'Africentric' school to open in Toronto

I'm not really sure what to think of this yet, although it seems like it could be deeply problematic, largely with the concept that there is some kind of unified 'Africentric' perspective that could be drawn on in Toronto.

what's the problem?

Well, it's not my field at all and I've just read a couple journalistic articles. I was sincere about not being sure what to think. I was just thinking that what could be categorized as the black community in Toronto is extremely culturally diverse, including a large community of recent immigrants from the Caribbean as well as e.g. immigrants from Somalia and people whose families have been in the country for generations. So I was not sure whether there is a single 'Africentric' experience common to people from all these backgrounds and wasn't sure what that would mean in terms of education practice. But it's possible that there are some things?

What do you think of this, moonship?

"couple of"

Odd. In the US, the term is (or recently was) "afrocentric". I'm not sure what I think of afro/afri-centric education at less than a university level, but I can see as how there might be benefits.

there's afrocentric primary and secondary parochial schools all over the place in L.A., but no public ones that I know of.

My high school was de facto afrocentric.

you should really incorporate that line in a rap song.

So I was not sure whether there is a single 'Africentric' experience common to people from all these backgrounds and wasn't sure what that would mean in terms of education practice. But it's possible that there are some things?

What do you think of this, moonship?

content standards for things like history and literature aren't built around developing specific knowledge, but rather in terms of developing a toolbox of thinking skills (what we call critical thinking for shorthand). the specific content in the school is usually just a frame around which the learning happens. so it's not so important that kids learn about the magna carta, but rather that they learn how to tell a history story with the "proper" voice, the proper citations, the proper research procedures, etc. similarly, it's not so important that kids learn the names of all of the mammals - rather they just need to get familiar with the linnean system.

imagine if there was an elementary school whose focus was medieval studies. so the kids would spend all their time learning about castles, and kings, and medieval architecture, and catapaults and pulleys. not because that's the most important stuff in and of itself, but it's the most important stuff to these kids. so it captures their interest, and motivates them to learn, and they form a community of interest built around that subject, in which productive learning happens.

or you could imagine a middle school built around computer arts. so kids learn to use wikis and webpages to express their social studies research. or they learn to write interactive fiction or media for english class. and they use computer graphing programs as well as pencil-and-paper graphing, and computer simulations of mechanics and chemistry and population dynamics.

neither of these would be particularly useful for the population of elementary kids at large, but for a small group of kids, who would *elect* to go that special school, it could be immensely motivating. and i doubt that it would be very politically controversial.

now, you might raise an issue that afrocentrism is more politically and culturally loaded than a "neutral" subject like science interest or medieval studies or whatever. but i think it's pretty well accepted (in the academy anyway, and certainly in my grad program) that *any* knowledge has a cultural valence to it, that none of it is any more neutral w/ respect to the child. so i guess that's the real sticking point.

you might think there's something insidious about teaching kids in an afrocentrism-interest setting (because of the loaded cultural politics), whereas teaching kids in an ecology-interest setting would be OK (because ecology is somehow culturally neutral). but i just don't see that.

to be fair, this is touching an a *huge* flashpoint in education, which is the extent to which content matters (vis-a-vis what people call "process", for lack of a better word).

in other words, are we teaching kids to be consumers and producers of information, or are we teaching kids to be repositories of that information. is social studies a way of thinking that kids need to learn, or is it a set of facts that they need to know?

obviously the answer is a balance of both, but where exactly the balance lies is a very, very, very contentious issue ... and by no means is there one right answer to this question!

so if you fall on the side of process, then interest-area charter schools make a lot of sense. because your standards aren't so much the content, but what the kids are doing. and kids can do groupwork and write reports and build models and do math problems all in the context of learning about africa.

if you fall on the side of content, then this would represent a serious chipping-away at the standards, because learning about africa is taking away valuable time from learning about, i don't know, the times tables and the reactivities of acids (something i'm always afraid to admit i don't really know that well, for a chemist) and the articles of the constitution, etc etc

Good points, MSJtB, but this type of afrocentric education isn't typically as value-neutral as that. As I understand it, it's usually based on the idea that black students will/may benefit from being educated in a predominantly black peer group, by predominately black instructors, using an afrocentric curriculum.

nothing is value neutral

Good point, and though I missed it the 1st time through, moonship even said as much.

3xpost

You make good and interesting points, as ever. I do suspect that an entire medieval-centric public school (as opposed to, say, a summer camp or even a charter school, which this isn't AFAICT) would be rather controversial. Do you not see any questions to be raised at all with grouping people of varied backgrounds into a single category (with a specific curriculum) based on skin colour? (I know I don't really identify as part of a single group that includes, say, immigrants from Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as Trinidadian-Canadians.) I'm really naive about this stuff though.

(Still haven't checked out that article you recommended previously but I should.)

They are all people of the African diaspora and share a common ancestry that is not generally taught in public schools, which generally teach a very white-washed, Eurocentric version of history. I don't see what the issue is. You should read Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G Woodson if you're really interested in the idea of an AfroCentric Curriculum.

It kind of throws the whole "multiculturalism/affirmative action is beneficial for everyone" out the window which I thought was part of the justification for it on college campuses. I don't think that outweighs the benefits at all but just how it looks theoretically.

Do you not see any questions to be raised at all with grouping people of varied backgrounds into a single category (with a specific curriculum) based on skin colour?

so are you against the idea of international baccalaureate European History courses?

sundar: everything about the language of those articles reads that this is a charter school

Will the classes at this school sounds like the skits on "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill?"

hahaaa

joe had some marbles
then he gave 2 to tom
now joe has 4 marbles
how many did joe have in the beginning

success rate: 17% in kindergarten, 85% in third grade (riley & greeno, 1988)

you have some cookies
a cookie monster comes and takes 2 away
now you have 4 cookies on your plate
how many cookies did you have in the beginning?

success rate: 68% in kindergarten (sophian & vong, 1995)

When I say my school was de facto afro-centric, I mean that we actually had some fairly afro-centric courses and the occasional afro-centric guest speaker. There were claims that were outright ridiculous (all of Greek thought was actually stolen from Africa), but also ideas that were sort of enlightening (European scholars' practice of exempting Egypt from Africa), and some debates that just seemed pointless (whether or not the original Jews were "black".) But I guess what I mainly learned from it all is how political the "standard" western civilizational history that we learn really is, and how much all history is about ingraining and reinforcing a people or nation's ideas about itself.

I swore that I wouldn't discuss this topic anymore because it makes me so sick and angry, but here I go.

As an "Afro-Canadian" or whatever PC term is currently en vogue, I can't help but feel insulted by this idea. I was born and raised in suburban Toronto, and although my hometown is quite culturally diverse now, that wasn't the case while I was growing up. In my elementary school, there were less than 10 other black kids, one of whom was my sister, in a school of a couple hundred. In spite of that, I and my sister always did well, and were generally at the top of our classes. My other black friends also did well and many of them went on to post-secondary education and professional careers. The point is that when factors such as socio-economic status, income, and parental educational level are controlled for, there is no difference in students' performance. I refuse to accept that I am somehow inferior to my peers and require a special "black" school in order to succeed. I'm not sure if anyone in favour of this school has taken a look around Toronto recently, but there are a lot of different people about. In the real world, students from these "Africentric" schools will have to deal with co-workers, colleagues and neighbours who don't look like them.

I don't for a second believe that there is not a serious problem. Black youth, young men in particular, are not performing as well as their peers, and have a drop-out rate of around 40%. Clearly, something is amiss. However, the fact that Canadian educational curriculum doesn't dwell on the contributions of Chinese-Canadians doesn't prevent them from succeeding academically. A brief stroll around the University of Toronto's downtown campus will attest to that. I think that a lot more can be done to make what is taught at school more relevant to the students being taught, but it's not an excuse for failure. And certainly not to the tune of 40%

Black kids interested in learning about black history can get a library card (like I did), or go on the internet and read. They can attend heritage classes on Saturday mornings like so many other first-generation kids do.

