So the Toronto Board of Education has identified a problem with the success rate of Afro- Canadian students. As with most institutions, it has arrived at a solution without fully understanding the problem, this could well become a recurring theme here.
The solution 'black schools".
Now I am neither expert nor African-Canadian, I am however quite sure that the problem
is not that black kids are not graduating from high school. The problem is surely what this
fact represents, that a large number of our population is not finding a reason or will to engage in this countries mosaic. That they feel in some way excluded from the mainstream, unable to
fit in to the path that most use to improve their lot in life. (self improvement through education)
Within a country which prides itself on it's muti-cultural inclusiveness, where diversity is a point of honour, this is surely shaming.
Yet facing this our educators advocate a policy of segregation, if memory serves, this didn't work in the southern United States in the sixties, it didn't work in South Africa, it sure as heck doesn't
work for Aboriginals today. But see a problem, move to solution, seems to be some vestige of a
"common sense revolution" here. The problem with common sense solutions is exactly that, they are rife with 'common' sense.
We need ask ourselves will a higher percentage of black kids graduating high school by itself create in them a sense of belonging. Surely what is primary to enticing membership in any group is making the club an attractive one. The priviledges, actual priviledges, the cost easily borne, the rewards bountiful.
As a Native Canadian I have witnessed, if not experienced, the horrible negative effects that targeted education can have on it's students. I am not suggesting that these educators are hoping to recreate the abomination that Residential Schools represent. But at the same time
I don't believe that educators of the time were intent on being evil. It just happened.
It seems to me that we don't need to create new schools, rather we need to make sure that
what we teach resonates with the type of society we choose to live in. This does not even require that we erase history, nor rewrite it, merely that we teach it in ways that reflect this country's willingness to accept and be changed by the shifting demographic.
How many people in Canada are aware that John Graves Simcoe (remember our long weekend in August) made Upper Canada the very first place on the planet to outlaw the trading in human flesh (slavery). How good are we in teaching that the destination of the Underground Railway
was here. What Afro-Canadian student would not be moved when faced with the implications of these facts. What teacher could not expand on these to make Canada seem a wonderful place in which to make a home, and a difference.
Our history is bursting with examples of this great land opening itself to people of various ethnicities and histories, the French and English, being only the earliest from Europe, and
expanding itself to accept them and their various traditions. Seldom have these waves of
immigration gone off without a hitch, and I think we need to be honest and admit that everyone
from the Irish, to the Italians, from the Scotch to the East Indians have faced racism
on arriving. Everything is not perfect, ask the Aboriginals, but we are a wonderful experiment
in a global village. We to a great extent have come to see ourselves in this light, we take pride in it, we need to live it and share it, our Fathers of Confederation were well ahead of their time.
Darcy McGee lost his life because he dared to speak of Canada's great potential for accommodating divergence of backgrounds and beliefs.
Let's not let public educators turn their back on their duty to educate. Let's not let them take the easy way out. Let's not let them convince us that going backwards is somehow the same as teaching history. Let's have a little less 'common' and a lot more sense.
3 comments:
There is something so lazy about this whole "solution." I have the same feeling about this that I had about the MMP idea. It's as if someone woke up and said "well, I could come up with a real solution - but then I would have to explain a lot of complicated things so instead I guess this might work."
More sense means more work for someone somewhere. I guess it's work they simply were not willing to do.
striving for reason-quite right attendence will be voluntary, but again we are speaking to a 'public'
system. in a society which considers itself 'diverse', it needs to find a way to positively reflect that diversity, the sad fact that many including gay and lesbian students do not find their
orientation reflected in the curriculum, nor in the sensitivity
of their teachers is sad, and needs to be adressed in the same manner. that is, by ensuring that our diversity is not only being spoken of but is also being celebrated. if we truly believe that the greater good lies in the path of diversity, and all that entails, then we need to make having pride in our differences paramount. what better place then in a publicly funded school?
to your last point, by creating pride in a social disadvantage, we only foster a sense of belonging to that socially disadvantaged group. surely we should be aspiring to create a sense of belonging to a greater more inclusive group. at the same time as striving to remove any vestige of feeling that there is either a disadvantaged or advantaged group.
utopian? for sure, but so is the notion of building a country where we grow individually,through expanding our acceptance of our differences.( public ed. for another day)
thanks, striving
emma, amen. or perhaps more unable than unwilling
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