LOGICal eMOTIONs

It Has Nothing To Do With SEGREGATION

// January 31st, 2008 // Brain Dump

On Tuesday night, the Toronto District School Board voted in favour of establishing an Afro-centric school by 2009 to “improve the success of black students”. What’s surprising are the number of voices who actually think this is a bad idea, and who think of it as segregation. Segregation? Seriously?!

Segregation: Separation of people of different races or ethnic groups in schools, housing, public facilities for purposes of discrimination.

Whether you like the TDSB or not (that in itself is a touchy subject), one does have to realize that they are not turning back the clock and opening the door to special seating on buses in the near future. The main point that is usually missed in this news is the simple fact that the school is open to enrollment by anyone and that they aren’t going through existing schools, picking out the black kids, and forcing them into this school.

The reality is that this alternative school is no different than a religious school setup with a specific education system. Actually, it is even more accepting than a religious school simply because you do not have to be black (or of a particular religion) to attend. I live beside an all-girl Jewish school which means that unless you are a girl, and Jewish, you’re not attending this school, whereas whitey-O’Irish can attend an afro-centric school regardless of skin colour, religion, or gender.

I actually find myself surprised at the TDSB for recognizing a significant number of the population as being black, yet also understanding that perhaps the education system isn’t fully meeting their needs given it’s broad and generalized learning platform.

Does this open the door for more alternative schools? You bet and more power to them. The curriculum is still based upon the Ontario education system which means they still have to learn math, science, language, english, etc., yet in a school like this there will be focus on black studies. Yes, you’re going to learn about William Lyon MacKenzie King in history class, however, you’ll likely also learn about Anderson Ruffin Abbott and many others.

When you look around the city and see the number of closed-door or private schools teaching their own curriculum and having strict qualifications to attend (ie. must be of ‘this’ religion to attend), is that not a self-segregation and actually lead to more issues down the road?

I do believe that it is a step forward given Toronto’s incredible diversity and will likely pave the way for more Asian-centric, Middle Eastern-centric (once we and our neighbours to the south finally understand that not everyone from the middle east is a terrorist…), or whatever-centric schools to meet the needs of students and actually educate the rest of us.

Could you imagine if high school was changed so that in the 4 years you attend, 1 year could be your school of choice, but the other three had to be in a different something-centric school?

Photo by wvs

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