This is a band-aid solution of the worst kind. All it does is give the politicians and parents a convenient scapegoat upon which to blame the abysmal performance of black youth in Ontario schools. The REAL issues that nobody wants to get into revolve around the disintegration of the basic family unit in the black community. Please don't think that I am some type of "family values" conservative - I'm not. But the simple fact is that in many communities in and around Toronto, single black women are left to raise the children while the men contribute nothing. This has become the norm in some places. For whatever reasons, everyone is deathly afraid to address this issue, so they just blame the schools. In addition, black youth in "at risk" communities have internalized the bizarre notion that anyone aspiring to academic success, or showing any ambition to be something is labelled as acting "white". I'm with Bill Cosby on this one. It starts with the parents.

By the time these kids get to high school, they are already lost. The intervention needs to come much earlier, and it needs to begin in the home.

A few years from now, after this experiment has failed, I wonder what they will blame the 40% drop out rate on?

I mean there really is a lot of stuff in Western history books that subtly reinforces ideas about European and white superiority, some of it so subtle that even a well-meaning, enlightened textbook writer could have taken it for granted in including it.

Hurting maybe OTM, but I can't stretch from there to Yakub.

I appreciate j-rock's POV but before this gets conflated entirely: As I understand it (in the states) the first wave of African-centered private education wasn't borne out of remedying any acute academic failure so much as trying to bring a prospective 'black power' renaissance to fruition , with all the educational/psychological 'realignment' that that would entail. There's many reasons parents buy into these programs here(again, talking exclusively private schools), including "our kids aren't motivated by eurocentric course matter that's why they don't succeed" but I seriously doubt even the Toronto case can be wholly reduced to that.

The point is that when factors such as socio-economic status, income, and parental educational level are controlled for, there is no difference in students' performance

so basically you are saying that if you are poor and of low socioeconomic status, you have no hope for educational success?

joe had some marbles
then he gave 2 to tom
now joe has 4 marbles
how many did joe have in the beginning

success rate: 17% in kindergarten, 85% in third grade (riley & greeno, 1988)

you have some cookies
a cookie monster comes and takes 2 away
now you have 4 cookies on your plate
how many cookies did you have in the beginning?

success rate: 68% in kindergarten (sophian & vong, 1995)

the first might be more confusing b/c it's two third-person characters and the kids might get joe & tom confused

yes -- but that doesn't change the point -- that different groups of students need different types of pedagogy, even for *identical* content. and sophian & vong is not some sort of radical fringe research or startling new finding. this is the tiniest TIP of a 50-year-old iceberg that goes back past educational theory into very basic knowledge of psychology and cognition.

....
and tremendoid is OTM. sure, there's no causal link between not having arts & music classes to drop-out rates. kids drop out of school because, well, school is *hard*. but it's been shown that having strong arts & music programs in school is a tremendous motivator to keeping kids from dropping out.

do chinese-canadian kids need arts & music programs? maybe not, maybe they get piano lessons. (maybe we can add "rich" to the "successful" stereotype) maybe they'd succeed with or without arts & music programs. but given that you could reach a certain number of kids by spending a small amount of money, why not do it?

i could go on and on and on about situated cognition. the point is that everybody's ability to think is improved in familiar situations and reduced in unfamiliar situations.

I swore that I wouldn't discuss this topic anymore because it makes me so sick and angry, but here I go.

i mean, this comment sort of sums it up for me. the issue here isn't so much race and education as it is just race. race makes even smart people FLIP THE FUCK OUT. if you look at the comments box in the article from the OP it's people talking about segregation, whites-only and blacks-only schools and so on.

segregation, forcing black kids to go to this school, not letting whites in, etc ... none of that's even on the table!

but start talking about race ... yeah, touchy topic.

The REAL issues that nobody wants to get into revolve around the disintegration of the basic family unit in the black community. Please don't think that I am some type of "family values" conservative - I'm not. But the simple fact is that in many communities in and around Toronto, single black women are left to raise the children while the men contribute nothing. This has become the norm in some places. For whatever reasons, everyone is deathly afraid to address this issue, so they just blame the schools.

this is sort of a misleading argument, tho--assuming, for a second, that the "problem" with urban black youth is a direct result of the "disintegration of the basic family unit in the black community" (and i dont necessarily subscribe to this by any means, but assuming), i cant help but note that higher graduation rates and other measures of academic success will likely only lead to lower rates of teen pregnancy, absent parents, etc. if nothing else, high school graduates will be at higher paying jobs that allow them to contribute more in child support!

there is a chinese-language charter school in town here. instruction in chinese, focus classes on chinese culture and arts, world history classes focus on asia, etc.

very little happened around town in the way of "what's next, white's only schools?!?", very little in terms of "what will happen to these poor deprived asians". few people seemed to assume it would become an asian-only ghetto, or that the chinese students wouldn't make up their stuff elsewhere.

i guess they're just ... more trust-able?

^^^ the part I swear not to discuss etc.

Do you not see any questions to be raised at all with grouping people of varied backgrounds into a single category (with a specific curriculum) based on skin colour?

so are you against the idea of international baccalaureate European History courses?

Maybe irrelevant, but isn't there something of a difference between a single class dealing with 'the cultural and political history of the people of this continent' and a school designed around a concept of cultural unity (Afrocentrism) that's (as I read Sundar's statements) ill-defined and doesn't necessarily exist?

Do you think that people with qualms about this would take issue with AP/IB African History?

I don't think the concept of cultural unity is "ill-defined." It's very well defined : people of African heritage/people of the African diaspora. That is very inclusive : actual Africans, people from the Carribean, African-Americans, Afro-Cubans, etc. The idea of an afro-centric curriculum is to give a much inclusive perspective that shows that people of african heritage can and have accomplished greatness... like I said, if you're really interested you should read Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson. No one is saying that an AfroCentric education is a cure-all, but rather that it teachers kids to be proud of their heritage and culture.. standard history books practically ignore Africa (bar Egypt), all we learn about "black history" is slavery and Martin Luther King, etc. It's kind of a systemic way of reinforcing black inferiority..

Not taking white superiority/cultural bias and replacing it with black superiority, but rather adding in what is traditionally left out.

I really don't feel like getting into j-rock's argument - because I strongly disagree with a lot of it.. Bill Cosby and others like him are totally missing the point.. this "blame the victim" mentality and ignoring the very real systemic causes of the achievement gap, ridiculously high rates of incarceration, etc. is just really shortsighted and wrong - but the whole "if you want to learn about black history go to a library" thing really bothers me.. you shouldn't HAVE TO go to a library.. that's the point.

Maybe irrelevant, but isn't there something of a difference between a single class dealing with 'the cultural and political history of the people of this continent' and a school designed around a concept of cultural unity (Afrocentrism) that's (as I read Sundar's statements) ill-defined and doesn't necessarily exist?

Do you think that people with qualms about this would take issue with AP/IB African History?

-- milo z, Thursday, May 22, 2008 10:53 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Right, but for the most part U.S. schools still are structured around a default concept of Euro-American cultural unity. This permeates literature, history, art and music courses at minimum, and even well-meaning attempts to "include" other cultures tend toward pat-on-the-head condescension.

