Juno News - March 30, 2023


The woke takeover of education (Ft. Ari Blaff)


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

190.97516

Word Count

6,701

Sentence Count

311

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. My name is Rupa Subramanya and welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show.
00:00:22.020 Today, we're going to be talking about the woke takeover of Canada's school system,
00:00:27.060 especially here in Ontario. My guest today is Ari Bluff, a journalist based in Toronto.
00:00:33.640 He writes frequently for the National Review in the U.S. and recently did a two-part series for
00:00:38.380 the National Review going into great detail about how we got here and just how broken the school
00:00:44.000 system is in Canada. So please welcome Ari to the show. So Ari, welcome to the show. I found your
00:00:51.420 two-part series in the National Review on the woke takeover public education in Canada.
00:00:57.800 Especially in our largest province, Ontario, really fascinating as well as terrifying. In the
00:01:03.880 first part of your two-part series, you concentrated on progressive discipline and other changes that
00:01:10.680 came in under the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty and then was continued by his Liberal
00:01:17.540 successor, Kathleen Wynne. Everyone should read these articles. And for the sake of our viewers,
00:01:23.780 could you tell us in a nutshell what progressive discipline is exactly supposed to be and how did
00:01:29.860 it come about? Progressive discipline was sort of a response to the early 2000s government of
00:01:35.520 Mike Harris. And they sort of had a zero tolerance policy to bullying and other types of school
00:01:39.580 violence. It was seen by critics as this thing where it was detrimental to racialized minorities.
00:01:46.060 They were suspended more and expelled more. I don't know about all the statistics on that,
00:01:49.920 but basically there was a human rights tribunal that went through and they basically said that
00:01:54.160 there was a perception of racialized discrimination. So it was very weird in the wording that it was a
00:02:00.500 perception. It wasn't like there was an active discriminatory policy. But as a result of it or
00:02:05.540 as a consequence, in 2005, Dalton McGuinty passed through this progressive discipline thing.
00:02:10.500 And throughout the intervening years, you basically see like a radical reduction in suspensions,
00:02:15.780 expulsions. You look at research which shows like teacher self-surveys of, I guess, interactions with
00:02:23.620 violence. And they just skyrocket basically from the 2000s to where we are today, to a point where our
00:02:28.900 researchers now call it an epidemic of violence. And so really progressive discipline,
00:02:33.700 in a nutshell, sort of was trying to incorporate stuff like social, emotional learning,
00:02:38.740 really using disciplinary actions as like the last resort of action, like trying to reason with the
00:02:44.020 child, trying to put the emphasis on speaking to a child as a peer and everything like that.
00:02:49.860 And it's like in practice, it really just never panned out, like to the extent that like in some of
00:02:56.660 the stories they tell in those articles, there are teachers who have been like really assaulted by
00:03:01.620 students. They go to administrators and really under the guise of progressive discipline,
00:03:05.540 the administrators will tell them like, what have you done that could have been done differently?
00:03:08.660 Exactly.
00:03:09.220 This is always on the teacher.
00:03:10.500 Yeah. I mean, it sounds insane. I didn't go to school in Canada, so I don't have a way of
00:03:17.140 comparing it to what it would have been like 20 years ago. But I mean, but having said that,
00:03:24.100 this really does sound rather extreme and problematic. Where does the school actually
00:03:29.300 draw the line when it comes to problematic behavior by a student? Like, you go into some
00:03:35.300 great detail when you speak to teachers, you know, across the spectrum, and you speak to them. And
00:03:42.500 there's a teacher who says, you know, I've actually been punched and kicked and assaulted,
00:03:49.380 uh, but you know, I can't really do anything about it. And, uh, so where exactly does the school draw
00:03:54.820 the line? Like, uh, when it comes to physical violence from a student, when, how, where do they,
00:04:00.500 when do they take it seriously? When are, when do you, for example, involve law enforcement?
