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Hi Roys,

I have just finished reading ” A Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin where the focus of the book is the—-political genius of Lincoln to deal with issues that are suggested in your questions. I dealt with these same issues when I was Superintendent in the city of Binghamton. At that time, I felt that I had to reach out to promote discussion among the leaders of the various groups. I must admit I made many mistakes but I always attempted to learn from them. Not sure how much progress I made in the community at large but personnally was able to establish many lasting friendships.

I know this response does not even begin to provide any direction but I would like to share with you and the others ( the last paragragh) of a quest editorial to the Bufflao News by a Charles Burgin a political activist.

He states: I founded “Brotherman’s Progress” to advocate for “real” change in the fight against urbanfraticide ( He had lost his brother two weeks prior to submitting the editorial). Poverty must be exponentially reduced. We need a ” real ” war on the wholesalers of illegal drugs and guns into the inner cities. Not much changes if we don’t deal with racial aspects of an education system that codones the miseducation of youth, seen as commodities for the prison industrial complex. These are the true lessons of homicide.

Hopefully, your question will promote further discussion,

Niagara

I think the key issue is that we need to learn as much as possible and then be culturally sensitive in everything we do. Only true racists act out of hate. Most problems stem from a lack of information or understanding. I received a huge wake up call this year when 3 teachers from my school organized an Aboriginal festival…all were blonde hair, blue eyed females of Aboriginal descent. So I don’t think we are blind to issues of diversity, we’re uninformed. As for being called a racist, whenever this comes up I ask the individual if the same action was taken against all people of that race. For example when a student says “the teacher sent me to the office because she’s racist” I ask then why didn’t she send all students of that race down? Racists don’t differentiate, they hate all members of that race. As for the Africentric school, I’m in favour of it but would have preferred for it to be a secondary school. We have alternative schools for Native students and homosexual students who have disengaged. I don’t like the fact that the school is allowing segregation at the elementary level.

We spend a lot of energy being politically correct and many people are afraid to raise issues surrounding immigrants for fear of sounding racist. For example, should immigants who come to live in Canada learn to speak English or French? However, how can we address the issues of the many minority groups if we pretend they don’t exist? When people move to Canada from somewhere that is not European, there are usually drastic differences in lifestyle. Education is highly valued in most countries, but for some reason when immigrant children go to school here, many seem to lose that sense of importance for education. Their parents can’t understand why and neither can their teachers.

I applaud the TDSB for trying something new with the Africentric school but I’m not sure this will have the impact they are hoping for. These are complex and emotional issues that have been building for a long time. I think most teachers and school boards are colour blind in the sense that they hope to be able to ignore the issue. I know as a teacher, I don’t care what colour skin students have or where they come from, I just want them to want to learn. But I do think I need to be sensitive to the fact that their skin colour (country of origin) may have influenced where they are in their education.

I agree with Anthony that the biggest thing we can do is become culturally informed. And then I think we need to be able to have open and honest discussions about immigration issues without the fear of being called a racist. I think most people brush over the issues of immigration because of the fear of being labelled a racist.

Hi Shelly

Good thought provoking questions.

I believe that we need a powerful unifying vision for school boards and strong leadership that creates social harmony, rejects racial hatred, brings communities together and shows them how to value people of all backgrounds. The main focus would be on our similarities not on our differences. I think the first challenge of dealing with race and diversity for a leader is to embrace diversity and secondly, try to reverse the trend of “them and us” to “we”. Schools need to become vehicles for social change. Greater awareness, better understanding, respect and tolerance are values that school leaders need to endorse.

Denise

The Finding Common Ground document and the mandate of character education programs within all school boards is a framework for addressing many issues however, I believe in some schools, a more indepth examination of diversity education may be necessary. I believe that school leaders need to value and understand cultural differences. We can do this effectively when we clearly understand our own value system. I believe school boards should have specific programs in place and provide training to support all staff, including administrators . Students must also be included in diversity and equity education by trained staff such as the Equity Facilitator if your school board has one. Workshops and professional development must be ongoing at both the board and school level for all educational stakeholders. I also believe in the importance of building relationships with families in your community to alleviate misgivings of being racist, as issue may arise.

