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By Frank Peebles, Prince George Citizen (British Columbia, Canada) In Saturday's Citizen, reporter Frank Peebles spoke to several proponents of an aboriginal choice school in Prince George. Today he presents the views of two people on the other side of the issue. * * *
Voices of caution and opposition have been added from Toronto to Prince George's aboriginal choice school debate. Canada’s largest city is involved in a similar process to Prince George’s. Toronto is slightly ahead of Prince George in its effort to establish an Afrocentric school (expected to open this fall) to address high dropout rates and social marginalization of the large black population in one sector of Toronto. Opponents there argue these things have been tried elsewhere and have not always done well, and the whole idea of race-based institutions flies in the face of the Canadian way: inclusion and acceptance of diversity. Toronto school trustee Josh Matlow was critical at the beginning of their venture and he is critical now, even after the motion passed. "The initial vote was split right down the middle with just one vote majority, 20 to 19 or something like that," he said. "I certainly was most vocal, and made it very clear that I didn't think it was good for our city, our society and most importantly, I do not think it was the response needed for those who feel most marginalized in our school system." Like First Nations results here, black students of Toronto were dropping out of school at alarming rates. Forty per cent were quitting before graduation. "No reasonable person could argue that we shouldn't do something," Matlow said. “What I advocated for, was to review the curriculum and ensure that it fairly reflects the diversity in our society. That no matter who they are, they have an opportunity to learn about themselves, but also learn about their friends. One small school for a small number of black students would not respond to the thesis of the challenge, and that was that we had children in all 560 public schools in Toronto who needed this support." It didn't make much sense to the black families in Toronto either, if enrolment was an indication. Only a handful of families signed on until some philosophical modifications were recently announced and a lobby effort was undertaken. According to Toronto media reports, in the past few weeks they finally reached the 40-student threshold the board set for the school to go ahead. One of Toronto's most prominent education experts, Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, who is black, said Matlow is right to pursue a total system makeover. Hutchinson grew up in urban B.C. and was gang-involved before settling into a path of intensive academic pursuits. "Why not try to look at the causes of all the dropping out and student disenfranchisement and really fix it, rather than slap on a Band-aid solution," Hutchinson said. "Unless you're doing math, two negatives don't make a positive: you have people who are marginalized and you're putting them in an exclusionary setting (ethnically focused school). I say that is segregation, and it is a slippery slope going backwards. One's race doesn't necessarily matter. It was a white Jewish teacher who helped me accomplish what I did in high school. He was a decent and intelligent man, and that is what mattered." Toronto has its own aboriginal school (First Nations Public School, with about 60 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 8) and Prince George should be cautioned by that example, Matlow said. "It is a disaster. It has really been far from a success," he said. "They consistently show very low scores in our standardized testing." Hutchinson conceded that if there is organic grassroots support for an aboriginal choice school, that makes a difference compared to the Afrocentric experiment in Toronto. "If the majority wants it, more power to them, but that wasn't the reality in Toronto," he said. "The majority of black people in Toronto did not want this school, but the school board rammed it through. I call it the tyranny of the minority." He is relieved to know that there is a plan for SD57 to not only implement the choice school, but make wholesale changes across all local schools that would improve aboriginal cultural relevance. "We already have it (inherent learning points in aboriginal cultures), so why not refer to it?," he said. "We are already the most tolerant and inclusive culture in the world, we have many aboriginal role models we all look to for inspiration - Chief Dan George, Susan Aglukark, Buffy Ste. Marie, Chief Phil Fontaine, so many others - iconic Canadians who are aboriginal, so let's embrace that, let's be inclusive in all the classrooms the way we are on the ground. We all appreciate these people and these cultural contributions, so let's have that in our classrooms for everybody's benefit." Matlow said Toronto's dropout rate in their identified Portuguese community is even larger than the black demographic. There are also high rates of disenfranchised Latino students, Arabic-Farsi students, and their own aboriginal population. He feared that picking and choosing which cultural groups got their own schools and which did not, would only fuel anxieties for these marginalized people. "We can't presume that the only reason many of our black students are dropping out of school is they don't have connection to their African heritage," he said. "That is very presumptive of us. There are many reasons people drop out of school, whether it be learning disabilities, challenges within their family, socio-economic circumstances, and yes sometimes cultural disconnection. Just focusing one school on cultural background is not going to help the Toronto public school system as a whole."
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