And having AP African History as an optional course is not necessarily going to address that.

widening ppl's cultural POVs (especially from a young age) is always a good thing but really they should try to teach everyone from many different POVs instead of one POV per student

(fwiw this is probably a step in the right direction, esp. in that it is bringing this sort of discussion to the table)

Yeah, I agree. Ultimately I don't know if these schools are the solution. But it's not like I spend much time thinking about whether Jews should send their kids to private Jewish schools (I mean I don't want to send my kids to one but I don't go criticizing people for it really). And really I think cultural and historical mythology plays a huge role in the Jewish culture that leads to disproportionate success in certain areas, because the message gets reinforced over and over again that Jews are good at certain things and can succeed in certain things.

I don't disagree with that, Hurting - I just find the specific comparison between Afrocentric Elementary and IB European History to be specious. IB European History is a single class that deals with the political and cultural history of the continent of Europe, just like a class on US history - it doesn't explore a meta-culture of European-ness.

If the argument were that we all grew up in schools that were Eurocentric, OK, I agree. But IB Euro History (or a hypothetical IB African History) is quite different.

I don't think the concept of cultural unity is "ill-defined." It's very well defined : people of African heritage/people of the African diaspora.

What Sundar referenced earlier is why I think the idea is problematic (and potentially ill-defined) - " including a large community of recent immigrants from the Caribbean as well as e.g. immigrants from Somalia and people whose families have been in the country for generations. So I was not sure whether there is a single 'Africentric' experience common."
Isn't it difficult for those of us on the outside to assume a uniform identity based almost entirely on their skin color?

I don't have an issue with an Afrocentric school, and can see its value - but the issues raised by Sundar are perfectly valid.

Well yeah, but the people who design American History curricula very consciously cobble together a kind of cultural mythology for disparate immigrant groups and pilgrim-descendents alike. I think the question is really whether it's useful to so deliberately create a sub-culture within a nation as opposed to just trying to find better ways to pluralize the standard curriculum.

"but the whole "if you want to learn about black history go to a library" thing really bothers me.. you shouldn't HAVE TO go to a library.. that's the point."

If you had read my entire post you would have noticed that I did in fact mention that the current curriculum is lacking, and it should be dealt with. The simple fact is that in a multicultural environment like Toronto, it's not practical for every ethnic/cultural group to have their history or culture properly addressed in school. But it doesn't seem to result in 40% drop out rates for other groups, although the Portuguese also have an abnormally high drop out rate.

"this "blame the victim" mentality and ignoring the very real systemic causes of the achievement gap, ridiculously high rates of incarceration, etc. is just really shortsighted and wrong"

I don't for a second deny that there are "very real and systemic" causes for the achievement gap. Although the ghost of slavery doesn't hang over Canada in the same way it does in the US, there is a great deal of institutionalized racism here. It sucks, but that's the way it is. But you know what? It's not directed only against blacks. Why don't other groups who are also discriminated against suffer from 40% drop out rates? Black parents need to start accepting some of the responsibility. The community needs to take a good look at itself and start asking tough questions. "Blaming the victim" - I won't even start on that.

"so basically you are saying that if you are poor and of low socioeconomic status, you have no hope for educational success?"

No. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I was trying to say is that kids in that situation will generally perform at a level comparable to other kids in that same situation - regardless of skin colour.

You don't think that covers an enormous amount of cultural and historical territory?

Well yeah, obviously, that's what I said in the part you cut out. The point is that there is a shared cultural ancestry.

What Sundar referenced earlier is why I think the idea is problematic (and potentially ill-defined) - " including a large community of recent immigrants from the Caribbean as well as e.g. immigrants from Somalia and people whose families have been in the country for generations. So I was not sure whether there is a single 'Africentric' experience common."
Isn't it difficult for those of us on the outside to assume a uniform identity based almost entirely on their skin color?

Well first off, I'm not really 'on the outside' - I'm a 1st Generation american - my family is mainly from the carribean. So my ancestors weren't slaves here in America, but they were obviously uprooted from Africa at one point and were slaves in the carribean.. Obviously Afro-Cuban, Carribean Black , African-American, and Africans have very different cultures now.. but there is a shared cultural bond of african heritage, all being of the african disapora...

I mean, the point isn't to go into all of the different cultures in depth, but merely to have more concentration and spotlight on the history of africa, the historical achievements of people of african descent, uprisings and movements of people of african descent, the diaspora, etc. And of course it will not JUST focus on that, it's just a broader curriculm that is less culturally biased/white-washed...

If you had read my entire post you would have noticed that I did in fact mention that the current curriculum is lacking, and it should be dealt with. The simple fact is that in a multicultural environment like Toronto, it's not practical for every ethnic/cultural group to have their history or culture properly addressed in school. But it doesn't seem to result in 40% drop out rates for other groups, although the Portuguese also have an abnormally high drop out rate.

I know nothing about Canada so I can't really speak on that. No one is saying that an afro-centric curriculum will magically cure the ills of the black community, or that the current euro-centric curriculum is the cause of said ills (I mean, it in many cases marginalizes minority cultures and re-inforces inferiority, but obviously it's not the cause of every problem)...

I don't for a second deny that there are "very real and systemic" causes for the achievement gap. Although the ghost of slavery doesn't hang over Canada in the same way it does in the US, there is a great deal of institutionalized racism here. It sucks, but that's the way it is. But you know what? It's not directed only against blacks. Why don't other groups who are also discriminated against suffer from 40% drop out rates? Black parents need to start accepting some of the responsibility. The community needs to take a good look at itself and start asking tough questions. "Blaming the victim" - I won't even start on that.

What else would you call it besides "blaming the victim." I mean, I'm in no way saying that all black people are victims or whatever, but the argument that Bill Cosby, and the other bourgeoise cultural critics make tries to make it a cultural problem - it's the rap music and the ebonics and the single parent homes and the ghetto names - and while I certainly won't deny that there are cultural causes and personal responsibility is important , there are broader systemic issues that are at the root. And I don't think it's fair to paint everyone with such a broad brush, there's only so much parents can do really. I know of many hard working, tough parents whose kids drop out of school...

I think the question is really whether it's useful to so deliberately create a sub-culture within a nation as opposed to just trying to find better ways to pluralize the standard curriculum.

otm. not to pull a "challenging opinion" on you but martin v. malcolm redux obviously.
Oh there's a hell of a lot of fair criticisms to be made, I mean "self-determination" and other arguably hoary, hermetic pan-african contentions are fulcrums of the pedagogy (in its dominant form) and that's a function of the social movements they sprung from (the schools i'm personally familiar with seem to take alot of their cues from the US organization, fwiw.). Like Vahid said, this being about race, this being the U.S. gives us yet another frustrating stalemate in terms of meaningful public discussion

Well, I would agree that the standard curriculum needs to be modified, but the fact of the matter is that this nation is already broken into subcultures.. and majority of schools are highly segregated, so in a predominately black school why not use a curriculum that is more centered on the accomplishments of black folks, instead of relegating the study of black history to one month of Rosa Parks and MLK, and a few chapters on slavery?

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I was trying to say is that kids in that situation will generally perform at a level comparable to other kids in that same situation - regardless of skin colour.

actually, this is not true!

there is a HUGE body of educational research - at elementary, secondary and college level - showing effects of race and gender on achievement.

for example, among HSE students in high-achieving engineering & ivy league schools, it has been observed that women, students of color, and *particularly* female students of color tend to fail in science and engineering classes. this is true even when you control for things like GPA, high school achievement, LSAT scores, GRE scores, etc etc

columbia's science education dept did an internal study on it awhile back in collaboration w/ teachers college, lots of research going on at stanford, too.

I can only speak from experience, but the fact that I did well in school was DIRECTLY related to the fact that my parents would not have accepted poor grades, and they made that very clear from very early on. I went to "good" schools with a lot of people whose parents came from all over the world, and most of us got pretty decent grades. I refuse to accept that given the same chances as everyone else that black kids are somehow more prone to failure, and that's the message I'm getting from a lot of the supporters of this "Africentric" school. There are several real factors, some of which were mentioned upthread, which could explain the disproportionate dropout rate among black students in Toronto, but I don't think that the lack of an "Africentric" curriculum is one of them. All this has done is distract people from trying to get to the heart of the issue.

