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Toronto-Age |OT2|
- Thread starter EvilMario
- Start date
I posted a thread for it, but this is Toronto related; School bans 'hard' balls (footballs, soccer balls, etc) because of safety concerns.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ainst-schoolyard-ban-on-balls/article2238736/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ainst-schoolyard-ban-on-balls/article2238736/
Not to sound like "Old man yells at cloud", but really? I remember back in the day (even when I first got my glasses) where I would get a soccer ball drilled into my face during recess while playing soccer (and all I did was take it, suck it up and get back in the game).EvilMario said:
BladeWorker
Member
SMH. No wonder we have an obesity crisis on our hands. No hard balls indeed.EvilMario said:
Oppo
Member
Fuzzy said:
As someone with a parent who taught young kids for many years, I can tell you that these schools basically live in constant fear of litigation from psycho parents. It's the cause of most of these stupid decisions.
At my mom's school, the kids could not touch each other, unless in a sanctioned game. That's correct. No touching.
added_time
Member
Spl1nter said:
hahaha I just laughed so hard reading this! I totally forgot about playing red ass as a kid until just reading that now!
The other awesome thing about growing up and playing recess games in junior public school was when we would play a game that was clearly a version of soccer where we kick around a tennis ball with our feet... but instead it was called "foot hockey".. so awesomely Canadian!
added_time
Member
I guess EvilMario won't truly be an official Ontarian until he plays his first match of foot hockey!
-Pyromaniac-
Member
When I was in elementary school, they always allowed the grade 7 and 8 students to go off property for lunch, until an incident happened where 1 guy started shit and there was a fight somewhere off school grounds. Anyway school felt responsible or something and banned off property lunches for all future gr7 and 8 students. Needless to say when we reached those grades, we said fuck you and went off anyway every single day, eventually the teachers figured we can't keep making you guys in trouble every single day so you can go off, just don't start shit.
Problem solved. Moral of the story, if it's a stupid ban just do it anyway.
Problem solved. Moral of the story, if it's a stupid ban just do it anyway.
Rinoa said:
haha we had redass and whipass, and foot hockey while using our jackets as goalie equipment. No murderball. We had a game called challenge, it was basically who can throw the tennis ball the furthest between 2 teams. That and handball, we actually had teams in our last few years of elementary. Me and my friends and then some other kids from a year below, we'd battle it out sometimes during recess.
good times.
lunarworks
Member
Ah, the '80s. When throwing a ball as hard as you could at the opposing team, "King's Court", was part of the provincial curriculum.
We used to have handicap wrestling matches in the winter. My cousin was 4 years older and him and his friends would square off against two of the kids in my class. We had a ref who would enforce the rules (no hits to the face or groin, no biting, etc). My cousin would do the Ultimate Warrior move on me and drop me into the snow. It was awesome.lunarworks said:
added_time
Member
Anth0ny said:
HAHA! So many memories... it always seemed so disappointing when someone roofed the ball! But it was like Christmas coming early when the school's janitor would go up on the roof and throw down dozens of tennis balls at once for all the kids!
Here's one of the more controversial moves in the last few years by the TDSB, popping back up as they look to expand to Africentric high schools.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ved-but-it-still-needs-a-home/article2240491/
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ved-but-it-still-needs-a-home/article2240491/
History I can understand but even then it's elementary level. I ended up doing a major in history but during grade school I hated the crap out of it. What did we learn? Canadian history (which I also later enjoyed in uni), and we did more than plenty especially in our involvement in the Underground Railroad and everything (only for those lessons later destroyed when studying it at the University level anyway). English you'll have to explain to me since it's pretty much British spellings with occasional Americanisms more or less ... how is it different in Afrocentric schools? Or math?
I can understand the problem with troubled black youth trying to fit into the public school system but also to echo what the article says, how does it prepare them for a multicultural society if you spend 30 hours a week - in what I consider a segregated community - at school. What exactly is the problem, is it that their parents cannot do the job of teaching their children the culture that school must do it for them? I am a minority and pretty white-washed too but I have respect for my culture (even before learning more about it), so the concept behind Afrocentric schooling is confusing to me even when you should be looking at the larger issues behind why black (or low income) youth are doing poorly in the public school system.
BladeWorker
Member
As someone who is of white British ancestry it's hard to criticize an Africentric school without sounding at least a little like a flaming racist. Personally, I don't see what net good a segregated school could do in a community like Toronto, which needs more integration of minority communities, not segregation and insularly-behaving diaspora, lest it become even more of a "pocket-based" city than it already is. But on the following point:
from what I understand, yes. It is now the school's job to teach children how to tie their shoes, blow their own noses, play nice in the sandbox, and wipe their own ... well, you get the picture.
