The Catholic Register - Readers Speak Out

Learn root causes

Regarding the June 24 article, “Schools aim to outgun the guns,” thank you very much for this article. It looks like we are starting to get it right.

Many people believe in helping our spiritually poor brothers but few of us know how, and this article gives great hope for the future. It is not by killing a murderer that we will make society safer, but with a better attitude towards them and each other.

It is crucial that all society be trained to recognize potential trouble makers and know how to help them before they end up in a mass murder and end their own lives out of desperation. For true peace to work on a global level, this approach has to be taken seriously by all religious and government leaders. Our ignorance of the root cause of violence in our society is the greatest murderer.

My prayer now is that other newspapers will follow your example and publish more articles to help humanity not degrade it.

Pierrette Gagnon
Etobicoke, Ont.

Battling teen violence

Regarding the June 24 article, “Schools aim to outgun the guns” by Michael Swan, it’s extremely sad that a student has to die before school officials, along with the larger community, begin to examine the issues that might have prevented the killing of Jordan Manners.

We should all be shocked and horrified that another murder investigation is taking place in a Toronto high school. We need to encourage teachers like Dave Plaskett for speaking out and trying to improve school policy. We also need to encourage and support the students at Fr. Henry Carr for trying to address the serious problems posed by the reckless use of guns.

One point that’s worth remembering is that school principals and vice-principals are really accountable to superintendents and school boards. If you recall, the Harris government in its wisdom also removed principals from teachers unions and stripped school trustees of any practical influence in most schools.

As a result, principals have lost a lot of their authority and respect from students and staff. Teachers in most cases don’t see the principal and the administration as being on the same team. When this has not strained staff-principal relationships, it has at the very least created an adversarial structure that is not in the best interests of running a school, a place of learning where a supportive and caring atmosphere is essential.

When school problems surface, they are often dealt with at the local level or not at all. This reduces the number of incident reports and suspensions and the school reputation improves on paper, but the emperor still has no clothes.

Why is it that most teachers refuse to speak out? What good are the detailed codes of conduct booklets and programs that you will find in every school, when the rules cannot or will not be enforced? Are they merely marketing tools and a sign of our times?

This is why any attempt to improve the current situation needs our blessing, our willingness to help and our financial backing.

Lou Iacobelli
Toronto, Ont.

Church pushed aside

The secularizing of schools and the educational system is now in place in Quebec, Newfoundland and other parts of Canada.

Just as in communist China, most education in both Quebec and Newfoundland is now secular, government-controlled and has no religious content. Those who wish for instruction in their religion must obtain it privately, out of school hours. Catholics, it may be said, must “contract in” to their religion, rather than acquire it automatically in their school years.

It is obvious that the governments of Quebec and Newfoundland believe that the education of the present and next generation will fall away from the church entirely. This approach to rendering the church meaningless in society has been successful in China. Why not in Canada? Pluralism is endemic in Canada.

Donald Lunny
Scarborough, Ont.