Comments are routinely made attributing the academic success of east Asian students to a cultural "emphasis on education". So why is it so taboo to examine the role of the family and other cultural factors when discussing those groups who don't perform so well?

there is a HUGE body of educational research - at elementary, secondary and college level - showing effects of race and gender on achievement.

I'm very aware of the persistent gender gap that exists with regards to women in the sciences and that data can probably be extrapolated and applied to other areas. For reasons pertaining to history, culture and social makeup however, I'm somewhat less confident that race-based data generated in the US is applicable anywhere else.

so you attribute your success to your puritan work ethic, to the strong moral fiber passed down to you by your forefathers?

hate to say it, but that sounds like reactionary bullshit.

i mean, my parents would get pissed as fuck-all about poor grades too, but then again so do many parents of many students who fail. i know, i'm a teacher. believe me, the kids that fail my classes, very few of their parents DO accept poor grades. dad yelling, mom crying, swearing and making oaths in spanish or cantonese or what-have-you. it's not a pretty sight!

don't think that people who fail don't go down fighting, or that their parents just shrug and say "fuck schoolin, let's go spend our welfare checks on 40s".

the two big gaping holes i see in what you're saying:

1) students of color generally aren't given the same chance as everyone else

2) that an afrocentric charter school doesn't get at some of the *major* motivators of success in schooling, which are buy-in, engagement, sense of choice, sense of dignity, sense of community, etc.

so you attribute your success to your puritan work ethic, to the strong moral fiber passed down to you by your forefathers?

How the HELL did you get that from anything that I wrote?! If you knew me, you'd realize how ridiculous that actually is.

My sole point is that the colour of one's skin is not the primary determinant in academic success. Black students are not in any way inferior to their peers, and telling them that they need special schools in order to succeed is wrong.

I'd also try to avoid the personal attacks. During the course of this discussion, I've let a little bit of bullshit slide past without getting nasty about it.

i could go on and on and on about situated cognition. the point is that everybody's ability to think is improved in familiar situations and reduced in unfamiliar situations.

Yeah, we all took first year psych as well.

t the fact that I did well in school was DIRECTLY related to the fact that my parents would not have accepted poor grades

my parents really value education, but really the reason that I've done well and a lot of my peers haven't is that I had teachers who took an interest in me, put me in gifted programs, etc. Not everyone is as fortunate. Schools are poorly funded, most teachers don't give a fuck, etc.. so what do you expect to happen? It's not so much that looking to the culture is "taboo," it's just wrong. There are many kids who come from single parent homes to make something of themselves, and there are emany kids with strict parents who "value education" that drop out of school... and I don't know why people say that black culture doesn't value education, where do you get that from?

Black students are not in any way inferior to their peers, and telling them that they need special schools in order to succeed is wrong.

No one is saying this.

actually, SPECIAL SCHOOLS are what EVERYONE needs to succeed

Black students are not in any way inferior to their peers, and telling them that they need special schools in order to succeed is wrong.

No one is saying this.

How are they not saying this? I've been following this issue very closely since it first emerged here, and that's exactly what they are saying. The people that lobbied so hard for this really believe that they have taken a proactive step towards lowering the drop-out rate. Supporters of this initiative go on TV and say things like "the schools are failing our children". That's not telling the whole story.

"the schools are failing our children" << the rallying cry for every decision made in education, ever. it's just empty rhetoric.

special schools ARE a pro-active step towards lowering the drop-out rate. just about every high school district in the US is looking at establishing interest-based schools. magnet math and science schools, arts schools, technology academies, etc.

seems like you're ignoring the big difference between elective education and tracking.

obviously it would be shitty to conclude that because some kids underperform in math & science they should go to the arts school. but if the kid *elects* to go to the arts school, then that's a big deal. and the odds of that kid dropping out of school go waaaaaay down.

seriously, though, can i do some teacher chest-beating here?

as far as "not telling the whole story" goes, here's how i look at it.

i have a student, who's failing all of his classes. is a lack of hobbies other than video games is the cause of failure? no, of course not. he's failing in school because he's not managing some of his personal problems well. these problems stem mostly from being severely physically abused when he was a child. at least, that's what the psychologists tell us. so what do you think we are trying to do to help him get over his problems? un-physically abuse him? no, we're trying to get him involved in positive school activities and tie those activities to school achievement. does that get at the "root cause" of that kid's problem? hell no, but it's better than doing nothing, and you know what? i think it will work.

i mean, seriously. have you got a plan? because that's what these charter school people have. here's our curriculum, here's our administration, here's our facilities, here's our charter. the school board can look it over and make sure it meets the standards of any other public school, and parents can throw in their lot too and go for it. they got a plan, they're rolling.

same w/ my special ed kid, we got a plan, we're rolling. so we don't have a time machine, or a cure for severe emotional disturbance. fuck it, we got a plan, and we're doing stuff for this kid, giving him support, good support that would be good for ANY student (just like small schools built around elective choice are good for ANY group of other students, cf the high-performing arts interest or media interest or technology interest or asian-language interest charter schools in california)

that's a plan, it's a lot better than what you got. "the parents need to learn not to accept their children's failure and they need to take responsibility for their family units". sorry, that's not a plan, that's a platitude. i work in a school, my job is to help kids by working with and in their families and communities (not to tell the poor how to live their lives -- apparently that's your job?) ... that's what i'm going to do, and good on the school board up there for doing the same.

i mean, what do you think i should do? call his mom up, tell her she's a bad person for working in a beauty parlor? and dating a construction worker instead of a college professor? and buying her kid an xbox 360 instead of encyclopedia britannica? for letting him skate around the neighborhood until 7 pm, when she gets off work and can get him back in the house?

what do you think *I* could do, that would lead to the best outcome for this kid?

let's get at the root of the problem, j-rock

special schools ARE a pro-active step towards lowering the drop-out rate. just about every high school district in the US is looking at establishing interest-based schools. magnet math and science schools, arts schools, technology academies, etc.

I support the idea of "special schools". They've been a fixture around here for quite some time. Schools for the arts, trades, gifted children, French immersion, aviation - I think these are fine. The Toronto board even has schools for gay/lesbian/bi/transgender students because too many of them were dropping out due to getting bullied and harassed. They're not taught a "gay" curriculum. They're just somewhere safe where morons can't hurt them. Black kids aren't dropping out because they're getting their asses kicked in school every day. 40% indicates that there are real problems, and this "Africentric" school is not a real solution.

i mean, seriously. have you got a plan? because that's what these charter school people have.

The supporters of this school don't have a plan. They have a placebo. There's a big difference.

so french immersion is OK, but afrocentric culture is not. i still don't follow.

no one is saying that an afrocentric curriculum is a cure-all, or that it'll magically stop kids from dropping out of school

they're not taught a "gay" curriculum

^^ would it be bad if they were?

would it be so awful to have them read lots of books by gay authors, and take a little extra time to learn about stories of homosexuals killed in the holocaust?

i'm sure that the vast majority of what they learn - reading, grammar, math, science - would be the same. but the window-dressing around it would address a topic that would give them a lot of buy-in to the school experience.

i mean, i was on the school newspaper. it was one class. out of six. that met none of the education content standards for the state. and i probably spent a little too much time on it -- maybe a quarter of my time in school? or a third? a lot of time. but you know what? it made me feel like an important person. like i gave a shit about school, like i had a place to belong. and my grades when i was on the newspaper were like 4.0, compared to when i was a lonely isolated freshman getting a 2.8.

i think small schools can accomplish this for a lot of kids who would otherwise not have access to things like a school newspaper or a yearbook or an academic team.

so french immersion is OK, but afrocentric culture is not. i still don't follow.