I get that culture is an integral part of the teaching of social studies and the humanities, and in Toronto in particular, there's a unique challenge of trying to teach one (well, three) culture(s) to a classroom of no fewer than 30 culturally differing students. I also see a great deal of value in trying to make the curriculum relevant to students: inspiring students and helping them to identify with particular events or people in history is a fantastic way to get kids to seek out information independent of the school - so I can an argument in favour.
That being said, a great deal of the political and social events in Canada's history - in particular, the ones that have to do with nation-building and citizenship - come from traditions and cultures that have been here for a couple hundred years; to suggest that all of a sudden people of a different background will suddenly "get it" better if you put it in different cultural terms sounds like wild speculation to me. And, it still doesn't really address the problem that all this is trying to solve: dropout rates and crime rates and gang participation isn't most closely correlated with culture alone - which, let's face it, has become the PC proxy term for race - but with socioeconomic status.
Let's flip that coin again: the effects of lower SES (from a statistical standpoint...everyone's a number bla bla bla) can be mitigated by mentorship (among other things). This may be the strongest argument in favour of an Africentric school, which will undoubtedly have smaller class sizes. Smaller class sizes -> more individual student attention -> greater likelihood of connecting with students and making them feel accountable and empowered -> greater likelihood of graduation.
Now that I've fully digressed into a meditation on education, why the hell not: the high school graduation rate in Ontario has increased 13 percentage points in eight years. That's no small feat. If that trend continues as specific Charter-style schools are introduced, however, it's going to be hard to directly attribute the increased graduation rate directly to the new schools alone. After all, logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. So, again, while there are some good arguments in favour (and some weak ones), to me they still don't establish the inherent value of the separate school that outweighs the risk to overall community cohesion, as I outlined above.
Sober said:
from what I understand, yes. It is now the school's job to teach children how to tie their shoes, blow their own noses, play nice in the sandbox, and wipe their own ... well, you get the picture.
I get that culture is an integral part of the teaching of social studies and the humanities, and in Toronto in particular, there's a unique challenge of trying to teach one (well, three) culture(s) to a classroom of no fewer than 30 culturally differing students. I also see a great deal of value in trying to make the curriculum relevant to students: inspiring students and helping them to identify with particular events or people in history is a fantastic way to get kids to seek out information independent of the school - so I can an argument in favour.
That being said, a great deal of the political and social events in Canada's history - in particular, the ones that have to do with nation-building and citizenship - come from traditions and cultures that have been here for a couple hundred years; to suggest that all of a sudden people of a different background will suddenly "get it" better if you put it in different cultural terms sounds like wild speculation to me. And, it still doesn't really address the problem that all this is trying to solve: dropout rates and crime rates and gang participation isn't most closely correlated with culture alone - which, let's face it, has become the PC proxy term for race - but with socioeconomic status.
Let's flip that coin again: the effects of lower SES (from a statistical standpoint...everyone's a number bla bla bla) can be mitigated by mentorship (among other things). This may be the strongest argument in favour of an Africentric school, which will undoubtedly have smaller class sizes. Smaller class sizes -> more individual student attention -> greater likelihood of connecting with students and making them feel accountable and empowered -> greater likelihood of graduation.
Now that I've fully digressed into a meditation on education, why the hell not: the high school graduation rate in Ontario has increased 13 percentage points in eight years. That's no small feat. If that trend continues as specific Charter-style schools are introduced, however, it's going to be hard to directly attribute the increased graduation rate directly to the new schools alone. After all, logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. So, again, while there are some good arguments in favour (and some weak ones), to me they still don't establish the inherent value of the separate school that outweighs the risk to overall community cohesion, as I outlined above.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
We still have publicly funded Catholic school in Ontario, so we really don't have anything to complain about.
The other fact is that cultural "integration" usually means assimilation. Whether you are okay with that is a whole other can of worms.
The other fact is that cultural "integration" usually means assimilation. Whether you are okay with that is a whole other can of worms.
added_time
Member
I wonder if the real issue is that it's harder to integrate poor areas than black areas. It just so happens that some of the poorest areas are black.
In my schools in Scarborough, there were a lot of black students and I don't remember them having any trouble fitting in our learning the curriculum. I went to some pretty good schools though in middle class neighborhoods.
I have no doubt in my mind that it would be more difficult to care about school if you grow up poor so maybe the focus should be on helping the children of poor families more than making it seem like black students need a different learning environment.
Yes we do! We can complain about both! Those funded Catholic schools have pissed me off my entire life!
In my schools in Scarborough, there were a lot of black students and I don't remember them having any trouble fitting in our learning the curriculum. I went to some pretty good schools though in middle class neighborhoods.
