Black Schools!???!!!!!

[The Chameleon]

So I just heard on the radio that the Toronto district school board voted 9-11 to allow black focused schools and give them funding!

This is insane and huge step backwards in my opinion. Not only has the board planted the seed of segregation and further division in the community, but they have opened an impeding flood gate for every other ethnic group to demand their own separate schools and funding. They have set a precedent that is a ticking time bomb.

I am shocked to see this go through....

What do you think? :confused:

Edited January 30, 2008 by Guest

[bONES]

well, first I think you may have meant sown the seed ?

secondly, if it helps the youth of that community get a better education and want to stay in school than I say...right on!

[Kanada Kev]

Yup, that's officials making decisions based on high quality research and learnings from the past ... pffft! What a joke.

I think this is appauling! It's being labelled as an "alternative" school. You'd think that they would have learned from all the recent debate around the funding of faith-based schools ... now "race" based schools???? What fucking year is it?

PUBLIC schools are meant to be places of learning and community centres for ALL citizens. The reason they should be publically funded is based on the fact that they service the public ... all of it. Now we've got a public school where the FIRST CRITERIA for admission is the requirement of being "black" in skin colour!! I can't wait until somebody kicks up a fuss because a student there isn't "black enough"!!!

Shame on the TDSB and their trustees for this. Shame!

[AD]

"schools"

if the experts that know way more about this than i do feel that such a step will help kids get a better education, i have no leg to stand on in arguing with them. i'd have to know a whole lot more about this before getting into a real debate.

whoever recommended this did not treat it lightly, that's for sure

[Kanada Kev]

Article that summarizes the story here:

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/298714

I love this argument:

It has been a lightning rod for racial debate in Toronto for more than a decade, since Ontario's Royal Commission on Learning in 1995 suggested a black-focused school might help stem the higher dropout rate among black students, often blamed on a curriculum that overlooks their heritage and teachers who don't reflect their diversity.

So, this is the core problem? The fact that a specific "heritage" and lack of "black" teachers is why so many drop out? I guess that's why the Asian, SE Asian and other groups are having such difficulties in the public system too and dropping out at the same rate?

[Hal Johnson]

I dont know...my first thought is that it seems rather dumb - okay - extremely dumb. Is there proof that this will give the kids a better education? Cuz if thats the only reasoning, theres a whole lot of other negatives that would out-weigh that one positive.

[Hal Johnson]

Also, is my son going to be allowed to join this school?

[scottieking]

I have to say that I am thoroughly against this idea, for some obvious and some not so obvious reasons.

Contention 1: Alot of the "problems" in education have little to do with education and are largely to do with social issues that are above and beyond the scope of a school. Poverty, unstable homes, immigration issues all play a huge role in educational "success"

Contention 2: What is a black school? Does it deal exclusively with black Canadians or African immigrants? Are they prepared for ESL students? Asian immigrants?

Contention 3: This is a move which is going to be very hard to reverse if it fails and will create a vortex and host of problems for "regular" schools if it does not succeed.

I think the TDSB really dropped the ball here.

[bradm]

How will they measure the success of this program? I mean, if the dropout rate for black students is higher than the rates for other races, what happens if, after the program is put in place, the dropout rate for black students doesn't decrease? How much of a decrease do they expect? What if the dropout rate for black students goes up after this program is put in place?

Aloha,

Brad

[bokonon]

Well, the article doesn't give a lot of detail but it does say two important points:

1. little white children can go there too (sic) I'm assuming that asians, natives and everyone else can as well.

2. the curriculum and teachers are not going to be 100% black, but it will be Afrocentric (which was also spelled Africentric in another paragraph)

However, I do think this is a bandaid solution, making one school "Afrocentric". I think a big problem with the curriculum are the history courses. They are very Eurocentric. If we re-wrote the entire curriculum, especially history to more accurately represent Canada's diverse history then maybe we could help decrease the drop out rate of blacks all over the province, instead of just one neighborhood of Toronto. If we extend this theme to other courses and other ethnicities school would be so much better! Music class with Afro-week, India Week, Japan Week would have been so much cooler than singing crappy nursery rhymes all through elementary school. You could tie in the music class to geography and social studies too. Hell, you could even get home-ec in on this! My high school had esthetics classes and I bet there's a lot of different cosmetics used in the other half of the world.