The two are unrelated. French is one of Canada's official languages, and French immersion was not instituted to stem a 40% drop out rate among Francophones. The basic premise behind the "Africentric" school is to engage students who are supposedly underachieving because regular schools don't cater to their specific cultural needs, and that's a load of bunk. Schools don't cater to anyone's specific cultural needs.

thats a thin line youre drawing there j-rock

Schools don't cater to anyone's specific cultural needs.

ROTFL. you're right, schools are like rocks and lava, they pre-existed man and culture.

students who are supposedly underachieving because regular schools don't cater to their specific cultural needs

i don't know if this is very relevant. i agree that it sounds weak, but you don't need to identify a weakness to provide good education. teachers aren't doctors, constantly looking for weaknesses and problems. i think the important thing is to say, hey, here's a strength that these kids have in common - they have a common culture, that's interesting, and interesting to them, and could form the core of a unique educational experience that could be very fulfilling to these kids.

no one is saying that an afrocentric curriculum is a cure-all, or that it'll magically stop kids from dropping out of school

The problem is that a lot of the people who support this idea do think that it's going to help. That's the way that this debate has been framed here. "The kids are dropping out in huge numbers? Let's make a special school for them and not discuss any other reasons for why it might be happening. That'll fix it."

Just like I asked in my first post, what's going to happen 5 or 10 years down the road when the drop out rate proves to be more resilient than expected? What's the next scapegoat?

For what it's worth, most of the teachers I know who work in Toronto absolutely hate the idea.

i don't know, does your magical prescient ability to predict the future stop after 10 years?

no moonship, school is supposed to be a bitter medicine you are forced to swallow by your high-achieving parents

they have a common culture, that's interesting, and interesting to them, and could form the core of a unique educational experience that could be very fulfilling to these kids.

They don't have a common culture. They have a common skin colour. It's different.

i don't know, does your magical prescient ability to predict the future stop after 10 years?

Wow. What an intelligent contribution to the discussion.

thanks! :-D

there's very high-performing charter school about two miles from my home, built around the common culture of pacific islander, latino and african american students.

They don't have a common culture. They have a common skin colour. It's different.

Really OTM. It's kind of insane to think that children of recent West African immigrants have much in common with fifth- or sixth-generation families.

Wow. What an intelligent contribution to the discussion.

Yeah, that future-telling line was kind of a dick move.

there's very high-performing charter school about two miles from my home, built around the common culture of pacific islander, latino and african american students.

What ethnicity are the teachers? Is a lot of this just code for "minority students often perform poorly under white teachers" (as I suspect may be the case)? If so, why the whole Afrocentricism rubric?

(I suspect may be the case = I suspect it's code, not I suspect they perform poorly -- I have no information about the latter)

teacher ethnicity = white, hispanic, asian, african-american, southeast asian. the school was started by teachers from that neighborhood.

when i jury their senior exhibitions next wednesday, i'll be sure to point out how resilient the drop-out rate is proving ... *fiendish cackle*

minority students often perform poorly when they're bused 30 minutes from their home into a nearby affluent neighborhood, and then tracked into low-performing classes while their white and asian peers are tracked into high-performing classes.

but the interesting point -- that i keep trying to raise, and nobody's really hearing here, but i guess i shouldn't be surprising, because what do i know about education -- is that education's not about diagnosing weakness and looking failure.

you look for the student's strengths. what are their strengths. is the school system not drawing on those strengths? you look for what the students have that you can draw on. you try to build students up.

suppose you walk into my classroom. and i look at you, and i can tell you're not good at math. which sucks for you, because it's a math class. so i'm cold-calling on people. and the first question i give you is to tell me the coordinates of a point on the unit circle in terms of radians and trig functions. if you feel like i've gone sufficiently over your head (maybe you're a year behind in math, because of your junior high?) what's going to happen? you're going to shut down. pretty hard. like, you might not talk for the rest of the week, depending on how embarrassed you are. so maybe i throw you some easier questions. or i figure out something you know the other kids don't, and i bring that into class. now you feel like a champ, you're like "hey, i can do this. i can be in this class, i am somebody".

It's kind of insane to think that children of recent West African immigrants have much in common with fifth- or sixth-generation families.

and, i mean, again ... it's not like anybody is PRESCRIBING black-only schools for black kids. we're not talking about tracking black and hispanic kids into charter schools. the kids get to CHOOSE whether they want to go!

so i imagine if the parents (fifth-and-sixth generation) were going to the trouble of enrolling their kids in this highly controversial school, then maybe they'd have some sort of afrocentric history background? like maybe their parents involved them in this cultural stuff already?

education's not about diagnosing weakness and looking failure.

I completely agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but as a literal definition of the current state of institutionalized education, that's not entirely true. Like it or not, students ultimately have to navigate a whole minefield of events, standardized tests being one of them, that are specifically designed to diagnose weakness. In some sense, the entire grading system is built to emphasize the absence of mistakes, not the demonstration of strengths.

(And I don't know that that's an entirely bad thing -- so many standards in real life are about establishing minimum criteria of knowledge, things you simply have to know in order to gain entry to a profession, especially in technical fields where being really good at something is actually quite a bit less important than not having a gap in your knowledge.)

and i look at you, and i can tell you're not good at math.

I know what you're getting at, but that's a slightly dangerous thing to say.

I mean basically, I believe you're a good classroom teacher who knows how to engage his students, but I'm not sure if what you're describing can really translate into policy -- as something that'll take a student from first grade to college -- especially when you dovetail it with race.

okay, don't worry, we'll prove you wrong. give it about 20 years.

Like it or not, students ultimately have to navigate a whole minefield of events, standardized tests being one of them

standardized tests which are generally pretty poor predictors of success and which many schools are talking about de-emphasizing and/or getting rid of.

that are specifically designed to diagnose weakness. In some sense, the entire grading system is built to emphasize the absence of mistakes, not the demonstration of strengths

intentionally, which is not necessarily the best way to do things. you have to start at your strengths to grow - figure out what you CAN do and then build on that.

things you simply have to know in order to gain entry to a profession, especially in technical fields where being really good at something is actually quite a bit less important than not having a gap in your knowledge

except that now you've mixed up your terms. because the SAT doesn't measure "gaps in knowledge". the SAT measures if you're really good at something - specifically, very fast, high-accuracy reading, grammar checking and algebra and geometry problem solving.

and not just any sort of algebra problem solving, like the making change sort that waiters do all the time with 99% accuracy, but a very specific sort of algebra and geometry that doesn't even match all of the material that i teach to my kids.

i'm a good halfway-decent classroom teacher ... i could be a LOT better ... but i know my theory and research and i've got some academic and public-service connections. and i hate to come off all arrogant jerk on this thread, but this is my life that i live every day. i'm staking my professional life on a small-schools / interest-schools model ... so, yeah ... taking it sort of personally ...

i should append this to say and i've got some academic and public-service connections who keep me up to speed on policy

and i look at you, and i can tell you're not good at math.

dude i'm just telling a story here. in real life, i have the kids write me a letter on the first day where they say three things they love doing in class, three things they hate doing in class, etc etc. and i look at their previous grades and transcripts and etc.

I wasn't saying that the SAT is a general-knowledge test, as it certainly isn't. Like most standardized tests, the SAT doesn't measure if you're good at something per se; rather, it measures how much you fail at it -- that is, if you can live up to a standard -- by design. It doesn't particularly diagnose your strengths, but it punishes your failures, as defined vis-a-vis one particular skill set it seeks to measure. And I think that's one way in which it actually does reflect real life, in that the "don't screw up" paradigm really is often more relevant than the "what are you good at?" paradigm.

Again, I think the idea of working from strengths is a very good one on a practical level, but it doesn't necessarily address the question of meeting minimum standards -- and putting out students who meet minimum standards is, in the eyes of many people, the basic point of the public education system. Not saying I agree with the way that's often translated into policy...but I can't say I really disagree with the idea that a high school diploma should translate into a specific set of skills that can be taken for granted, even if those skills are more process- than content-oriented.

My two cents.

My parents took a strong interest in my education from an early enough age that I was reading Dr. Seuss at the age of two. They managed to instill into me a love of learning that I hold to this day, but not, despite over a decade of their best efforts, an interest in getting good grades.

I was one of two black students in my elementary school. The fact that I was so far ahead of the other students, compounded with my disdain for work I didn't find challenging (which would later get me into mucho trouble), led me to not complete my schoolwork. As I would later find out, I almost was made to repeat kindergarten, and a year later almost pulled from school completely after my first grade teacher more or less told my mom that I was retarded, which my mother balked at.

At the end of second grade, students took tests to get into the school districts gifted program. I placed highest in my school by a strong margin. From then on, I was bussed to a school in a different part of the district where the gifted program was held. Within the gifted program I was finally able to progress at my own pace and flourished.

My new school also taught students from the surrounding neighborhood, which was a lot more, shall we say, multicultural than my own. Even then, though I couldn't articulate it at the time, I was struck by the oddity of the fact that, even though I now went to a school with plenty of black students, I was the only black student in the gifted program. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of the friends I made there, black, white, and otherwise, came from outside of the gifted program.

Fast forward to high school. The two high schools in the district are basically arranged so all the upscale, almost exclusively white or asian, coastal areas feed into KHS, and all the downscale, melting pot, inland areas feed into MHS. Being that I lived in an upscale, coastal neighborhood (now one of three black families, soon we'll trigger white flight!), I went to the beautiful, new KHS, (50-year old MHS, otoh, is known as "the Prison" due to the strong resemblance) where I was one of 36 black students out of a body of over 2000.

I was having problems. Even though I was one of the smartest students there, I couldn't get into the advanced classes I wanted because I couldn't keep my grades up. This led into a vicious cycle with that whole disdain for non-challenging work thing I mentioned earlier. Through all of this my parents went through every type of carrot and stick they could find trying to get me to pass my classes. They offered me a trip to Brazil, they grounded me for six months, they paid out the ass to make me take organization lessons at Sylvan Learning Center, which is is still one of the most bullshit things I've ever done in my life.

It was during this time that I first encountered the concept of Afrocentricity, and saw the distorting effects of the Great Man Theory of history that I'd been taught, along with how little literature by minorities was taught in my English classes. Thankfully, I had one history teacher who sought to explain history more from the point of view of the people on the ground. On one of the first days of that class he talked about the pre-Columbian origins of the African slave trade. A white student asked him why we were learning this and said it wasn't important. This pissed me off. I ended up standing up and making a case for why it was important that we should learn this. That class was one of the few where I felt as validated as I had in the elementary school gifted program, and I performed well.

Not every class went as well as that one, though. By the end of my junior year, I didn't have enough credits to graduate and was yet again sent to a magnet school. This time it was to an "alternative high school" where I never wanted to be. The classes were even farther beneath what I considered my level, and I found myself, for the first time, losing all interest in school whatsoever. By the end of the year I had fallen into depression and dropped out of school. I later got a high school diploma from the Community College I currently attend.

I'm not sure I have any point here other than rambling on at length about the ups and downs of my own education, but I'm mostly trying to sort out where I fit into these arguments and whether I would have benefited from an Afrocentric magnet school.

wow, thanks!

here's an xpost to charlie

okay, there's two different points there:

1) "don't screw up" paradigm.

what industry do you work in? is it really do or die, all the time? do you really not get any chance to proof your work? you work alone? no review process? no peer feedback? no chance to fix mistakes the next day? you got hired because "you don't screw up", not because of the strengths you listed on your resume?

personally speaking, my job is *none* of these things. i screw up all the time, but i know how to catch and fix my mistakes, which the SAT doesn't really give you a chance to do. and most of the time i held onto my job because of the stuff i did really well, not because of how infrequent my mistakes were.

i dunno, i guess ... maybe our work history is different? i've worked in food service, libraries, bookstores, teaching, professional research scientist, construction ... that about sums it up. you?

2) meeting minimum standards.

so like here's a minimum standard from the california chemistry content standards

"4b. Students know the random motion of molecules explains the diffusion of gases."

so how is the best way to assess this. a true or false test? a multiple-choice test? a project? a video? a skit? an oral presentation?

here's two ways:

1. the diffusion of gases is caused by:
a) pressure oscillation
b) osmotic variation
c) polar bonding
d) molecular motion
e) electromotive force

vs

"ok matt ... suppose i fart in this corner of the room? why do you smell it on the other side of the room ten minutes later? uh-huh? how did the smell get there? the what? what came out of my butt? yeah, molecules. they did what? ok yeah, the fart molecules got across the room. why did they go over there? oh, they just go all over the place? ok. so why did it take ten minutes? oh, so they bounce off stuff? like the desk? oh, right, molecules. wait, isn't the desk molecules too? oh, air molecules? is there such a thing as air molecules? yeah, right. well, actually only 20% oxygen, 80% nitrogen. or therabouts. ok keep going ... yeah, right! exactly like that ... like when you spill a drink, the molecules just move all over the place, all over the desk, except this is in 3-d in the air. good job. ok, everyone, a hand for matt"

^^ from memory transcript of an oral presentation by a special ed student. not standardized.

which examination tells me more accurately whether or not the student meets the minimum standard for Chemistry 4b?

"like when you spill a drink, the molecules just move all over the place, all over the desk, except this is in 3-d in the air"

^^ how the student explained the random motion of molecules

this is the same student who said "simple-ized" instead of "simplified". he would not do well on that first test question, even though he *knows* the answer.

wow, thanks!

-- moonship journey to baja, Friday, May 23, 2008 1:33 AM (Friday, May 23, 2008 1:33 AM) Bookmark Link

Aww, no problem. I'm just getting stuff off my chest, really. I do have to say you've convinced me of your argument.

(xpost) Haha wow, we kind of have similar stories (except my elementary and JHS were pretty much 100% black)... I was in gifted classes and went to a special HS... but once I hit junior year I started having problems.. basically dropped out for a semester..just didn't go to school most of the time.. then I went to an 'alternative' school and ultimately I did graduate on time, but the last two years of my HS career I didn't feel challenged at all, most of my learning was done on my own..

continuation school is pretty much the worst shit ever =(

Yeah, and that's kind of the thing with me. I was always, always, always learning independently, but my schooling rarely engaged me. xp

It was much better when I turned 19 and could do the diploma completion program at the college and take cool stuff like philosophy for my last couple credits.

The whole irony of the situation is that my sister opted to get a transfer to MHS, where she was happy to be surrounded by people who looked more like herself, but fell in with a bad crowd and ended up doing even worse than me.

where is mhs / khs?

just out of curiosity, not researching ur life

suburban Seattle

xp: hahaha no problem, jaymoonshipc

americans posting to this thread. the following are things we don't have, for contextual purposes:

a comprable system of school funding. school funding is not as closely tied to local property tax revenue. schools are a provincial prerogative, and funding is generally distributed in order to ensure equality. this process is not contentious. we don't talk about school vouchers, and students aren't bussed to different districts on the basis of race.

a comparable history of slavery. though nova scotia has a long standing black community, and a sordid history to go along with it (africville), canada had roughly 1400 black slaves in its history.

a comprable black population. canada had explicitly racist immigration laws until the early 1960s. the country, and toronto were pretty white until the 1970s. canada is about 2.5% black - toronto is 8.4% black - less than seattle.

the following are things Toronto has, that your city probably doesn't:

the highest foreign born population % in the world (for a city) - 47% of the city qualifies as a 'visible minority,' whatever that is.

200 distinct ethnic groups (emergency services are equipped to respond in 150 languages).

a defined policy of 'multiculturalsim.'

i think that the initial issue raised by sundar at the beginning of this thread - that there is not a 'unified africentric perspective' - is very valid. my mother teaches at an elementary school in lawrence heights - a relatively 'black,' realatively impoverished area in Toronto. when she's buying books for the library, she's well aware that histories of the slave trade have significantly less relevance for the recent influx of muslim, somali refugees. while there may be a 'shared bond of african history,' institutionalizing that seems to gloss over the extraordinary differences in toronto's population, and doesn't sit well with canada's (however flawed) multicultural ethos.

while i'm not sure where i stand on the africentric school issue, part of me thinks it better to teach the history of africville, chinese discrimination etc. to all students, in all schools.

judge holden caulfield OTM.

I can't help but feel that a lot of America's racial and social baggage has impacted this discussion, and it simply doesn't apply here. jhc is right in saying that Nova Scotia, as well as southern Ontario, have long established black communities, but for the most part, the majority of black people in Toronto, and Canada for that matter, are relatively recent immigrants. By that, I mean that they're either brand new or have been here for only a generation or two. Few if any of our ancestors were slaves here, and we haven't been subjected to centuries of discrimination, violence and marginalization. So in that context, what are black students or families in TORONTO doing so differently from the other recently arrived ethnic / cultural groups who are not experiencing the same failure rates in the schools? If the curriculum, and the people teaching it, were indeed to blame, wouldn't other groups, many of whom are also discriminated against, and whose cultures also are not reflected in what's being taught, be suffering from at least comparable drop out rates?

part of me thinks it better to teach the history of africville, chinese discrimination etc. to all students, in all schools.

Definitely. And that's much more appropriate for a city in which "minorities" nearly constitute the majority.

the highest foreign born population % in the world (for a city) - 47% of the city qualifies as a 'visible minority,' whatever that is.

200 distinct ethnic groups (emergency services are equipped to respond in 150 languages).

a defined policy of 'multiculturalsim.'

This is an important thing to remember for those who don't live in TO. My own feelings about the proposed school are very mixed, but the people I know who live here and object to it do so on this basis. It's seen as singling out and coddling one (ill-defined) 'group' from the melting pot. It's seen as a tacit endorsement of, or first step towards, separate schools for all ethnic groups, which people see as a terrible step in the wrong direction.

^^ Not that those things are necessarily the case, but that is the perception I've run into.

why shouldnt white students attend africentric schools

We had a lot of motivational lectures on the need for strong black men and the like. I kind of wish the lecturers had just said "We need strong black men -- and Josh."

why shouldnt white students attend africentric schools

They're allowed to, but it's not likely that many will. As mentioned before, why not just teach everyone a more inclusive curriculum?

im also not sure that i buy the 'because we dont have slavery our racism is different' thing either. something structural/cultural must be causing this achievement gap right? what do u think it is?

i mean its not these schools that are bringing skin color into this right, its the stats?

something structural/cultural must be causing this achievement gap right? what do u think it is?

I don't know that it's any one thing, but in my experience poverty and the single mother situations sure don't help. This is where my ambivalence re: the proposed school comes in. I do think that stronger positive role models would go a long way to helping, and in that way I can see where the school idea is coming from, but it seems like working to achieve this in the regular school system would be more beneficial in the long run. Maybe I'm naive.

im also not sure that i buy the 'because we dont have slavery our racism is different' thing either. something structural/cultural must be causing this achievement gap right?

It is very different here. Slavery still affects everything in the US, in a way that it doesn't in Canada. Even just watching the coverage of the US election, I find it somewhat interesting that while Obama is being hailed as the first viable African-American candidate, nobody seems to mention that he's half-white. The "one drop" rule that is clearly still in effect, is a holdover from less enlightened times.

The stats do point to a significant problem in Toronto schools, but the causes haven't yet been clearly identified. Having successfully navigated the system here, I don't think that all of the blame can be put on the schools. Other groups who face many of the same obstacles as black kids, perform just fine.

can see where the school idea is coming from, but it seems like working to achieve this in the regular school system would be more beneficial in the long run. Maybe I'm naive.

I don't think you're naive at all. As I said previously, I am in favour of making the existing curriculum more inclusive of the students being taught. Furthermore, what can an "Africentric" school accomplish that can't be done within the context of the existing system? Students who want to learn more about their own history or culture can, and often do, establish clubs and study groups, and I also support the idea mentoring as a way of providing positive role models to kids who might not have many.

tentatively, i think you can differentiate between types of racism here and in the us (besides the tautology that racism is racism). in addition to a different history - as was said above - people likely have different daily experiences in toronto than in philadephia or dc say. it's a little more difficult here (though not impossible) to identify areas as 'black' or whatever. even the jane/finch corridor - where the killing of a young student in school intensified the debate about africentric schools, and is often at the epicentre of such discussions - is not exclusively lived in by any one ethnicity.

in many repsects, i'd be more interested to know whether or not a city like winnipeg had schools with curricula geared predominantly towards native canadian students.

im not questioning that its different, but i am questioning that schools as they stand aren't already white-normative

as a product of a single-parent home i dont buy that as an explanation of why kids are doing badly in school either

i've no doubt that they're largely 'white normative' - my education in toronto was. the question is, with such a diverse social makeup, how do you address this problem? maybe africentric schools? maybe a more comprehensive curricular reform.

The thing that makes me laugh about all this is that the program is going to be open to kids of any colour, and there isn't a ton of Canadian black history, so these kids are going to learn less about Canada in favour of learning more about a (valuable, sure) culture they may not even be a part of (though obviously the kids are applying, not being put into this program at random, so hopefully the interest will be there..)

yall should be careful blaming high dropout rates on single-parent households

The stats do point to a significant problem in Toronto schools, but the causes haven't yet been clearly identified. Having successfully navigated the system here, I don't think that all of the blame can be put on the schools. Other groups who face many of the same obstacles as black kids, perform just fine.

if youre going to dismiss curriculum arguments because you were able to make it through school despite the content of its classes, i feel fine dismissing single-parent arguments because i know a lot of people who made it through school growing up with a single mother (or single father, for that matter)

as a product of a single-parent home i dont buy that as an explanation of why kids are doing badly in school either

I was not offering it as an explanation of why kids are doing badly in school. Certainly it's a symptom rather than a cause. But it's on a large scale within certain communities, and it's not helping.

but it seems to me that youre objecting to this on ideological grounds while vahid is defending it on pragmatic grounds (and thats an unstable distinction im setting up, i know). i dont think youve really addressed his main point, which is that these schools work. they lower dropout rates, engage students in school, invest them in education (and therefore in their futures). and the fact is, if these schools can do that, and do it without doing anything hateful or illegal, why object?

you being j-rock

i dont think youve really addressed his main point, which is that these schools work.

This has never been tried before in Toronto, and there's been no data presented to indicate that it will work in this context. My problem with it is that it stigmatizes black students in this city. Why do only they need "training wheels" in order to succeed, when so many other groups face nearly identical challenges in the school system?

I was not offering it as an explanation of why kids are doing badly in school. Certainly it's a symptom rather than a cause. But it's on a large scale within certain communities, and it's not helping.

-- franny glass, Friday, May 23, 2008 10:38 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i know this is getting away from the pragmatic/schooling discussion but i really disagree w/ j-rock's analysis so far.

one parent can raise multiple children successfully. generally the disadvantage of single-parent homes is related to poverty, in that a single-parent home aggravates existing poverty-related problems. i.e. how to earn income and raise your children. i dont think that the reason for the achievement gap is in any way attributable to % of single-parent homes

This has never been tried before in Toronto, and there's been no data presented to indicate that it will work in this context. My problem with it is that it stigmatizes black students in this city. Why do only they need "training wheels" in order to succeed, when so many other groups face nearly identical challenges in the school system?

-- j-rock, Friday, May 23, 2008 10:49 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

why do white students need to stack the deck w/ eurocentric history in order to succeed

jesus christ j-rock, no one in this damn thread has said that black students need this to succeed.

jesus christ j-rock, no one in this damn thread has said that black students need this to succeed.

You're right, nobody on this thread has said that, but proponents of this idea have said this in the press, and this is being treated as a simple solution to a very serious, and complicated problem.

why do white students need to stack the deck w/ eurocentric history in order to succeed

Again, here's the very American idea that discussions of race only revolve around the black/white dichotomy. There are lots of kids of all different colours in Toronto schools, and many of them do very well in spite of a eurocentric curriculum.

heres the rub--if these schools will lower the dropout rate, if theyll re-engage some black students (and open the minds of students from other backgrounds), if theyll do what schools are supposed to do--who the fuck cares what the proponents of the idea said? who gives a shit about "how it seems"? because 20 years from now when some graduates from this school are successful and in positions of power and influence, when the school has a consistently high graduation rate and is shown to engage and attract students, its not going to seem like "training wheels" at all.

i mean look im willing to go to the floor to defend the politics behind these schools but thats not even the issue here--the issue is that a 40% dropout rate is a crisis-level problem, and schools like this can be a really important way to lower that rate. and there will have to be a lot more done, obviously, and let me be clear that neither i nor anyone on this thread think that this school is a cure-all. but at some point, if what we want to is teach students, and invest them in education, at some point i dont really give a shit about the argument, or how it seems. i just want to get it done.

history more like his story

am0n more like a man

why do white students need to stack the deck w/ eurocentric history in order to succeed

Again, here's the very American idea that discussions of race only revolve around the black/white dichotomy. There are lots of kids of all different colours in Toronto schools, and many of them do very well in spite of a eurocentric curriculum.

-- j-rock, Friday, May 23, 2008 11:02 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

and some dont. so? i kind of think "and you have a better idea?" is a totally legit response to this argument

how long before they get accused of "breeding radicalism"

i have no expertise wrt this question, especially with regard to high school, but this thread reminds me of an experience i had in lol grad school:

a (white, male) friend of mine told me he chose to join my graduate program over another one he got into because when he went to the prospective students day for that one, it turned out that the entire entering year was male (to be fair, this is incredibly rare in English and i still don't really understand how it happened). not only that, but one of the entering students commented on how GLAD he was that there weren't going to be any women, because they could all feel more comfortable and stretch out intellectually or something.

i was honestly shocked that someone would say that and commented on this to another (white, male) friend in my graduate program, in sort of a "can you believe this?" tone. and he responded, "well, i think everyone prefers to be in a learning environment where everyone is like them." because i had never had that option at any period in my education (where "like" is defined as same-gender or same-race, and in particular, the latter doesn't exist except in the form of Islamic schools with lots of Indo-Pak students, as far as i know), i was offended. but i think maybe he was just right in a way that depresses me, and, especially at the higher levels of education there's a de facto white maleness to who "everyone" is perceived to be.

one thing white men need more of is comfort

so another interesting point is the "training wheels" / "saturday at the library" argument

from 2004 to 2007 i worked in an afterschool program for students who were either a) below a certain socioeconomic line and had no family history of post-secondary education or b) black, hispanic, native american or pacific islander and had no family history of post-secondary education.

our thinking was that these kids would need special support to transition successfully into the culture of college or university, because no-one in their family had ever been. so we gave them about ~20/wk afterschool tutoring and one saturday per month of extra classes, plus a one-month summer course. and we did intense pre-college counseling too.

so why did *these* kids need training wheels? couldn't they have bootstrapped themselves into college? was this okay? were we stigmatizing these kids? what is different about the "africentric schools" idea?

^^ these are honest questions

Basically if you have two college-educated parents you already have massive training wheels.

no kidding!!!

Don't have time to fully reengage with this discussion, but I do want to say that there's a significant difference between supplementation and having an entirely separate program. I mean, to sketch it out in caricature, I can imagine a Cosby-esque figure basically saying that the former signifies "if you work hard and let us help with you, you can hang with anybody", whereas the latter has a troubling whiff of separate-but-equal at best. I don't agree with this argument, but it might play out this way in the real world -- to be blunt, there might be a stigma. I think that's a big part of what worries many people, and we can all say "Well, who gives a fuck about anyone who would think that", but that righteous sentiment doesn't really amount to much when someone's applying for a job.

cosby-esque!!

:-D

out of curiosity, how big is the proposed school going to be? 2,000 kids? less? there are 87k high school students in toronto--assuming that black students make up the same portion of the student population that black citizens do in toronto as a whole (~8%) there are around 7k afro-canadian high school students in toronto. just so were clear, this proposal isnt about taking all the black students and putting them in a different school (setting aside right now the point that students of all backgrounds will be attending).

toronto is 8.4% black - less than seattle.

Not true. According to 2006 census data, Seattle is 8.2% black. You also have to take into account that Toronto is nearly five times the size of Seattle, thus having a much larger total black population.

side question, but as per max, if success is the bottom line, shouldn't people be supporting vouchers more, or does seperation of church & state trump that?(in the u.s.)

something serious that's been bugging me about this thread.

one thing that always rears its head in discussions of systematic inequity among groups of students is the issue of "value". it's usually suggested that certain groups of parents and/or students simply value education more. they somehow understand the value and importance of education, and somehow manage to pass that on to their children. other groups of parents either don't believe in education, or somehow don't pass that value on to their children. and this explains why certain groups succeed and other groups fail.

i don't remember where, but somewhere in this thread the idea came up ... we just need to impress the *value* of education on these canadians.

the problem with this idea is that there's simply *no* evidence to suggest that this is true. there is study after study showing that people who succeed don't rate the value of education any higher than people who don't. on paper, anyway, everyone *says* they value education. and everyone makes more or less the same sacrifices for their kids, puts in the same amount of time checking up, etc. the differences that exist are too diffuse to really explain anything.

what IS striking is that there are two factors that are hugely important in determining success (at least on a by-class basis, because that's really what i know much more about, why some people do well in math & science and others don't)

the first is the perceived difficulty and value of a subject. in asia and india, students don't think of science or math as especially hard. students in the highest performing country in the world (singapore) think that science is easier than business or law. in america, we have the opposite point of view. the intellectual hierarchy starts w/ einstein, and works its way down to doctors, then to lawyers and MBAs, and then down to the rest of us proles. so this is an interesting reversal: students who do well in math & science tend to be those whom americans would consider to be the "least" motivated. they don't consider math & science to be especially difficult or somehow different from other subjects.

the second is the method by which improvement happens, or doesn't. students who are successful in math & science tend to be those students who think that improvement happens gradually, and that if you work at the subject, you will improve. the students who tend not to succeed are the students who think that you're either good at math and science or you're not. if you get to the class, and you're "bad at it", no amount of work can get you to the level of the students who are "good at it" by nature.

so anyway, here's two big ideas that are very, very prevalent in american society and which tend to be even more prevalent in under-performing groups.

we just need to impress the *value* of education on these canadians.

wtf? "Canadian" is the new N-word?

just kidding, V. Very good points.

I have nothing interesting to say about this article at this moment, but I'm posting it in this thread because I want all the cans of worms here to get re-opened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/education/23gap.html?_r=1&nl=pol&emc=pola1

The study has not yet undergone peer review
"It’s a very small sample"