First-Time Readers

Volume 3 Number 1

Published by the Central Newfoundland Regional College for the Literacy Development Council

September 1995

Yes!

Fifty-four per cent of those who took part in the vote on education supported change by voting yes. The vote was held to see if Newfoundlanders want changes made in education.

Newfoundlanders were given the right to have schools run by the churches when the province joined Canada in 1949.

Premier Clyde Wells must now decide whether his government will take control of the schools from the churches.

Busy time in literacy

September is a busy month for people who are in literacy.

On September 8 Robinson-Blackmore printed the first issue of the new First-Time Readers. September 8 was also International Literacy Day and the first day of a literacy conference in Gander.

The conference was held from September 7 to 10. The purpose of the conference was to review The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy (TAGS) literacy plan. The conference will be featured in the December issue of First-Time Readers.

All
the
Right
Stuff!

Farrah Baggs of Pasadena has the will and confidence to succeed.

Farrah Baggs spent her summer studying. She took a course at the Central Training Academy in Badger. It isn’t unusual for a high school graduate to take a course, but Farrah wants to be a heavy equipment operator.

Farrah is 17 years old. She has always enjoyed watching front end loaders, graders and excavators. Now she wants to operate them. “I love it,” she says. “I always wanted to learn how to operate heavy equipment.” Farrah was the only girl enrolled in the program.

Farrah is from Pasadena, a community just outside Corner Brook. She graduated from Herdman Collegiate last June and decided to take a six-week heavy equipment operator course.

Some people don’t think a girl should be operating heavy equipment, but she has plenty of support from her mom and dad. “My parents support me in whatever I want to do,” she says. “They don’t force me to do anything or push anything on me. If I want to do something, they will support me 100 per cent.”

Farrah compares herself to her mother. “My mom would like to do this. My mom is like me. She loves this kind of stuff.”

Farrah says her classmates, who are all men, treat her “like one of the boys. Most of the boys here think it’s great that a girl is doing the course,” Farrah says. “There aren’t too many girls doing it.”

Most people support her career choice, but some people make fun of her. “A lot of people laugh when they ask what I’m doing and I say I’m doing heavy equipment,” says Farrah. “What are you going to do with that? Where do you think you’re going to go with heavy equipment?”

She thinks more girls should take the course. “I think it’s great. It’s not hard. A lot of people don’t think this is for girls, but I don’t know why. There’s nothing wrong with it. There should be just as many girls out here as there are guys.”

Farrah plans to go to college and take a computer course if she doesn’t find work as a heavy equipment operator. “I’m taking one day at a time.”

Farrah has a good attitude toward everything she does. Sometimes things look hard but she has the will and confidence to succeed. “I might as well get it done,” she says. “The sooner I get something the better. Why wait when I can do it now?”

If you believe it, you can achieve it.