Yep, that's it, I've solved the problem rewrite the whole entire curriculum in Ontario from elementary school all through high school to reflect diversity. That way, no one feels ostracized and it will help decrease racism, too since it's based mostly on fear of the unknown and ignorance. I'm sure kids in tiny farming communities don't get much contact with east African drumming, Indian food or traditional Japanese music.

[bokonon]

Okay, so that post is not that well written as I was having a brainstorm and writing as it came out, but basically what I want to say is that one school is not going to solve the problem, but a major change like re-writing the whole curriculum could have a significant impact.

[bokonon]

I seriously want in on this project of re-writing the curriculum to reflect diversity. Then I want to go back to kindegarden a la Adam Sandler.

[bradm]

a major change like re-writing the whole curriculum could have a significant impact.

I don't know if the whole curriculum could actually be re-written. How do you make math, or physics, or biology less Euro-centric?

Aloha,

Brad

[bokonon]

Math could be more diverse showing the different number systems that were used in history. Some of it's pretty basic, like roman numerals, counting systems of other cultures...hey, and what about the abacus? I don't know how it's done but I've heard you can do some incredibly complex things on that.

The other sciences could emphasize the discoveries made in different cultures more. Like in chemistry how the Moors (I think) discovered gunpowder. I'm sure there a hundreds more examples that could be appropriate for all age levels throughout the education system. Generally I think the sciences are okay since they are based on emprical evidence, but give credit where credit is due.

[The Chameleon]

They should have just retooled the existing curriculum to be more diverse and be more representative of the school population.

What the board has done is a complete blunder made to placate a community. Brutal!

[bokonon]

Biology could be cool, show kids how the concept of race doesn't actually exist genetically. I could share more DNA with a Vietnemese girl with my facial structure and body type than I do with my own cousins. Or talk about how the human body adapts over time to the conditions of the environment.

[ollie]

"schools"

Psst... Chameleon... edit the subject line.

[bokonon]

Shut up Ollie! Chameleon was an ebonics major!

[ollie]

I think a big problem with the curriculum are the history courses. They are very Eurocentric.

The fact that history class was Euro-centric didn't make it any more interesting to me. History is a great subject but almost every history class I remember taking in high school was a steaming plate of poo.

[AD]

They should have just retooled the existing curriculum to be more diverse and be more representative of the school population.

well if it's that easy, why didn't someone just snap their fingers and make it happen?

writing curriculum and changing the way education 'happens' is incredibly difficult. my father has been re-writing a lot of the arts curriculum in the past decade and more, and even with just one part of the curriculum changes are slow-moving, incredibly thought-out (not just knee-jerk reaction on the internet), and tedious to get into the teacher's head and school system.

you can't boil this all down to the two-sentence reactionary views that the public will undoubtedly have over this. a lot more thinking has to take place.

whether the move by the school board is right or wrong or somewhere in between, i don't know. but you can't oversimplify something like this.

[bokonon]

I agree, they'd have been much better if they had some spice to them. Mind you, I liked law class and grade ten history where we learned about the constitution.

[questcequecest?]

Math could be more diverse showing the different number systems that were used in history. Some of it's pretty basic, like roman numerals, counting systems of other cultures...hey, and what about the abacus?

it's not so much about using african numbering systems, it's about using african statistics and examples to teach math... i.e. what proportion of immigrants are african, and from which african countries they migrate.

personally, i think it's a good idea to engage more african kids... however the point about opening the floodgates for other races/religions is a valid one. time will tell how this plays out.

[Jaimoe]

680 News radio in Toronto did a story today on this decision revealing that members of the board that voted "yes" were also the ones that wanted faith-based schools, the implication meaning they used this vote as leverage for their real agenda, which will rear its ugly head in the near future. Shame on them.

[bokonon]

See, that's why we need input from all over. That's a great idea QQC! And that's tying math in with social studies. School would have totally rocked if it wasn't so disjointed. Like one minute it's art class and you're sculpting using Mayan techniques and the next you're falling asleep in eurocentric history.

[bokonon]

I totally agree that re-writing a curriculum is no easy or quick fix. But I think it would be a better move than creating a race based school. A 40% drop out rate is no small matter. The creation of this school is like putting a bandaid on when your hand got cut off.