Africentered Alternative Schooling

Yesterday, the Toronto District School Board voted in an 11-9 decision to allow a pilot project to go forward establishing an "Africentered" or "Black-focused" school. It is estimated that the dropout rates amongst Black youth in the Toronto area is roughly 40%. In order to curb this tide, the Board opted for this type of institution, which is scheduled to open in September 2009.

Although it is still to be determined how the curriculum is to be shaped, one wonders about the advisability of undertaking this endeavor and the precedent it may set. Do Black school children need to be isolated in a special school in order to learn and remain in school? The creation of a Black-focused school also seems to presume a certain monolithic quality about the community. Indeed, the community is diverse drawing from families who have lived in Canada for generations, to more recent immigrant populations from Africa and the Carribbean. How would an Africentered respond to such heterogeneity and would it be sufficient?

One source seemed to suggest that the high drop out rate was attributable to a lack of interest amongst the students for the subjects taught in the current curriculum. For example: "[m]any students say they would do better if they learned about their heritage, but who knows about Mathieu da Costa, (a navigator of African descent) who came to Canada in 1603 as a translator in Champlain's expeditions." http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/298714

I find such reasons unconvincing. When I attended high school, (admittedly more than a few years ago), we had more than a few students who were part of visible minority communities. They were able to pass (and notably not drop out), notwithstanding the fact that the history classes were largely western-centric. I do not doubt that school could and should be made more interesting, and that curricula should be modified to account for the greater diversity that is existent in modern North American urban centres. Students across the board would benefit from such changes.

For example, a history course in high school could take into account other areas of focus that have hitherto been unexplored. This might include historical agents amongst women, the working classes, visible minorities and/or other historically marginalized communities, seeking to gain equal rights and opportunities through mediums other than political parties that excluded their participation. A new curriculum could include the attempts to effect changes in the law through litigation. For example, the successful efforts of the NAACP to have segregation struck down as unconstitutional or the use of civil disobedience to protest against unequal treatment on the basis of race. Or more recently, the efforts of same-sex couples, in both Canada and the United States who sought the right to be married and were able to achieve such change through court challenges. Rather than being a mere exercise in memorization of dates and events, history can be taught in a way that inspires students about the struggles that people took throughout history to effect change. This isn't to completely sidestep traditional historical subjects of course, but some favourite topics and ways of examining them may have to be set aside for others to be incorporated. The underlying point however is that separate schools are not necessary to have a more inclusive curriculum.

If (some) Black students need separate heritage-focused education in order to excel, what happens once they graduate from high school? Will such students need to be provided further heritage-focused education in University to maintain their momentum? Will they be able to compete academically with other students when they are once again faced with a "boring" non-heritage-focused curriculum? Will such schools be able to prepare students for what lies ahead?

These questions are not intended to be rhetorical or flippant, but should be part of the discussion. In all events, the pilot project will be observed from many quarters.

The Snow Day Phone Message

Be careful when leaving an irate phone message or sending a quickly worded e-mail in a fit of rage, cause you might find it/them appearing in unexpected places.

By now, many will have heard about the Virginia high school senior who left a phone message at a school official's home, asking why a snow day was not called, due to, wait for it, three inches of snow.

The spouse of the school official phoned and left a rather irate message on the senior's cell phone voice mail. Not to be outdone, the senior then decided to upload the spouse's recording, accessible by a link from a Facebook page dedicated to the school official. On the Facebook page, the official's home phone number was also posted. The official and his family then became the unfortunate recipients of numerous harassing phone calls, including during the wee hours of the morning. The media picked up the story and began to make numerous inquiries, resorting to such nefarious tactics as calling the senior's house, who apparently wasn't too fond of his new found notoriety. Thinking that now, enough was enough, the senior quickly reminded the media of the different and substantial issues of the day, which it was neglecting by pursuing this story: i.e. Darfur and the presidential primaries (for indeed the country is in such dire need to talk about the continuing saga of Bill, Hillary, and Barack on the campaign trail).

The senior was partly right, there are more serious things to discuss than hearing the spouse's irate message and the comic relief some derive from it. I'm talking about issues of privacy, expectations of privacy, and not to mention web etiquette, manners, civility, and perhaps due to the lack of respect for all these things, the potential growth of cyber defamation and/or other causes of action.

Did the spouse have some reasonable expectation of privacy that her phone message would/should not have been broadcast throughout the internet? She was after all leaving it on a private voice mail receiving system, and not on public radio. Furthermore, the spouse was a private citizen and not a public figure; she was not seeking to insert herself into some stream of public discourse. Whether the link to the actual phone message was fair game to post, certainly the family's phone number was not.

I have a great deal more sympathy for the spouse and the family on this one. Although, one could argue that the spouse might have strongly considered her words and tone more carefully before leaving the message, considering where they could potentially end up, there really is no excuse for the senior calling the residence to pester the official in the first place. That was "invasion of privacy" #1. #2 was publishing the phone number online accompanied by the spouse's phone message. I think any reasonable person, including a seventeen year old (they are after all one year shy of joining the age of majority and acquiring the right to vote) could forseeably anticipate that the official's house would be bombarded with phone calls in light of the recorded message being posted to elicit ridicule.

Nevertheless, there may be some hard lessons to be learned here. One, anytime you leave a message or send an unflattering e-mail, it may very well come back to haunt you. So choose your words carefully.

Second, there is a great potential for liability in the material we publish online. Those who are not careful might find themselves at the receiving end of a costly lawsuit, and not the type that ends up in small claims court. Indeed, it's a high and costly price to unleash scorn on another person.

Third, we need to be more cautious and conscientious about the impact that our cyber conduct has on others and the damage it may cause. The ability to instantaneously publish verbal refuse or damaging material has outmatched our capability to stop and reflect first.