I have no doubt in my mind that it would be more difficult to care about school if you grow up poor so maybe the focus should be on helping the children of poor families more than making it seem like black students need a different learning environment.
firehawk12 said:
Yes we do! We can complain about both! Those funded Catholic schools have pissed me off my entire life!
Azih said:
We have them. There is a Native high school that I pass by all the time.
I don't like the idea in principle and I definitely don't want this going further with a segregated school system. Ethnic learning centres should come from the community, not the government. That said this case was targetting a particular problem: a disproportionate rate of drop-outs. It had to be addressed. Other ethnicities don't necessarily have these problems so hopefully these kinds of initiatives will be as infrequent as possible.
AlphaTwo00
Member
Ditto.Holmes said:I went to a publicly funded Catholic school, you mad? And I ain't even practicing.
You do know that in your property tax, you fill in where your money goes, right?
Tangentially related rant (sparked by the idea that the city should have other schools like this):
As a person of full Portuguese descent living in Toronto, who has gone to school his entire life with Portuguese people, I can tell you this, the fact many are not performing well isn't due to the curriculum not being tailored for their needs. It isn't due to using hockey references in a math problem instead of a soccer one. It isn't due to us learning more about Samuel De Champlain than we do Henry The Navigator. It's due to the size of the classes. When I was in elementary school, it was about 25-32 kids per teacher. That's just too much for a single teacher to handle properly. I say that, because my elementary school was about 500 kids, and is well known for not performing well in standardized tests like EQAO, and CAT3.
I say this because the article has quotes like this:
Parents say their children are thriving. They feel a sense of belonging, have found role models in their teachers, and gained self confidence.
With this school our kids are supported all around, said Nicole Osbourne James, who has three children who attend the school and hopes to send them on to the high school. Theres a tremendous sense of inclusion.
This school has 185 students. To me this sounds like a considerably higher teacher per student ratio than my school had. In my opinion, that's the key to success. Students need attention, and the will to be motivated. A single teacher can't provide that for 32 people. I think that's a universal thing, and not just for Portuguese, or black people. So the fact that these school exist makes me shake my head.
That's not just because I think there's a better solution, but because I think there's a problem in separating cultures and races. I'm Portuguese, so I have no qualms in saying this, many of us make incredibly ignorant, and racist comments. Separating us from the rest of the world is only going to make that worse. That's largely because we grow up in neighbor hoods, and go to schools where the predominant race is our own. As such, many don't have the tolerance or understanding needed to see how stupid some of the stuff we're saying is.
But you don't have to be a Catholic to attend a Catholic school. If I was of the age of an elementary school student, could I attend the Africentric school despite being white?
(and yes, I attended Catholic schools too)
As a person of full Portuguese descent living in Toronto, who has gone to school his entire life with Portuguese people, I can tell you this, the fact many are not performing well isn't due to the curriculum not being tailored for their needs. It isn't due to using hockey references in a math problem instead of a soccer one. It isn't due to us learning more about Samuel De Champlain than we do Henry The Navigator. It's due to the size of the classes. When I was in elementary school, it was about 25-32 kids per teacher. That's just too much for a single teacher to handle properly. I say that, because my elementary school was about 500 kids, and is well known for not performing well in standardized tests like EQAO, and CAT3.
I say this because the article has quotes like this:
Parents say their children are thriving. They feel a sense of belonging, have found role models in their teachers, and gained self confidence.
With this school our kids are supported all around, said Nicole Osbourne James, who has three children who attend the school and hopes to send them on to the high school. Theres a tremendous sense of inclusion.
This school has 185 students. To me this sounds like a considerably higher teacher per student ratio than my school had. In my opinion, that's the key to success. Students need attention, and the will to be motivated. A single teacher can't provide that for 32 people. I think that's a universal thing, and not just for Portuguese, or black people. So the fact that these school exist makes me shake my head.
That's not just because I think there's a better solution, but because I think there's a problem in separating cultures and races. I'm Portuguese, so I have no qualms in saying this, many of us make incredibly ignorant, and racist comments. Separating us from the rest of the world is only going to make that worse. That's largely because we grow up in neighbor hoods, and go to schools where the predominant race is our own. As such, many don't have the tolerance or understanding needed to see how stupid some of the stuff we're saying is.
firehawk12 said:
But you don't have to be a Catholic to attend a Catholic school. If I was of the age of an elementary school student, could I attend the Africentric school despite being white?
(and yes, I attended Catholic schools too)
lunarworks
Member
Things are going in reverse. We've got all these "multicultural" communities that all live together in the same neighbourhood with other people of their own culture, socialize only with people of their own culture, read newspapers and watch TV of their own culture, shop at stores of their own culture, and now will go to schools of their own culture.
