Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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In Retrospect Before reading this, I would like you to keep in mind that this is an attempt to show some of the opportunities which I have seen here. I admit that it is idealistic in parts, but this is my positive expression of what I have come to know during my five years at Pickering College. As the end of another year here draws to a close, many of us start to think about such things as whether we will be back in the Fall. It is indeed an occasion for thought. For most of you, your stay has been one or two years, but, for four or five members of the graduating class, it has been five years, five very interesting and worthwhile years. I still recall vividly my first day in grade nine, on the upper floor of Firth House, and remember the vague ideas ofuncertainty toward Pickeringls underlying ideas that I shared with my class-mates. I am sure that most of you who were new this September must have had similar feelings about incomprehensible past traditions which did not seem to have been established for any definite purpose. It surprises me now to see how my own impres- sions have changed, along with those held by the people whom I have known since that cold rainy, autumn afternoon of 1965. Most of us arrive in the Fall, with our own views on Pickering, and regardless of what those views are and irrespective of our own interests or differing personal backgrounds, we all have the desire for a successful year. Everyone here has the ability to attain this objective to some degree. Firstly, by directing his academic efforts to suit his own interests and capabilities. Secondly, he can take part in the non-academic aspects oflife here. Connected with the sense of having had a good year is the realization of what I call Community Feeling : this covers all facets of Pickering life. Without it, I would be unsure whether I have derived any benefit from the community. Community Feeling has contributed, I feel, to the success of any given year. This has been shown during this past year by those who have put forth their best on the athletic field, by those who have worked on the Voyageur or Quaker Cracker, by those who served responsibly on Student Committees, by those who worked on the Drama and Glee Club presentations, etc .... etc. I feel that it is important for Community Feeling to come from the individual himself. Pickering College, in its own unique way, has given me the opportunity to try to learn from my own experiences as well as from other peopIes'. In this area, I have been grateful for that part of Pickering which has been here as far back as I can remember, namely, the opportunity for students and staff-members to get together on a basis of mutual trust. By virtue of this type of approach, we are more able to understand our own mistakes ofjudgement and better equipped to deal with future situations. Also, we can try to gain some self-respect which, in turn, leads to agreater respect for and tolerance of other people and their ideas and beliefs. This is especially important at Pickering where there are students from many different cultural backgrounds. I view my position as a member of the graduating class with mixed feelings: I am glad to be graduating because, as my colleagues who have survived the last five years will agree, five years is a long time. This period of time, however, has developed within me a sense of consistency and security, due, in part, to the fact that Pickering stands alone with her old but, at the same time, new approaches. A lack of regimentation, for example, helps us to formulate actions based on moral conscience rather than on fear of consequences. twen ijv-nine

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A Definite Lesson There I was eating a mandarin when this purple bug-eyed pot of African violets sat down across from me. I looked at it for half a minute wondering if it was going to attack me. I thought it was rather strange. I mean it just sat there. Didn't do a thing. Just sat there and stared at me. Well I was starting to go nuts. I looked around to see if anybody else was upset about it. No. Not a single raised eyebrow or frown or anything. I looked at it. It looked at me. I frowned at it. It just looked at me. Then it said something. I mean I think it said something. Yes. This horrible, little round ball of purple said something. It said ----- I love you. Beneath Your Sky This is a land of the raging river And the blue wind in the sky And a lonely house beside a lonely shore. This is a land of a thousand sunsets And a thousand ways to cry And a mother singing sweetly as she sweeps. This is a land where the swaying palm trees Tower oier the deep blue sea, And flowers are sucked by the honey bee. And one day when I'm weary and the world is far from me, I'll come back and walk again beneath your sky. Bob Clarke. A Polluted Spring An eerie smog-tinted light illuminates the sky. The purple clouds churn and swell like smoke. The earth is hushed, but the breeze sways the branches in a deceitful calmness. Rolls of thunder drum in the distance. Through the filthy sky a streak of light shatters the startled world. Followed by a crash, rain makes its way through the gloomy stratosphere to clear the intoxicating air. The vicious wind swirls the dead leaves out of its path, whipping branches to distortion. A fork of fire tears the bark from an ancient oak, soon to leave its polluted soil. The supernatural light flickers among the silent trees that are black with man's soot. Rain which had pounded an insane tune can penetrate no more. The thunder thumps no more and all is silent. All men fall to an eternal sleep, never to destroy again. Charles Richmond twen ty-eight

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Many themes on the ideals of this school have been expressed in this meeting hall, and, although the talks have generally been of a rather abstract nature, they have quite often helped me to solve the doubts that have entered my mind. Next year, a fair number of you will be leaving either for university, another high school, or out on your own. I hope that, whatever you intend to do, you will remember your stay here as a successful one. To conclude, I will just say that I hope I am better able to deal with the different environment into which I, along with the rest of the graduating class, will be plunged. My impressions of the last few years are well summed up by the words on the cornerstone, Bene Provisa Principia Ponantur ae That we may build good foundations. Chris Rogers Freedom In the heart of every man, of every nation, is the desire to be free, to live as an equal among equals in a free community. Personal freedom may be defined as the flowering ofthe personality. Just as flowers develop from the bud onwards until they reach the fulness of their beauty and their complete self-determination and self-expression, so personality grows and flowers if it is given a chance. But the individual can only be expected to grow to full spiritual stature in conditions of freedom, when he is able to realize himself and his innermost nature. Everyone of us is unique, each one of us is utterly different from anyone else. That is the strongest argument against regimentation and against standardisation. Freedom may mean two quite different things. We may apply it to our instincts and mean by it freedom to follow our impulses without restrictions due to reason or conscience. Or it may be applied to the system of civilizing forces, as when we say that we are only free when reason and conscience have full control over our impulses and passions. In neither of these cases is it is the personality as a whole that is free, but only one aspect of it. In neither, therefore, shall we find the freedom we seek. A person whose natural impulses are so kept in check by reason and conscience that, even when there is no reason for such control, he cannot let himself go and be natural',, is not a free person, but an inhibited one. Freedom of soul, of thought, feeling and ideal, is the true greatness of man, the only greatness that gives human life its real value and beauty. The ideal at which we aim must be as humane and generous as possible, so that it may lift us above all the pettiness inseparable from daily life. Once we have identified ourselves with this ideal and organized our life in relation to it, we may be said to have acquired character,' and character is the aim of all education. Unfortunately, it is often necessary to impose order upon peopleg but no human society is either good or beautiful if it does not try to combine the maximum of order with the maximum of freedom. Each child has to create his own character by controlling his impulses, forming his own habits of thought and work, and building up and following his own ideal. As soon as children reason they can start upon this slow and never-ending effort of self-creation, an effort which should endure as long as life itself. In closing, true freedom is a freedom of the personality as a whole, in which our impulses and instincts are co-ordinated together and directed to a common end. Ed. Rynard thirty