00:04:05.540 That's the whole thing, which this next installment, which will be, which will be released hopefully next
00:04:10.340 month, we'll talk about, but that's the biggest problem is that it's not abundantly clear where the line
00:04:15.300 is like in all those cases I was talking about in the first article, especially with Trish, like
00:04:21.140 nothing happens in the, she was teaching a grade one class and she was being regularly assaulted to
00:04:26.340 the point where she now comes into classes with like a fight or flight mentality. And she is
00:04:31.140 in her twenties, like an idealistic teacher. Um, she's reported, like she's repeatedly gone to
00:04:36.020 administrators and they've done nothing. And like, and that's just for grade one, like that students,
00:04:40.660 if they're not given the proper incentives or discipline, like that student will continue on
00:04:45.700 that pathway when they're in high school. Um, the teacher that I'm currently speaking to,
00:04:50.260 which will be the subject of a forthcoming and like a reporting piece, he was physically assaulted
00:04:56.020 by a student. He, the student repeatedly swore at him, warning him that he was going to punch him in
00:05:00.180 the face in front of administrators. Uh, and the student was given a four day suspension as a result of
00:05:05.300 that. Like these are things which I don't know, 20 years ago, I, I can only imagine if you,
00:05:10.580 you threatened to assault the teacher. Like, I don't think you're coming back after four days.
00:05:14.260 Like it seems like it's very up to the discretion of principals and vice principals. And when you get
00:05:19.860 to that echelon of like the political landscape with education, it's a lot of like keeping your
00:05:25.380 job secure, making sure that the director of education in your school board or the trustees
00:05:30.500 are comfortable with what you're doing. So it seems like there's sort of this bunker mentality of
00:05:34.740 everyone's just trying to keep their head down, not rock the boat. And I, and I think it's just
00:05:38.500 like the incentives of the whole education system just seemed to be, um, distorted right now. Cause
00:05:43.860 I don't think people are actually doing it out of malicious intention or ill will. I just think
00:05:47.940 that like people don't want to lose their jobs. They're afraid to speak out. And like, it just
00:05:52.020 seems to be like a system that is caught in this like death spiral. Yeah. I mean, I was going to get
00:05:57.540 to that, you know, the, the impact on teachers it's, it's, you know, it sounds crazy that teachers
00:06:02.500 should be expected to put up with this kind of stuff, um, uh, without being able to defend
00:06:07.860 themselves. Um, apart from the true believers, I imagine it must be extremely demoralizing for
00:06:14.180 everybody else, uh, including the students. Uh, I mean, students who are not engaging in this kind
00:06:19.220 of behavior, it surely can't, uh, be having a good impact on them. Um, I noted in your story that some
00:06:26.980 of the teachers, or in fact, almost all of the teachers, uh, in the story, uh, were very fearful
00:06:33.060 of sharing their names for fear of reprisal from the system, which again is extraordinary. Uh, it's
00:06:38.740 the education system that we're talking about, uh, talking about that is meant to open minds, not
00:06:43.860 closed minds. Yeah. You can see that in Twitter. Like Twitter is like a great example of like, where you
00:06:49.540 can see very vocal activist teachers, um, who I would say are part of like the, the power structure
00:06:55.700 in a way. I don't like using that word all the time, but there are people who can like unabashedly
00:06:59.380 share their views and like call premier Ford a racist windbag and stuff like that. But like,
00:07:04.100 there are so many teachers and former administrators, principals who will only speak like with strange,
00:07:10.580 um, basically like pseudonyms and they'll hide their faces and they don't want to be identified.
00:07:16.580 Like you can just see that there is this very deep fear that's cast over Ontario education where people
00:07:23.860 cannot raise their hand and say, Hey, like, I don't feel like my administration is protecting me.
00:07:27.780 Or like, I feel that some of the policies of mathematics right now might be overly politicized.
00:07:33.700 Like people are just genuinely afraid to speak. The only people that I know that have spoken to me
00:07:38.100 on record are people who are either the result of a public investigation, such as Chanel, um, who
00:07:44.820 is featured, who will be featured in some of these forthcoming pieces. Uh, but like, I don't know of
00:07:49.380 anybody else I've spoken to who said, you can use my name. Um, and it just speaks to again,
00:07:54.900 like the climate, which is very similar to university where it's like, people don't want
00:07:58.420 to be incriminated in any way. And I totally get that. Like I came into this piece thinking maybe
00:08:03.780 teachers were at fault for a lot of this. And I have changed my mind completely. I have such a
00:08:08.500 deep sympathy for teachers. I think when you are working a very hard job where sometimes there's not
00:08:13.220 a lot of social approval for it, people always complain about teachers wanting this and that.
