by your parents. they have also been made by the society of which you are a part although not all of these edticational choices by any means have been brought to bear on you through the schools and throtigh this school. Ashbury College or rather from any of the institutions ol' society. Nonetheless what you have learned then and to some extent the way you have learned reflect the values and priorities of your society. They tend lo be individual values rather than collective ones except perhaps in your own peer group where elaborate codes. and they're very rigid ones. do grow up. They have been very competitive values on the whole in this society rather than eo-operative ones except perhaps in games or in plays but even there the stars appear. Your society. then. has educated you perhaps in consumerism. probably less from a school like this which has traditionally had its values set firmly in the things of the mind and in values that are more lasting. but certainly from institutions like television and others that play such an important educative role in society. You have also been educated in the importance of growth. The idea probably has been suggested lo you that things get better as they get bigger and as there are more of them. Had you been born in China. the educational choices made for you would have been quite different. You would have been going to Middle School and there you would have been mixing work and study from the very beginning following the dictum of Mao Tse Tung: Education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labour. The students would also learn other things - that is to say they should not only learn book knowledge. they should also learn tlnlfl ..-., al, i 1 1 QI ' . .gt A 1 v -'45 1 ,r ' ' ' ' .' faq S , ,Q K A - .1 'h-,, Photo by Peter Wilson Frank Mulock receives the History and Economics prizes. Year 5. from Dr. Oliver. 27

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industrial production. agricultural production and military affairs. And you would have been hearing about combining theory and practice. You would have been asked to get out into the fields and the factories and fishing fleets and road gangs. as part of the educative process. and you would have heard continually serve the people as the purpose of education and. friendship first, co-operation second - sorry. friendship first. competition secondf' Mao Tse Tung would never have said co-operation second . You would have been learning in the school itself and from your society about criticism and about self-criticism and these as quite public and formal procedures. And. of course, you would have been indulging. as part of your regular studies. in extensive and detailed criticsm of Confucius and the deviationist leader Lin Piao. I'm not for the moment trying to say that the values your society have built into the educative process are better or worse than those of China but they are not the only values and, indeed. they are under somewhat massive challenge. Challenge that you will have to understand and face. Those of you who are leaving Ashbury can to a much greater extent perhaps begin to choose for yourselves now the kinds of educational ends that you'll pursue. the kinds of educational experience that you want to have. Among the choices that I'm sure is very much in your mind is whether you go to university or not. I hope you've considered this problem very carefully. I'm sure that many of you will want to be at university but I want to ask you to make sure that that is what you want to do. One of the problems of our society is that too much has been expected of the university and the wrong things have been expected of it and it is not and cannot be a guarantor of high incomes and of an assured career. It isn't and cannot be an institution for conferring social prestige. If you have a vocation for a profession and the ability and the commitment to qualify for the limited number of places in medicine. law, dentistry and the others. yes. you should be at university. More important. if you have a real taste for intellectual activity and that's not a word to be afraid of. one to be taken very seriously. then again. yes. you should be at university. or, if you have a desire to learn, to understand, and to appreciate. and if you're ready to make that kind of a commitment now, go! I'm a bit worried that some of these students who are coming to universities may not be ready either for the university or, indeed, for any other kind of formal post-secondary education. I'm a bit worried that some who are ready and should immediately go to university may never perhaps even in the atmosphere of the university break out sufficiently from the pattern of educational experience set by get ter 'QWQBH no m o Main gg-?criicAl ROGi':.::..:OU'S ' INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICITY ' REPAIRS ' ' WIRING ' ELECTRIC HEAT ' 1181 CECIL AVENUE, OTTAWA K1H 726 Telephone 731-7842 28