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Moderator's Message Carol Loughrey Thank you Senator. Before I introduce the panel, I feel I really have to make a few comments myself. I think the Supreme Court decision was one of the most powerful decisions the court has made on the issue of education, and the writings I am sure will be quoted over and over again. It captures to some extent Ralph Waldo Emerson's comment "who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you are saying" - that seems me to be the essence of that decision. Mr. Nightingale had quite a challenge this morning to comment on the situation in New Brunswick because we are in the process of revamping a very old piece of legislation. For your information the current Schools Act dates back to 1871, and we feel there are probably parts of our current Schools Act that are that old. It had major revisions in the 1940s and changed from the Common Schools Act to the Schools Act, but there has only been a little bit of tinkering in the 60s and the 90s. We also had a very different structure up until last February 22. It was a very memorable day to me. We came up with a very exciting discussion and change and announcement in the legislature, and that night my Minister had a heart attack. But that really substantially changed the structure of what was going on in education in New Brunswick; in terms of who the employer was, the fact that there won't be 18 different policies on issues anymore but rather a provincial policy on issues. The department has done various things related to multiculturalism, and the department is one of the players. Wayne Nightingale spoke about the Ministerial Statement on Multiculturalism, which is quite a powerful document. Unfortunately when it came out in 1989, because of the structure we had then, it talked about encouraging school boards to do things - there was really no way that it could become a requirement. Certainly in our strategic plan in December of 1994 within the department, we have a statement of beliefs, what we believe as a Department of Education. The second belief is that individual differences are a source of richness requiring respect and attention. I think that is important. And of course we have our statement on protection of students in the school system from discrimination, from harassment by adults, which just came out and was worked on in consultation with the Teacher's Association. But I think we can't escape from the fact that the Department of Education is only one player in education. The question that Mr. Ferris asked about the what's the professional association? The NBTA has a professional code of conduct, we are quite encouraged that they are reviewing that code to integrate some of the issues that we discuss today I hope, and some other things. Once again it is a document that is quite old and probably needs some work. So we will be working, hopefully with the NBTA on that - and the word multiculturalism isn't in that either. I think another player that was not mentioned this morning is the faculties of education. What you teach in those faculties surely must prepare students for the multicultural classroom, and how the faculties of education are adapting to this decision, how they are integrating the opinions in that decision into how they prepare a teacher for the classroom is very important. Teachers themselves, of course, have to take some responsibility. Ignorance of the law is not acceptable for anybody, whether you are a teacher or not a teacher. Teachers are professionals, and such have to behave as professionals. They have a powerful position in the classroom; they are all alone with students in the classroom. And the unfortunate circumstance that I have discovered in dealing with things like harassment, is those people who do it don't see anything wrong with it and those people who really can't believe that other people do. So I suspect in the area of multiculturalism it tends to be the same kind of thing. The average age of teachers in our system is in the mid-forties, and when I think about how I grew up and went to school in New Brunswick I know that for the first 8 years we were a very "wasp" school - there was one Catholic student in my class and he/she was considered an oddity. When I went into grade nine there was one woman of colour in all the school; when I went into high school there was one Jewish girl in my class. So when you think about these teachers in our system and the kind of education they probably had, it is quite a challenge for them to now think in terms of inclusiveness. I think parents have a roll to play in making sure the classrooms are multicultural and that differences are valued. And I hope our new parental support structures, which we are working so hard to establish, will actually result in parents feeling comfortable, feeling at ease, feeling welcomed to come and talk about these kind of issues are occurring in a classroom and unacceptable behaviour is happening. I think the Human Rights Commission has a role to play, just like multicultural organizations. One of my staff who is constantly trying to educate me, and thinks it is quite appalling that there is a deputy minister of education who has not had experience in the public school system, is constantly sending me articles. And what I was reading on the weekend is a very powerful article in terms of the vision that I think the department of Education has of what the school should become. Its an article writen about a book called The School Home: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families, and it is really changing the word schoolhouse to schoolhome. I will just quote from some of it: The pupils in a schoolhome will countenance no violence, be it corporal punishment or teacher sarcasm, the bullying of one child by others or the terrorization of an entire class, the use of hostile language about whole races or the denigration of one sex... The schoolhome's concern is that the children in its care receive an education for living and working together in the world. The schoolhome is a moral equivalent of home where this nation's children can develop into constructive, contributing members of a culture and society, individuals who want to live in a world composed of people very different from themselves, and who have practiced doing so. It talks not only about the three R's but also the three C's: care, concern and connection. And I think really that is what this Supreme Court decision is all about. In terms of our panel this morning, who are going to be commenting on this topic, we will start with Sawsan Sharaf.
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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University |
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