City
Are Toronto students scared to go to school?
Late yesterday afternoon, I had the chance to leaf through a 1,000-page document released by the Toronto School Community Safety Panel that outlined several recommendations on how to make Toronto public schools safer environments for all students.
The report, prepared by a panel led by lawyer Julian Falconer, was commissioned by the Toronto District School Board after the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute last year. The full findings can be obtained through the TDSB and the School Safety Panel, but many major media outlets in the city have already been analyzing the 120 recommendations in the massive report.
I didn't have a chance to get through all of the recommendations during the hour or so during which I was flipping through the document, but there was one thing that came across very strongly in the few pages I was able to peruse: going to school is a very scary experience for many students in Toronto.
Growing up, school wasn't a scary place for me. Sure, as the class bookworm I was an easy target for bullies, but there wasn't a single day when I was fearing for my life by stepping inside my school. I grew up and went to school in Rexdale — which is one of the areas of Toronto that is often cited for violence and crime — but I never felt as though my learning environment was threatening to my personal safety.
Not so much these days. The report released yesterday stated that there was an abundance of guns in our city's public schools, that sexual assault and harassment is widespread, and that some schools are breeding grounds for gang violence.
Color me naive, but apart from a few incidents that I knew of growing up, these kinds of concerns didn't cross my mind when I was going to public school in Toronto.
While this news might be frightening for parents, I applaud the Toronto District School Board for opening up and acknowledging that there is a problem. A statement released yesterday by the Chair of the Board and the Director of Education promises more accountability:
As we have demonstrated throughout this precedent-setting process, we will continue to be completely accountable and open with the public and with our staff as we moAmonve forward. Regular updates on our website and through the media will ensure that our staff, students, parents, and communities remain confident in the work that we are doing every day to support every single one of our students.
Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne also released a statement yesterday referencing the report, assuring parents and Ontario public that she "strongly believes that our publicly funded schools offer Ontario students the best education possible. Ontario's schools should be as inclusive, welcoming and safe as possible."
Among the recommendations that I was able to find in the report are measures such as school uniforms, identity cards, and new disciplinary actions. Underneath it all, however, was still the feeling that students now feared going to school.
I may have dreaded going to school some days when i was growing up, but I never actually feared for my life. Is that just me, or have schools in Toronto really changed that much? Did you get this feeling when you were growing up?
(Photo by blogTO Flickr pooler Mark.)
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They stopped using the ID cards the year I graduated because it ended up being more of a hassle to issue temp ones all the time. Their best asset was two really good hall monitors ("community partners") who were more like friends to the students than authority figures. People trusted them, so they knew what was going on.
We (society and schools) are going have to redefine "families" and "parents" and what is going on at home. Is it a teachers job to raise other people's kids? No. But we're not helping our young people by just asking "where are the parents?", someone is going to have to step up and help kids learn. It can be done and it is a lot to take on, but it beats wasting time pointing fingers.
Standing around complaining about "these kids today" or "young man, where are your parents?" gets us nowhere.
That being said, as someone who graduated many, many moons ago...I can honestly say, I am very glad I am not a teen-ager now. But by all means, walk down the halls of any school anywhere and ask "where are your parents?"
Then we act surprised when they do. "Oh, wait, no, don't do THAT".
When has a kid ever done, ANYTHING that they have not seen an adult do and get noticed or notoriety because of it? You're old man doesn't get noticed for being honest, paying the bills on time and going to work everyday, but when your old man blows up and pushes people around, he gets shit done and he gets noticed. Who do expect our kids to want to be like? Gandhi?
Robyn might have an idea there. My school, like hers, had a hall monitor ... he was a retired firefighter, as I remember, and he patrolled the grounds all day, talking to teachers and students and generally maintaining a friendly sense of order.
I haven't been back in a while, so the atmosphere may have drastically changed. I'm already told by my brother that apparently after his time (c. 2005 or so) at least the academic environment has gone a bit downhill.
Like Steve, I could probably blame something like poor parenting, video games, sex, and violence, etc., but the truth is those things have been around for a pretty long time and most of the people I knew in high school were good kids -- "good" at least in the sense they weren't in gangs and didn't tote guns.