An excellent resource is the book Cultural Proficiency, A Manual for School Leaders by Lindsay, Robins and Terrell. One the very first page of the book it explains that Cultural Proficiency is not a program but an approach that provides tools and help for an increasing diverse world. The book is divided into Four sections; Understanding Cultural Proficiency, Using the Tools of Cultural Proficiency, Overcoming the Barriers to Cultural Proficiency and finally Making the Commitment to Cultural Proficiency. Each section comes with structured activities that can be done with staff and school leaders. For example, in section two it is explained that using the word racist does not invoke change but rather the behaviour or action needs to be put on the cultural proficient continuum that is explored in this section in order for change to occur.

On page 100 the authors explain;

“cultural proficiency involves knowing how to learn and teach about different groups; having the capacity to teach and to learn about differences in ways that acknowledge and honor all the people and the groups they represent; holding culture in high esteem; and seeking to add to the knowledge base of culturally proficient practice by conducting research, developing new approaches based on culture, and increasing the knowledge of others about culture and the dynamics of difference.”

As for the question are school leaders blind, I’m not sure. The book also discusses that there are a growing number of well-intentioned but fearful people in the world when issues of culture are addressed. A great, thought provoking question for me Shelley (not sure I even began to answer it!)

Thank you for the recommendation of the book, Cultural Proficiency, A Manual for School Leaders by Lindsay, Robins and Terrell. I particularly enjoyed the quote “cultural proficiency involves knowing how to learn and teach different groups”. It is interesting that the switch is from teaching and learning to a learning and teaching focus. As educators we are constantly in a learning and teaching cycle. The Cultural Proficiency theory is similar to the Critical Race Theory by Gerardo Lopez. Gerardo R. Lopez, The (Racially Neutral) Politics of Education: A Critical Race Theory Perspective, (2003) states: “School Leaders must be prepared to work with individuals who are culturally different and help create learning environments that foster respect, tolerance, and intercultural understanding. They must also have an awareness of the effect of racism and how it intersects with other areas of difference such as gender, sexual orientation, disability, and class oppression…We must take proactive steps to address this problem by revisiting our knowledge base and critically interrogate how race fits in to the larger discourse of what educational leaders are supposed to know and be able to do.” (p. 71)

The question I have is how do we as leaders address the question of race so that we effect positive change in our schools? What should the conversations look like, sound like so that the discourse and discussions lead to effective, respectful understanding and harmonious change? Or are we too afraid to ask?

Hi All: These are all terrific comments – and a little foreign to me as I teach in a Catholic school system. It seems often that cultural differences are disregarded as we spend so much time focussing on our common faith background. My children go to a public school and see such a difference culturally. Their experiences are so different and varied and I’m very happy for that. I am a strong Catholic believer but do miss the diversity of exploring and living side by side with different cultures. Even in our multi-cultural schools the Catholic component seems to overtake the rich cultural diversity that we could all learn so much from. How do others feel about this that teach in a Catholic system?

Even though mine is a Catholic school, my neighbourhood in Rexdale is very ethnically diverse and this, therefore, translates to the classroom. Even though faith-focused, the cultural component is always present. Perhaps it is because my students, now in Grade 8, have grown up with each other or perhaps it is because they live in such a diverse neighbourhood, they are very respectful and more importantly, interested, in each others’ diversity. When we do have conversations around race they are very able to distinguish between decisions based on fairness and equity vs. issues around race. Their ignorance becomes apparent when they speak not of what they know….exactly the same as adults. What Anthony was referring to as a lack of knowledge. It is also most obvious that the views that they express are often verbatim what they have been taught at home. If only we could be like really young children who would never express our differences as being a negative thing if it were never expressed to them in that way. From the leaders perspective, having both the knowledge and sensitivity is key as others have pointed out.

Hi Shelly, the book on Cultural proficiencey is a great tool. CP is something that we all strive for, or should strive for. Our director spoke recently responding to a question similar to yours. He stated that it is not always possible nor should it be the priority to have a school staff look like it sstudents. It is very impostant to have a culturally proficient staff. A staff that value all cultures and are skilled at bringing people together. I believe we have a long way to go but we are making progress.

Hi Roys!

