Reflection 4: Newspaper Articles

Africentric Schools     
      Personally, I don't agree with the idea of an africentric school, rather I find it very racist. Although I understand that there are many benefits that come with an africentric school but those benefits mostly only apply to African students, so what about the other students? For example, at Oakwood, 40% of the students are African students, but that’s less than the other 60% who, I think, mostly want a school that is not racist at all to any background. I don’t think there should be a school where they learn African culture and heritage because that would ruin the point of coming to a different country. When you’re coming into another country, you should be ready to immerse in other cultures because you made the choice to leave your country. I also feel that it’s rather unfair to Canadian students who would want to learn about their country but are forced to learn about another culture and heritage when they’ve never even visited Africa before! I also feel that it’s unfair to students of other back grounds such as Asian students, why don’t they get a school where they learn about Asian culture?

Teaching in the 21th Century     
      Because all the other countries are surging ahead in their level of education, I understand the need for Canada to achieve a better education system. But I don’t think it should be done based on student performance, because some students just don’t bother to try to do well in school and so just because the students are lazy it means that the teacher is horrible. Not true. This could also cause teachers to give their students high marks on purpose so it seems like the students are doing extremely well in class, when maybe they’re not even learning anything. I think it should be a requirement for the teacher to achieve a master’s degree, so at least they’re well educated. Also I think the teachers should be evaluated more often, like once every year, that way it’s more up to date rather than every 5 years. The teachers should be evaluated on how they interact with the students and the depth of what they’re teaching, because both are important when it comes to educating the student.