Last Tuesday night, Toronto District School Board trustees voted 11 to nine in favour of opening an Afrocentric school that would aim to curb the 40 per cent drop-out rate among the city’s black teenagers.
The school would open in September 2009 and follow the basic Ontario curriculum but also emphasize the contribution Africans and black Canadians have made to society.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has repeatedly voiced his discontent with the idea of an Afrocentric school and says his government won’t foot its bill.
McGuinty’s apprehension is understandable—there’s an ugly history behind deg school curricula along racial lines. Granted, creating an Afrocentric school isn’t conducive to or indicative of a racist society. But demonstrating to kids at a young age—regardless of their descent—that their culture is separate and incompatible with others’ will hardly make for an accepting future generation.
A school centered on promoting a specific ethnicity acknowledges a problem without actually tackling it. If Toronto’s black teenagers are dropping out, it’s because the current system is dysfunctional. Creating a separate school—and running the risk of institutional “othering”—is backwards and won’t address failures in the existing system.
Promoting black culture is a good idea and should be incorporated into Ontario’s curriculum. Ideally, the Ministry of Education would acknowledge the curriculum’s shortcomings and integrate black history into the existing framework.
Offering all Ontario students Afrocentric history or politics classes would allow teenagers of all backgrounds to learn the value of black culture in an integrative environment and address black students’ alienation from the public school system.
Establishing an Afrocentric school is counterintuitive and seems to be itting that we’re incapable of accepting cultural coexistence.
To effect any real change, the Ministry of Education and the Toronto District School Board need to devise a plan that emphasizes the integration of cultures—not their segregation.
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