Great question! I agree with Anthony, It is imperative that we as educational leaders need to learn as much as possible and then be culturally sensitive in everything we do. Conventional wisdom states that if you scratch the surface of an excellent school and you are likely to find an excellent principal. Peer into a failing school and you will find weak leadership. Leaders are thought to be essential for high-quality education. Amidst the seeming certainty that leadership matters, there is much that we do not yet understand about effective educational leadership. However, the knowledge base about leadership is constantly growing, and there are key, well-documented understandings about leadership at the school level. School leaders work with populations that are increasingly diverse and that may not be experiencing success in school. This includes children who are from low-income families or whose cultural backgrounds or characteristics fall outside of the mainstream. Histories of poor school performance for such students may result from neglect on the part of school leaders, allocation of the least able teachers and most limited resources to the most needy schools and students, low expectations, or lack of knowledge of effective strategies for working with particular kinds of students in challenging contexts. Evidence suggests that successful leaders of schools in highly diverse contexts focus their effort on four sets of tasks: • Building powerful forms of teaching and learning. • creating strong communities in schools. • Expanding the proportion of students’ social capital valued by the schools. • Nurturing the development of families’ Eductaional cultures. Efforts to improve educational leadership should build upon the foundation of well-documented and well-accepted knowledge about leadership that already exists. We know that school leadership is most successful when it is focused on teaching and learning, and that it is necessary but not sufficient for school improvement. We understand that leadership can take different forms in different contexts. We understand some of the mechanisms through which educational leadership has its effects. One question that I have is How can diversity in educational leadership be fostered, so that persons with appropriately rich backgrounds, values, and community connections lead our schools?

In Grey and Bruce, we certainly do not have the cultural diversity that our Boards to the south experience. However, we do have a population of First Nations Inuit Metis (FNIM) in our northern schools. The number one goal over the years has been to raise awareness regarding FNIM. There have been a number of initiatives for both staff and students. Our Board partnered with Bruce Power to send two of our teachers to Wunnumin Lake (360 km. north of Sioux Lookout) to share literacy strategies. Both parties gained from the experience. Our teachers were able to return with strategies that they were able to use with their students. This year, our Superintendents travelled to Kenora to share ideas and again, gain more awareness regarding the native culture. We now have a native Trustee on our Board as well as an Aboriginal Advisory Committee. Our elementary school in Port Elgin partners with Saugeen First Nations who provide native EAs to work in the school. All students at the school participate in education regarding the native culture. The native culture is celebrated not just on National Aboriginal Day but throughout the school year. All students participate and non-natives have an acceptance of a culture that is different from that of which they were raised. At the local high school, they have developed a Friendship Room. This room is open to all students. It is decorated with native artifacts and we have counsellors from both Cape Croker and Saugeen bands. Not only is their goal to create awareness but to increase student leadership among the First Nations group. The principal has had speakers come in for the staff to provide them with teaching strategies for FNIM. Non-native students are welcomed and in fact, have attended Pow Wows at the reserve along with their native peers. They have found it to be very successful in that non-native students respect the differences and have developed a tolerance for those who are different.

The Ministry has invested a lot of money with respect to aboriginal funding to date and they are now looking at curriculum. They have developed a document “Aboriginal Perspectives – The Teacher’s Toolkit” which provides teachers with sample lessons regarding aboriginal curriculum. As was said previously, it is imperative that educational leaders and staff learn as much as possible about different cultures. Respect for the FNIM culture is of utmost importance in order to be successful.

I recognize that as a white, suburban, middle class man I do not understand the Black experience of the GTA. I like to think I’m sympathetic, open-minded and supportive, but what am I doing to really find out and address the needs of my Black students? Does my lack of action on this, and my belief that I am treating everyone fairly, really speak to my own ignorance?

I’m going to suggest we address the issue of race to effect positive change in our schools, the same way we address all our learning goals: as a collaborative staff. This means sharing lessons and resources, running groups (hip hop dance team, Harmony, jazz choir), practicing equality on the sports field, and promoting diversity in student leadership. Using the example of Black students, we must make sure opportunities are there for study that reflects the Black cultural experience. Black History Month, a multicultural night, and a diversity week are good, but we must move towards a school system where Black students can see themselves in the curriculum and staff of the school.

My school has great challenges. We have maybe 25% Black students in my school, but not one of the 100 teachers is Black, and only three are brown. All through my teaching career I’ve told my Black students we need them to become teachers, and no doubt our Board will reflect this new diversity in time.

Perhaps we are doing something right as there are not more accusations of unfairness. As much as I believe in making Black cultural visible in my school, what I really want students to believe is how I treat them has nothing to do with their race. I’m not sure having Black cultural more visible will have any impact on that.