00:08:16.740 Um, they've done so much work, especially throughout the pandemic and to put your head out there and
00:08:23.300 risk like losing a job. If you're like in your thirties or twenties and like, you don't have
00:08:27.780 union protection. Like I wouldn't do that. Like I'm fortunate that I have a job where they protect,
00:08:32.660 um, free inquiry like that, but I totally respect teachers who don't want to put their neck out or
00:08:37.780 especially don't want to put their name out there. It's, it's scary for a lot of them.
00:08:40.500 Hmm. Uh, did you speak to any of the students at these schools?
00:08:45.700 I haven't been able to reach out to students particularly. I've spoken to parents who have
00:08:50.180 sort of communicated, um, how their students have felt or how their children have felt. A lot of
00:08:55.060 them have actually removed students from public schools. There's, um, one individual I spoke to
00:09:00.580 who's an immigrant to Canada, um, from a Muslim country, and he decided to pull his child out of a
00:09:06.020 public education school and move the child into a Muslim, uh, sorry, into a Catholic education school
00:09:11.860 because he just was really petrified with the politicization of education, the very strict
00:09:17.140 response to COVID and mask mandates, even though like data was showing that they weren't so highly
00:09:22.420 at risk and the detrimental impact on children because of all those policies. Um, and it's a very
00:09:28.500 common thing. Like there's a lot of parents who are deeply concerned and teachers who would
00:09:32.340 really be very fearful of sending their children to public schools, unless they knew who was teaching
00:09:38.500 them and what the cultural values are of the institution. And that like, again, that wasn't
00:09:43.460 something which I don't think 20 years ago was a major valence point. Like for my family, like we would
00:09:48.740 have just chosen something in our neighborhood. Um, but today there are, and like, I think teachers are
00:09:53.620 sort of the canaries in the coal mine telling us like, should you send your kids? Like, even though,
00:09:57.780 even that's like a legitimate question to ask today is like a fearful thing to consider.
00:10:03.700 Is there a pro so progressive discipline is, is a thing here in Ontario. Did you have a chance to look
00:10:09.460 at, uh, education systems, uh, in other provinces? Is there something similar in place?
00:10:16.020 I haven't looked at that yet. I would like to sort of like as a culminating piece on like the,
00:10:21.060 just like a retrospective on everything in Ontario. Um, I do know just like by and large,
00:10:26.340 of course there is a spike in violence and I'd say like, I guess they call it maladaptive behavior
00:10:30.660 across like educational spaces in North America today. You definitely see that. Um, and I, and I
00:10:37.220 don't lay it all on the fault of progressive discipline. I think it definitely has been
00:10:40.340 sort of like an accelerant. There are a lot of underlying factors to there. Like, I think like,
00:10:44.180 I think smartphone usage and social media have definitely changed childhood today. I think COVID
00:10:49.780 has definitely changed it. I think another big factor, which people are afraid to talk about because
00:10:55.060 of political correctness is parenting. I think parenting and teachers have said that to me a lot
00:10:59.300 is that parents have sort of turned a blind eye to a lot of poor behavior. Um, like in one of those,
00:11:05.060 in one of the stories I talked about, a student was running and charging into teachers for 45 minutes
00:11:11.460 in a principal's office. And when the parent picked up the child, he like, they gave them a snack and
00:11:16.260 like just sort of went on their way. Like if that was in my house, my dad would, I don't want to know
00:11:20.500 what would have happened to me, but, and rightfully so, because like, if you ever lay your hands on a
00:11:24.980 teacher, like it's become so flipped. And I know a lot of teachers have personally confided that they
00:11:31.460 will not work in specific districts. If they know that certain parenting styles, usually sometimes
00:11:36.100 even more affluent districts, because they know that the parenting style would be very, um, permissive
00:11:40.980 of poor behavior. I've probably had at least three or four teachers have said that they would
00:11:44.980 specifically want to be working in Markham, which is a district in York region,
00:11:48.740 because there's a high concentration of Asian and immigrants, uh, families over there. And
00:11:54.340 those families tend to very much prioritize the teacher's importance within the community
00:11:59.220 and respect their wishes. And, and that's an amazing thing. Like people are saying like,
00:12:03.140 we actively want to work there. We want to get a job there because we feel respected.
00:12:06.980 Whereas like in Thornhill where like a lot of my family is based, they do not want to work there
00:12:11.700 because there's a lot of entitled snotty kids. It's the truth.
00:12:15.300 Yeah, no, well, that was going to be one of my questions to you. Like, is there a breakdown in
00:12:19.540 terms of, uh, uh, you know, areas, uh, as in a certain kind of certain type of communities
00:12:27.140 concentrated in a certain area, they have a very different attitude towards education,
00:12:32.900 uh, Asian families, as you mentioned, uh, Indians, for example, take education very,
00:12:38.020 very seriously. It is the be all end all of everything. Um, and, uh, and, and so I was
00:12:44.580 going to ask you that. So, you know, where is it the worst? Like, did you, did you look at Ottawa,
00:12:48.980 for example?
00:12:49.620 Yeah. So Ottawa, like Ottawa Pinecrest, like Ottawa Carleton, which is where Pinecrest, I think,
00:12:54.820 is located. Um, that definitely has had a lot of issues with progressive discipline. Um,
00:13:01.220 the violence, it's just, it's a very interesting thing. So violence, I feel like,
00:13:04.020 is more concentrated in places like TDSB, Toronto district, definitely. Ottawa, you'll have it.
00:13:10.100 Peel, you'll have it. Um, Waterloo, Hamilton, a lot of like the larger cities and towns within
00:13:16.180 Ontario, you have a more of a concentration, especially in also in Ontario, we have a Catholic
00:13:21.780 school system and also a French school system, but you'll definitely have it in Dufferin Peel,
00:13:26.020 which is a Catholic, uh, school board in that area. And as well, you'll have it in Toronto Catholic.
00:13:31.780 So violence, I feel like groups a lot into those densely populated places, especially sometimes
00:13:37.620 where you have massive schools, um, a lot of inner city schools, but the politicization of education,
00:13:43.300 like I think when you look at the changes in curriculum, like sort of the blind embrace of
00:13:47.940 anti-racism, woke mathematics, that's something which transcends everything. Like I I'm based in
00:13:52.580 New York region, which is probably one of the wealthiest school districts in the entire province.
00:13:56.420 And one of the teachers I spoke to over there said that he is acquainted with
00:14:00.580 all the work of like the people who I named in that article, um, sort of like the evangelists
00:14:05.780 of woke mathematics. Um, he knows the textbooks that have been encouraged by, um, the Ontario
00:14:11.300 mathematics coordinators association. Like that, that's something which I don't think is like,
00:14:16.100 I think if you're wealthier or if you have resources, you can move your child to a district,
00:14:20.740 which is less violence, but I don't know if you can circumvent the politicization of education.
00:14:25.700 That's something which is very difficult at this point.
00:14:28.660 Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, since you, since you brought up woke mathematics, my head has been
00:14:34.100 spinning since this morning when I read it and, uh, or when I reread it. And, uh, so the second,
00:14:40.340 second part of your story looks at some recent developments, including curriculum change,
00:14:45.540 changes to the curriculum. Uh, what I found most extraordinary about is that even basic math
00:14:51.460 is being called white supremacist. Um, it seems crazy, but how did we get to this point where two
00:14:57.620 plus two equals four is considered, uh, white supremacist and racist?
00:15:01.620 I think that will be explained more in the, in the coming installment, which is basically going to look
00:15:07.220 at like the, the educational apparatus of Ontario. So when you look at the entire body of Ontario
00:15:14.500 education, like whether it's the Ontario teachers college or college teachers, OCT OISE, which is
00:15:19.460 the most prominent educational studies program in the country, all the unions, like it all reinforces
00:15:24.420 a singular political point of view and really demonizes the ability to think differently. Like
00:15:28.580 they're as, as the forthcoming piece will show, it just really is not a place where people can think
00:15:33.860 freely and express themselves freely. And, and so I think that is what we're seeing is like this
00:15:38.660 runaway train of progressive thought, which is having sort of a disproportionate impact,
00:15:42.820 like even though maybe 3% or 5% of Canadians would subscribe to those views, they're by far the
00:15:47.300 most influential, like in TDSB and TDSB is the largest school district in the entire country,
00:15:53.060 which sort of like California, how, when California changes its emission standards, the rest of car
00:15:57.940 makers will meet them just because they're so big and they have such disproportionate influence.
