Not so much of a bitch and more of a question; With all the recent talk about having Afrocentric schools so that the culture is passed on, my question is what common culture is there? There are dozens of seperate cultures in Africa which are all different, then all the different cultures from the western indies, then all the people that have been here for a few generations or longer would have another, completely different set of cultures. There is no African monoculture. That’s equivalent to having a European culture based school, or a Middle Eastern cultured school. There’s not one big unifying culture there either.
I guess I’m just wondering how this is an advantage. It seems more like voluntary segregation.
What I learned from going to a multicultural school was that people are all basically the same, and got to experience other people’s cultures. Thinking back, I would have been poorer for not having that.
And aside from that, they’ve found at other schools that there is no improvement in the academic performance of the kids.
If you want your kids to learn your culture, then they should do that at home. School should be where you learn how to read, write, do math, etc. I really don’t think that initiatives like this should be part of the public education system.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2008.
I agree completely, Pete. Integration shouldn’t further segregate people by giving them special priveldges, classes, or segregated schools. There are private schools and public schools. There is a Muslim Academy, Shambala School, Montessori, Greek school, these are all private. If someone wants to start an strictly Afro-Canadian school, it should be private, IMO.
This is a really good bitch, and I agree with The Beav as well. People are segregated from eachother enough as it is, it’s sad. I realize that sometimes it’s done willingly and other times it’s just a result of life circumstance, but it shouldnt be this way in school! I can remember having European history and Canadian history classes in grade school, which are both very important topics, but what about a class that focuses on various world cultures? I think it’s just as important. The more we know and understand about eachother, the more familiar we become, the more we can relate to eachother…the more open, united and tolerant a place the world becomes!