Fucking stupid. Go down the road in 20 years and the results will be clear.
Fucking stupid. Go down the road in 20 years and the results will be clear.
Pretty much the same, but I got moved into the public school system by high school.Holmes said:I went to a publicly funded Catholic school, you mad? And I ain't even practicing.
I think that coming from a Catholic school, there are possibly similar constraints (you mostly interact with a community with at least one thing in common) but the problem is that a Catholic school is still more ethnically diverse. I went to Catholic school in Markham but did not really meet any Jewish people or Koreans for that matter until high school in the York Mills area. I mean, it came as a bit of a shock to me for a while after leaving Catholic school but it became business as usual.Dyno said:
I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but there is no arguing that these charter schools do produce good academic results, but I'm just worried that they don't have anything in place to help the students re-integrate (for the lack of a better term) them into a multicultural society. Not to exaggerate but Canada is one of the few places that has a successful multicultural society where many other places are deciding to give up on it.
Enclaves and neighbourhoods are fine as long as the majority of the population interact with others on a daily basis. Are you talking specifically about the older generation/1st generation immigrants? It may also have to do with their previous(and current) socioeconomic status. My parents came to start a family so they had no choice but to integrate into society. I'm guessing you mean the older generation that follows afterwards and leaves their mother country to join their children,etc. Probably too old to learn any functional English or relies on their children to get them around (e.g. my grandparents).lunarworks said:
Because if you are talking about the current generation (2nd generation immigrants, etc.) then I think you are wrong because that is more the minority in that case from what I've noticed.
lunarworks said:
First generation and second generation aren't the same thing. Seriously. Plus don't you note how the 'ethnic' food section of your standard grocery store has exploded? That's because people shop in places where they find the stuff they want to buy.
Edit: I don't like segregated schools either, but your post is a bit hysterical.
I don't like the idea of schools with segregation based on skin colour, as it goes against what Canada means to me.
Children should grow up surrounded by different races. As a child, I never realized people are of different skin colour/race until it was pointed out. People were just people. This is how I'm naturally able to treat/expect/understand people equally in my old age while my parents (despite them being an interracial relationship) aren't. This is what makes Canada awesome.
If I grew up at a school where everyone looked more or less the same and came from similar backgrounds, I can only think of the subliminal aversion to difference it would bring about in an older age. I'd probably grow up hella conservative and full of prejudices.
Anyways, I went to Catholic schools but lucked out as the schools I went to were "normal". Normal in my words: very liberal, pro-gay/bi/trans, pro-choice, gave proper sex education, etc. and not extreme.
The only difference between it and public school was that it was all girls, had kilt uniforms (hellyea), had to attend mass for major festivities, and had to take 1 required religion course each year in HS. The course was easy work and we studied other religions as well.. which is why I turned into a mixed bag religion-wise now.
Children should grow up surrounded by different races. As a child, I never realized people are of different skin colour/race until it was pointed out. People were just people. This is how I'm naturally able to treat/expect/understand people equally in my old age while my parents (despite them being an interracial relationship) aren't. This is what makes Canada awesome.
If I grew up at a school where everyone looked more or less the same and came from similar backgrounds, I can only think of the subliminal aversion to difference it would bring about in an older age. I'd probably grow up hella conservative and full of prejudices.
Anyways, I went to Catholic schools but lucked out as the schools I went to were "normal". Normal in my words: very liberal, pro-gay/bi/trans, pro-choice, gave proper sex education, etc. and not extreme.
The only difference between it and public school was that it was all girls, had kilt uniforms (hellyea), had to attend mass for major festivities, and had to take 1 required religion course each year in HS. The course was easy work and we studied other religions as well.. which is why I turned into a mixed bag religion-wise now.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
That's not really my issue. It's just the idea that we've accepted Catholic school as a fact of life is the strange part to me.AlphaTwo00 said:
I'm going to be ignorant here, but even just in terms of sexual education in Catholic schools - do they teach about same sex relationships? Safe sex using contraceptives? There are lots of seemingly hot button social issues that, as someone who observes Catholic policies simply as an outsider, seem to run counter to a productive public education.
Not in elementary school but we did get taught about our genitals and sorta on what they do. Hell, I didn't even learn about the mechanics of sex until a conversation we had one day with some friends (oh, penis goes hard and stiff, pussy is wet and lubricated? makes sense after that)firehawk12 said:
High school I can only faintly remember but we did run the gamut of pretty much anything like safe-sex and STIs, etc.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Haha, I just hear stories about American Catholic schools where female teachers are fired for getting pregnant out of marriage, so...Takao said:
What exactly makes the curriculum "Catholic" then? There's a small part of me that is imagining junior seminary school with uniforms and strict teachers - which is my problem, admittedly.Sober said: