The Ontario Association of Deans of Education (OADE) is committed to defending and promoting equity and human rights in, and through, education for all members of Ontario society and to promoting learning, change and dialogue to dismantle anti-Black racist structures across the education sector.

OADE is pleased to announce the launch of its Commitment to Anti-Black Racism Education and Black Inclusion in Ontario Higher Education. OADE commits to more substantive, timely, and tangible actions to redress anti-Black racism and to foster Black scholarship, research, teaching, and learning within Faculties of Education. This work is guided by the  four overarching principles of Black flourishing, inclusive excellence, mutuality, and accountability.

We call on all educators, students, and community partners to commit to address anti-Black racism in all of its forms and to learn, reflect and celebrate Black history and excellence all year round.

Read OADE’s Commitment to Anti-Black Racism Education and Black Inclusion in Ontario Higher Education [ / ].

Lancement de l’engagement de l’ADÉO en faveur de l’éducation contre le racisme anti-Noirs et de l’inclusion des personnes Noires dans l’enseignement supérieur en Ontario

L’Association des doyennes et doyens de l’éducation de l’Ontario (ADÉO) s’est engagée à défendre et à promouvoir l’équité et les droits de la personne dans et par l’éducation de tous les membres de la société ontarienne et à promouvoir l’apprentissage, le changement et le dialogue afin de démanteler les structures racistes anti-Noires dans le secteur de l’éducation.

L’ADÉO est heureuse d’annoncer le lancement de son engagement envers l’éducation contre le racisme chez les Noirs et l’inclusion des personnes Noires dans l’enseignement supérieur de l’Ontario. L’ADÉO s’engage à prendre des mesures plus substantielles, opportunes et concrètes afin de remédier au racisme anti-Noirs et d’encourager l’érudition, la recherche, l’enseignement et l’apprentissage pour les personnes Noires au sein des facultés d’éducation. Ce travail est guidé par , dont les quatre principes fondamentaux sont l’épanouissement des personnes Noires, l’excellence inclusive, la mutualité et la responsabilisation.

Nous demandons à tous à tout le personnel enseignant, aux partenaires communautaires de s’engager à lutter contre le racisme anti-Noirs sous toutes ses formes et d’apprendre, de réfléchir et de célébrer l’histoire et l’excellence des personnes Noirs tout au long de l’année.

Lisez l’engagement de l’ADÉO en faveur de l’éducation contre le racisme anti-Noirs et de l’inclusion des personnes Noires dans l’enseignement supérieur en Ontario [ / ].

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Toronto’s Catholic school board has banned from its classrooms all books by non-Black authors that contain the racist slur known as the N-word.

The new protocol also bans the word from being spoken aloud except by Black students in the amicable sense. It came into force this school year after being circulated internally last spring and approved in May.

Since September, the policy has forced the removal of familiar literary classics from high school curricula, such as Of Mice and Men. Other books that would be caught in the ban include Lord of the Flies, a common high school classic, and Gone with the Wind, less so.

Carl James, professor of education and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at 91��ɫ, said that to describe the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s N-word protocol as a book ban is unnecessarily provocative.

He said he appreciates the effort of the school board in “attempting to respond to the issues and situations that students in that board face.”

He said he hoped that simply removing the word from classroom content would not be the end of it, but rather just one part of a more complete education about racism.

“Is it banning or is it calling into question the words that we use and also having us think critically about what something conveys to the community?” he said.

Read the full article in the .

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The debate over what to seems to finally have an answer: city council voted on "Sankofa Square."

Coun. Chris Moise's square renaming motion passed 19-2 on Thursday evening, days after the advisory committee that was in charge of developing a shortlist of new names for Dundas Street unanimously voted on "Sankofa" as a top contender for the new name.

But one expert is questioning how this will actionably translate into a more inclusive society.

"How are we going to really make this name represent the change we're going after?" asks Carl James, 91��ɫ professor and the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora.

The original proposal was to  as of Thursday morning, replaced instead with a proposal to  that bear Henry Dundas’s name. The 18th-century Scotsman reportedly helped delay the end of the slave trade.

According to Moise's motion, the 20-member renaming advisory committee set up in 2021 and composed of Black and Indigenous leaders as well as Dundas Street residents, unanimously decided earlier this week that Yonge-Dundas Square should be renamed “Sankofa Square.”

Read the full article on the .

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Carl James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at 91��ɫ, talks about anti-black racism in schools following a recent incident that led to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) putting 3 staff members on home assignment for discriminating against children. James gives a reaction to the allegations.

"We cannot think that a teacher should not pay attention to a child's background. Whoever the child is, we have to pay attention to the background relating to that child", says James. "We have to also know and use that background to understand the ways in which we might engage them effectively not only in disciplinary practices, but also in the ways we engage them in the learning process".

from the March 8, 2023 edition of Metro Morning. Interview begins at the 08:13:40 mark.

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Some parents have been raising concerns about the teaching of critical race theory in public schools in the United States. Recently, these specious claims have been showing up in Canada too. School boards are being questioned for their anti-racism policies and the teaching of CRT to students.

 recently published a story that detailed how Waterloo Region District School Board trustees in Ontario were told by some parents they were concerned their children could “internalize shame and guilt because they’re white.”

