The Toronto District School Board (Toronto Ontario Canada) is flirting with the idea of implementing Black- Only Schools. In fact they are flirting with implementing three of these schools within the boundaries of the great urbanosity known as the city of Toronto.
My opinion; HAVE THEY LOST THEIR EVER LOVING MINDS?!?!
Our lovely Premier; The Right Honorable (sorry … I snicker when I say that part) Dalton McGuinty has said that he doesn’t agree with this and that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Can we all raise the ‘no shit Sherlock’ flag now?
The Toronto District School Board says that it is looking at this move because they feel that they have been ‘failing some students of color.’ Umm, no, they have been failing ALL students REGARDLESS of color. As has the Ontario Education system for as many years as my children have been a part of it.
In their genius, the TDSB somehow feels that segregating black students will somehow raise their graduation rates because they can structure an environment that would have more black teachers, black mentors, focus more on black heritage and involve black parents more. The proposal calls for an African Centered Alternative School that would cater to students from grades kindergarten through grade 8.
Yes; this is pure genius in the making… there is nothing better for a developing child than to take him out of the culturally diverse city in which he lives and stick him in a school with only people of color and then tell him it’s for his own good because the people who are paid to educate children just can’t seem to educate all children equally and so because they can’t deal with their own short comings as educators they are going take the group that they feel are the most at risk of failing and make a ‘special’ school just for them so that they can learn.
Is this a solution to a real problem or is it merely a case of sweeping a province wide problem with public education and the administration of such under the rug in hopes to boost up the numbers in regards to EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) testing? I dare say and I would lay bets on it that these African Centered Alternative Schools would be exempt from the EQAO testing that marks how well teachers and administrators are doing the jobs they are paid to do. I would bet my last dollar that the exemption would come because there would be no basis on which to compare it. I would walk on fire…barefoot…with shards of glass thrown in just for good measure if this is in fact not the case, and I’m fairly confident that I won’t be fire walking anytime soon.
I grew up in the City of Toronto. I absolutely LOVE the fact that I was blessed enough to live in such a culturally diverse place, it opened the world to me. I excelled in ‘black history’ when I was in elementary school and immersed myself in how people of all colors helped to form the face of a country.
While in elementary school I had friends of all flavors, and I think that the TDSB is targeting a specific group based on some uppy-up most likely overly inflated study. Why? Why? Why should there be segregation in this day and age, based on how well it worked in the past?
Why? Why would ANYONE, regardless of color be comfortable and confident in a move that takes a specific group of people and by pointing out their flaws tries to make them a BETTER FIT for society?
They can spew their bullshit about how they are failing ‘black’ students and think it better for those said ‘black students’ to have a school all their own that is tiered to their specific learning, but no matter what kind of positive spin you put on it; it is what it is; SEGREATION.
My six year old niece just moved to the City of Toronto and she was flustered and scared about the move. She was apprehensive about going to a new school and making new friends and I took the time to sit with her and describe to her the wonderful environment that she would now be entering. I told her that she would be meeting many different people from many different places all over the world and that she would have the opportunity to learn about them and through them about their cultures, history, religious and spiritual beliefs. I did my very best to make a hard situation an adventure for her and the prospect of her learning about black history was a large part of our conversation.
There are questions… oh boy… are there questions…
What of the WHITE child that wants to attend the African Centered Alternative Schools? I know that in my youth I would have wanted to attend a school where I was most comfortable.
What of the BLACK student that wants to stay in a mainstreamed, non-segregated environment?
What of the mixed heritage student? What do we do with them? Do we go back to the one drop theory?
What happens when hell opens for recess and there is civil unrest because some stuffed shirt (and I dare bet, once again, that it was a WHITE stuffed shirt) could not let go of the racist notion that blacks are somehow less than white and doesn’t want his or her child educated along side a black student?
This is not good, this is not logical, this is not humane; what this is, is RACISM under the guise of educating black students with an "Africentric" focus.
No matter how you slice it, it’s an attempt at forced SEGREGATION, and I for one don’t like it one bit!