00:16:03.460 TDSB really operates in the same way. And so like, when you have a handful of people like Jason
00:16:08.740 Tao who's in TDSB, like when they put out webinars and pyramids talking about like, if you believe
00:16:15.380 in streaming or two plus two or master and be politicized, like now that like you can have a
00:16:21.060 difference of opinion on those topics, but like that you are actively engaged in covert white supremacy,
00:16:25.780 like it leaves you very little room to have a reasonable discussion on that. Like Trish, who I
00:16:30.660 spoke about, she'll be featured in this upcoming piece about de-streaming. And she went throughout much
00:16:35.140 for life with a undiagnosed learning disorder. Um, and she credits streaming and her ability to
00:16:41.060 basically study at an applied level instead of an academic level as her ability to graduate.
00:16:45.780 Like it was an amazing thing for her. Now I know it's a complicated topic, but her very expression
00:16:52.500 of that idea would be considered white supremacist. Like, and it's really on the borderline with
00:16:56.420 overt white supremacy, according to this organization, which would be in league with like racist jokes.
00:17:01.300 And it's like, this is like a well-intentioned teacher who thinks differently about a subject,
00:17:06.260 but they're not tolerated to like explain that. And I think that's like the most frustrating thing.
00:17:12.180 I think throughout this whole process of interviewing and researching is that
00:17:16.100 like I've read, I've written both those articles and I would be proud to share them with anybody,
00:17:19.700 but I've been called like a racist and a white supremacist for those articles. And it's like,
00:17:23.780 I don't know what reality. Like you can say that I have bad ideas. You can say that they're not
00:17:29.860 researched. Well, like, I get that, but like to say that they're actively racist or white supremacists
00:17:34.020 and that these are the individuals who are like going to be anchoring and steering educational
00:17:37.780 policy for the province is like unsettling in a way.
00:17:41.540 Welcome to my world.
00:17:45.060 I've been called all of these names and more. And these are, it's just a reflection on those people
00:17:51.780 making those accusations, you know, because they don't really have an argument, right? They only have
00:17:56.100 ad hominems. And that's just, that's just the nature of the beast here. But you know, what is
00:18:02.180 woke math? Like, I still can't get my head around that. I mean, how does it work? Did you, did you,
00:18:08.500 did you dig, dig into this? Like, what is it? How does it work? Does it get you the right answers?
00:18:15.220 Like if you look at the textbooks, which they encourage teachers to read, which would then
00:18:19.540 basically flow downstream into classrooms, they basically really talk about injecting social justice causes,
00:18:24.900 like progressive social justice causes into classrooms. So like, there was a couple of
00:18:29.060 examples I quoted from the textbook where they talk about like wealth redistribution,
00:18:33.140 intersectionality in the wage gap, humanizing immigration debates. And it's like, it's just
00:18:38.580 like a needless politicization of mathematics. Like if there was, for instance, in a alternative
00:18:44.900 universe, like a conservative conspiracy and like they controlled all of education and they were doing
00:18:50.740 mathematical examples about like abortion in classrooms, just to be like, what would be the
00:18:55.380 purpose of that? And why would that be inserted into classrooms? Like there's sort of like this
00:18:59.940 gaslighting, which I feel like a lot of these activists engage in where they say these examples
00:19:04.500 are like a political, like everyone has to agree with them. This is the truth, but people can have
00:19:08.500 legitimate differences of opinion about like open border immigration, or what is exactly the wage gap?
00:19:14.260 And where do you draw the line between like legitimate sex discrimination versus like
00:19:18.980 different preferences and different choices? And so they will present these cases as truth. And then
00:19:24.580 like if you disagree with them, then you're sort of like a bigot or a sexist. And so I think that's
00:19:30.820 what you're seeing, like you're seeing like the injection of these political agendas into classrooms.
00:19:35.380 So like in the forthcoming piece, we'll look at OISE, which is the major educational studies
00:19:40.900 program in Toronto at University of Toronto. And they encourage grade five students to like do
00:19:45.380 letter writing campaigns to tell local politicians to pull funding from foreign wars and redirect it
00:19:50.180 to domestic poverty, which is probably a great initiative. But it's like, is the responsibility
00:19:54.660 of teachers using grade five students for that? Or is that the role of parents? And I think those
00:19:59.460 are legitimate questions to ask. And I think there's like this blurring of lines with a lot of these
00:20:04.100 teachers. And I, and I've not sure if I've communicated that in these pieces, but I think a lot of them
00:20:08.500 come from decent places. Like I really think that like they are looking after noble goals
00:20:12.980 and trying to fix good problems. But I think that like sometimes the road to hell is paved with good
00:20:16.740 intentions. And I think like when you become so ideological about seeing truth and like heresy and
00:20:23.300 good and evil, you miss the murkiness of like people can have reasonable disagreements on a lot of
00:20:28.740 these topics. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you document in your story that the, in the second part
00:20:35.620 of your story that the test scores unsurprisingly are plummeting given this re-imagining of the
00:20:41.220 curriculum. Canadians I believe score very poorly compared to our European and Asian counterparts
00:20:49.940 on what you correctly call the gold standard of the PISA test. How do the defenders of this new
00:20:59.940 curriculum explain or deal with the fact that their new method methodology just isn't working?
