Toronto Star series on hiring non-white teachers

On Monday, May 20, the Toronto Star debuted its three-part series on making faculty in Toronto’s schools more diverse. Right now, many schools are at least half non-white, yet only 20% of teachers are non-white. The University of Toronto is therefore trying to pitch to very young kids….middle school aged, hoping that one day, they’d become teachers too.

What bugs me is that the paper makes it sound like non-white kids don’t become teachers because they don’t see teachers of their own culture in the classroom. There were even fewer non-white teachers in the 1980s when I started school, and yet, teaching was one of my career choices until Grade 7. That was I wanted to be a lawyer, an on-and-off career choice (other career possiblities included writer/journalist, actress, country/folk rock singer and Broadway producer) until my second year of undergrad, when the LSATs kind of freaked me out (sure, I could have done the Australia route, but I didn’t want to be that far away from home). Wanting to be a writer/journalist continued (and continues to this very day), however. I also wanted to be a publicist (I even went to PR school for that). I was never influenced by anyone from my culture. In fact, wanting to become a writer/journalist was going AGAINST it. As was being a publicist (even though they make good money. I guess it isn’t necessarily “respectable” since you might be working with celebs. Even in the tabloid obsessed world of Hong Kongers). I do agree that kids need a boost, but do they really need role models from their own or from similiar cultures? Just because someone looks like the kids doesn’t mean that they can relate to them culturally. And yes, many people, white or non-white, automatically assume that they will. I also have a problem with sharing the same language or languages with certain students, speaking to them in that language. These students will be singled out by kids who don’t speak the language or languages as a teacher’s pet. Not good, especially in this day and age. You don’t want a kid to be bullied. Also, I’m not sure if a child will actually learn English as quickly this way, because he or she won’t have time to practice.

Part Two: Serving Students in Culturally Clustered Schools

Part Three: Where Teachers Learn Diversity (Wednesday)

1980s Heritage Language Programs Sucked

Like many CBC kids, I was forced to go to Chinese school on Saturdays when I was in elementary school.  The classes I went to were held at local elementary schools (offered by the school boards…it is celebrating its 30 anniversary in Toronto in a few weeks).  The teachers were often board-employed teachers as well, but they didn’t know how to teach us.  Perhaps they just didn’t care.  We weren’t, after all, their “real” day kids!  From what I recalled, they taught us as if we were Hong Kong kids, not Canadian children.  The teacher wrote words on the board, we copied them down.  We didn’t always get a definition.  We didn’t usually get definitions during dictations either.  I recall most of us were kind of WTF about it, since our “regular” teachers would always define words for spelling tests.

Chinese school was NOT FUN.  At recess, we were often yelled at by other faculty for speaking English, the default language for most of us.  I’ve never done French Immersion, but teachers at immersion schools generally aren’t strict, are they?  I mean, they aren’t going to yell at you if you don’t parle français (maybe someone who has gone through immersion can tell me) outside of class.  The supplementary texts they used were often straight out of Hong Kong, and therefore we couldn’t relate well to them.  Most of us didn’t live in small apartments.  We lived in suburban homes with a big back yard.  We didn’t wear school uniforms.  Oh, and we didn’t stand up when faculty entered the classroom. Most of us weren’t really able to retain much, either.  After all, class was only once a week for about three and a half hours.  I dropped out (or rather, my parents pulled me out) after Grade 2 or 3.  For those who actually stayed until the end of the program (I think it was Grade 8), many still can’t read well.  Not at a Grade 4 or 5 level…good enough to read a Chinese version of the Toronto Sun, anyway.  Most forget.

I guess what I’m saying is that these programs are (or at least were in the 80s) a waste of money.  No one really learned anything, and it made many kids hate their heritage even more.  But maybe it was just the Cantonese programs.  Honestly, it would have been more interesting if the teachers played games, told stories and used better text books.  Perhaps it would have been better if the teachers treated us like they treat their day/regular students.