A school delegation called “for more transparency about what’s being taught in classrooms on critical race theory and white privilege” and asked education staff to provide a working definition of the terms in relation to “anti-racist lesson plans.”

And last month,  on Durham Catholic School Board’s “new anti-racism policy” reported that trustees and members of the public had concerns about language such as “white supremacy” and “colonialism.”

The language, they said, “reflected ‘critical race theory,’ an academic concept that contends racism — whether intentional or not — is systemic and embedded in institutions.” The Star reported that this language was removed from the new policy.

Read the full article written by Carl E. James, Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora (Faculty of Education, 91��ɫ) and Vidya Shah, Assistant Professor (Faculty of Education) in .

Listen to the full podcast, discussing the injustices and inequalities in the education system with guest Carl E. James, Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora (Faculty of Education, 91��ɫ) on .

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Jermaine Brown became Toronto’s 15th homicide victim of 2006. His murderers shot him five times — once in each of his legs, twice in his torso; the final bullet maliciously tunnelled through his neck and out of his side.

Jermaine Brown was my older brother.

I often imagine how he felt, as he laid on the cold concrete, motionless as the life left his body. The pain. The fear. The loneliness.

It always brings me back to the profound sadness and anger I felt when I was 15. The restless nights where my mind would do nothing but wander and cogitate revenge. That was a word I fixated on — revenge — a word that began to govern each of my breaths. I was slipping down an emotional slide from which a return could be impossible.

This emotional slide is not unique to me. It is a commonplace narrative of despondency among youth in the  of Toronto — a neighbourhood where nearly a quarter of residents are on social assistance and high school graduation rates are low.

Mental health and emotional intelligence must be a focus in communities like this — communities that are home to marginalized Black youth.

If it wasn’t for basketball, a few caring mentors and teachers, family and my brother’s constant reminder to, “focus on ball and school… be the best,” .

As a teacher with the Toronto District School Board and a Ph.D. candidate in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education, I now focus my research on mental health and its influence on the success of Black youth throughout our education system.

I am also the co-founder of a program called .

Read the full article written by Ph.D. student Dwayne Brown (Faculty of Education, 91��ɫ) in .

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Associate Professor Sarah Barrett and doctoral candidate Nicola Dove co-authored a report titled ‘Advancing Black Inclusion and Addressing Anti-Black Racism in the Faculty of Education: A Reflection on Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities’.

The report, written by the Special Advisor to the Dean on Black Inclusion and Anti-Black Racism (2021-2022) and Research Assistant to the Special Advisor provides a snapshot of the ways in which our Faculty has worked to address issues related to Black Inclusion and Anti-Black Racism and also creates a record of what the Black members of our Faculty’s community identify as next steps.

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Schools and school boards struggle to respond to racism - and continue to fail to dismantle systemic barriers that affect Indigenous, Black and racialized students and families.

These barriers affect not only student learning, but student, family and staff well-being and sense of belonging.

Amid debates about school board effectiveness, Canada have abolished or changed public governing structures overseeing school boards, or are debating doing so: for example, and . In April, New Brunswick’s minister of education and replace these with a provincial board and regional councils.

But school boards matter if they are places where parents and community members can engage in democratic discussion and decision-making, and .

Read the full article written by Assistant Professor Vidya Shah (Faculty of Education, 91��ɫ), Nada Aoudeh (PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education, 91��ɫ) and Gisele Cuglievan Mindreau (PhD Candidate, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto) in .

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Annette Henry, a professor of language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia, knows Black students in Canada feel alienated by post-secondary institutions because they tell her about it.

“They’re racially profiled, they don’t have access to sources of information, funding, opportunities, scholarships, bursaries in the same way,” Henry said, adding she recently completed a study on Black graduate students’ experiences. Students, Henry added, especially those who come from African countries, are assumed by many professors to have no knowledge base of their own, but rather arrive as blank slates.

“For example, a student who was an A student, a couple of professors made assumptions that because she’s a single mother of three children, that this was not the place for her, that she wouldn’t succeed.”

This alienation can lead to low confidence in university success for Black youth in Canada. Data from the last census found that although 94% of Black youth wanted a university degree, only 60% thought they would achieve it. In contrast, only 82% of non-Black Canadian youth wanted a university degree, but nearly 80% believed they would achieve it.

A new program spread across five Canadian universities is examining how post-secondary institutions can provide support and security to Black students, while also collecting much-needed research on the social and academic experiences and outcomes of Black high school and undergraduate students.

The program, called Securing Black Futures, has received $1.2 million in funding from the Royal Bank of Canada’s Future Launch. The program will be run by Carl James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at 91��ɫ, in collaboration with project leads Henry at UBC; Juliet Daniel, associate dean of research and international relations at McMaster University; Jennifer Adams, Canada Research Chair in Creativity and STEM and Kevin Hewitt, professor in the physics and atmospheric science department at Dalhousie University.

Read the full story in .

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