00:21:05.620 I know you've not, you reached out to a bunch of the defenders of woke math and they declined to be
00:21:11.060 interviewed. But in general, like, you know, reading through the literature, how do they defend
00:21:16.420 a poor test scores? I think there's, there's probably two major answers. One was from,
00:21:21.780 I've seen some criticism online that I've read. And one is basically like, you just,
00:21:25.780 it's sort of the scapegoat whenever there's something educational related,
00:21:28.420 it's like, it's underfunding. There's not enough money. Like it's understaffed,
00:21:31.300 which to an extent it might be the case, but we've seen like liberal government was in power
00:21:35.460 for 15 years between McGinty and when, and like test scores during that time have consistently
00:21:41.940 declined. Like math scores have been declining probably for the last 10, 15 years in Ontario.
00:21:46.100 And so it's likely not an exclusively economic problem. And if you look at, for instance,
00:21:52.340 there's a great economist article, which looked at the, basically the diminishing returns of
00:21:56.340 educational investment. And a lot of times like what separates a country, which spends maybe 50,000
00:22:01.540 or a hundred thousand dollars per pupil is not dramatically different in terms of actual impact,
00:22:06.340 in terms of academic performance. So I don't think it's an exclusively money and monetary issue,
00:22:12.260 as a lot of critics would say. Another part of critics might just say that standardized testing in
00:22:17.220 general, as per their pyramid is like white supremacist. And it's not just a reflective
00:22:21.540 engagement of how good students are. And there might be a grain of truth to maybe how we can
00:22:26.660 reform and better standardized testing, but by and large, like standardized testing and meritocratic
00:22:32.580 evaluations generally do work in the United States. There have been a couple of prominent schools
00:22:36.820 like Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, and I believe Lowell in San Francisco. And these were merit-based
00:22:41.940 schools and they basically both relinquish their merit-based things and introduced like racial
00:22:47.300 quotas. And both of them sort of lasted a couple of years and were overturned because they were having
00:22:52.660 discriminatory impact on Asian American students. Like their entrances and their admissions were
00:22:58.260 basically stifled because meritocracy was thrown out the window. Like, so we know that standardized
00:23:03.300 testing generally is a way of gauging which students are doing well and which students are not doing well,
00:23:07.780 which teachers and which universities are like performing well and which ones are not. Like, so
00:23:13.060 I think really, I guess in a nutshell, like they probably would say the standardized testing maybe
00:23:18.100 is not a very good gauge for overall student performance. And then secondly, we should just
00:23:22.740 put more money into teaching. I think like if I were to steel man them, I think that's would be,
00:23:27.380 that would be the emphasis of what they're trying to say. Yeah. I mean, one of the more bizarre claims by
00:23:32.020 these, uh, these ideologues, uh, woke math ideologues is that, uh, doing math prop, doing math properly is
00:23:38.820 somehow Eurocentric. Um, you know, I was born in India. Uh, it was ancient India and math is extremely
00:23:45.620 popular. Uh, white supremacist math is extremely popular in India and China and elsewhere. Uh, it was ancient
00:23:52.020 India that invented, uh, the concept of zero without which math and computer science would be impossible. And that
00:23:58.180 spread to the West through, um, through the Arab world, uh, when in their heyday, they were great
00:24:04.900 mathematicians and astronomers. So how exactly do these folks explain with a straight face that proper math is
00:24:12.420 Eurocentric? I, I'd find it like one of the most bizarre things like this, the Eurocentric aspect of it,
00:24:19.460 because like, especially when you look at international test scores, like Asian countries are usually leading the way.