That a shooting or a rape could happen in a Toronto school is completely alien to me; it shocks me utterly. So maybe I'm too disconnected to really comment.
When I was in school, we'd hear about some of these acts, but they were isolated and shocking incidents. What bothers me is that my brother and his peers hear about these kinds of violent incidents and shrug them off as if they were normal.
I'm still finding it hard to believe things have changed so much since I left the Toronto public school system (1999) but after reading the report and talking to a lot of high school students, I'm beginning to think I may be wrong.
I'm with one of the commenters above, we maybe had a fist-fight here and there...I recall someone bringing a knife and time stood still.
Singling out bad parenting, television, etc. misses the point, per usual. Poverty is the central issue here. The poorer the neighbourhood, the worse the school will be, most likely. Expecting the TDSB to solve widespread social ills seems a bit far-fetched to me.
per usual.
I don't know the statistics around school violence by neighbourhood in the GTA but I'm willing to bet it's higher in the poorer areas.
I grew up gay in a small but comfortable town and experienced my share of bullying and teasing. But I was never threatened with physical violence or beaten up.
- So, then we should just go ahead and arrest all poor people? Well, there ya go, if you're poor, you're going to bring a gun to school. See, rich kids in the suburbs handle it much better with drugs, alcohol or by cutting themselves, bullemia or suicide. Those "disadvantaged" poor people need to catch up.
Blaming this on poverty is part of it, but also stereotypical that just poor people commit crimes. They certainly can't afford better lawyers and they get longer sentences.
I blame it more on the powers-that-be who KEEP people in poverty and won't allow people to either get help or help themselves.
So, some kids in poor schools shoot it out, no biggie, put in some metal detectors. A shooting at a suburban school and it makes national news and suddenly we have to change our laws and protect these kids...inner city kids....eh, not so much, kid, you're on your own.
As far as your last post goes, you're misinterpreting what Blik and I are saying. That poverty and crime are linked is hardly news, nor does it indicate that poor people are "bad." All I'm trying to say here is that the underlying issues-- whether desperation, "gang culture," whatever-- are broadly outside of the TDSB's control, and whatever measures they implement will at best be a band-aid. A comprehensive anti-poverty strategy would be better, but I can't see it happening any time soon.
well, i agree with you on that, in fact, I see more people joining their ranks...this will get worse before it gets better.
No, of course not. Nowhere in my post did I imply that that's what we should do. Get a grip, Steve.
"I blame it more on the powers-that-be who KEEP people in poverty and won't allow people to either get help or help themselves."
Well, yes. That's kind of what I was saying too when I said that poverty is the root cause of this kind of violence.
"Blaming this on poverty is part of it, but also stereotypical that just poor people commit crimes"
I didn't say only poor people commit crimes. Don't put words in my mouth.
Should I even bother trying to discuss this any further?
But thats a good post, Vasta. I have to say, I was on youtube where they were demonstrating how guns can easily be smuggled into school. Apparently, tucking your shirt in reduces the chances of being able to smuggle weapons to school. Some schools do not even allow loose clothing because guns hidden on the belt line of the jeans may easily be missed. This kid took out about 8 guns or so from his person alone to demonstrate how easy it was to smuggle guns in. The question about surveillance (in the sense of information gathering) and the panopticon is the one I look at when it comes to stuff like this. Metal detectors and body searches, security cameras and all that jazz...just a thought...
The kids who are the disrespectful, blithering idiots portrayed by the media are the same as the 'adults' who are committing crimes right now.
It's not solely factor of economic status, race, or media exposure, it's their decision to be affiliated with these kinds of groups, and the status they try to keep up.
I agree with 'A Student' that for the most part, in a way, avoiding the violence is about keeping your head down, but that doesn't always work. I had friends held up with knives walking from the corner store back to school at lunchtime, and thugs who beat a friend over the head with a baseball bat right after school on the FRONT LAWN. These weren't kids associated with these practices at all, they just happened to walk the wrong way or maybe bumped into somebody. School became a little more than stressful on days in particular when a guy drove by the bus stop outside our school waving a sawed off shotgun. As if bullies weren't enough.