00:24:23.220 Um, and I think, I, I personally think that it's sort of like, it's just like sort of a resentment at maybe
00:24:30.100 Western societies and Western countries, because like, like, I think a way of looking at this or
00:24:35.860 engaging this is like the indigenous knowledge systems. This has like become like such a popular
00:24:39.140 thing in recent years. It's like indigenous math. Like, and I, and I cited a couple of examples from
00:24:44.340 a British Columbia resource, which basically tried to coach teachers, how to incorporate indigenous
00:24:48.660 math. And this would include like using, I think like drying times for seaweeds amongst grade one
00:24:55.940 students and like, and spirit canoe journeys for grade five or something like that. And, and it's like,
00:25:02.420 why is this being introduced into a curriculum? I would understand first of all, if it works,
00:25:06.740 like if it worked in the last two or three years, or if math scores were not plummeting right now,
00:25:10.500 but like coming at a time, like when really like the basic fundamentals of mathematics have to be
00:25:16.260 prioritized that like, this is like the, the pet project of a lot of activists. I, it's just like,
00:25:22.660 it's bewildering. I really, I don't know. Like what about Eurocentric or Western math is exactly
00:25:29.940 heinous in that way. I think they basically point to like Jason Tao has pointed to like how algorithms
00:25:35.220 sometimes can be used to echo or escalates racial bias. Like for instance, like if you want to look at
00:25:43.700 algorithms of re-incarceration or recidivism in the United States, which is a fair point, like
00:25:49.060 mathematics, like how are those algorithms used and maybe do they embed bias? That's an interesting
00:25:53.300 point, but like from a grade one to a grade five or grade 12 mathematics, like just like getting the
00:25:58.660 basic skills is I think something which is more important to impart. And also like, yeah, it just
00:26:05.300 seems like anything can be politicized. Like we could literally nutrition can be politicized. Like
00:26:08.740 everything has a political ramification. So where do you want to draw the line? And that's
00:26:13.140 what like one of the professors or one of the teachers I quoted at the end of the article said,
00:26:17.540 like where you draw the political line is sort of a reflection of maybe white or Western society.
00:26:23.460 And like, he sees everything as being political. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And so then at that point,
00:26:28.420 you're like, so then like, like, there's no more like disguise, like it is a political act,
00:26:33.780 what you're engaging in. Yeah. I mean, I discovered a couple of weeks ago that drinking milk is white
00:26:40.180 supremacist. And I, yeah, so I've stopped drinking milk.
00:26:44.580 Yeah. There's redlocks or white supremacists. There's a bunch of things which are white supremacists.
00:26:50.820 And I guess, yeah, it's just unfortunate because the thing which I've come away with throughout this
00:26:55.860 whole experience is just that the students who are going to suffer the most are the ones who
00:26:59.700 they're trying to help the most. Like people who have two incomes or two parents and can shift their
00:27:05.780 children out of these school districts and go to private schools, like they're not going to suffer.
00:27:09.460 Like the parents will not tolerate it and people will vote with their feet. But the children who
00:27:14.020 are stuck in these extremely violence learning environments and these environments that are not
00:27:19.140 going to be academically rigorous are always going to be like the single parent households,
00:27:22.580 the racialized communities disproportionately. And it's like, so in the end, it's like going to shoot
00:27:27.700 yourself in the foot, like the people who are advocating on behalf of helping these communities are
00:27:32.020 the ones that are seeing like skyrocketing violence in inner city communities. Like it's to the point,
00:27:37.460 like in TDSB at York Memorial, which is considered like the sign of our times for violent schools.
00:27:44.100 It's a disproportionately black and Somali Canadian community. And now recorders of parents surveyed
00:27:50.740 by one trustee at a protest that they want to bring back local law enforcement, just to maintain like
00:27:55.780 even a basic level of security until like something can be addressed. And it's like, who opposes that motion?
00:28:01.860 It's parents of black children, which is an activist organization. And it's like, there are black
00:28:06.580 parents and family members and children on the ground who are saying, please bring back some
00:28:10.180 basic semblance of security. And then there's activists who are saying, no, don't ever do that.
00:28:14.900 Don't ever touch it. And it's like, it's just a detachment. It's like, and again, who's suffering?
00:28:20.580 It's going to be those children who deserve a good education are going to suffer. And like,
00:28:25.540 that's why it's not a political issue. It's just, how do you maximize the amount of like students
00:28:29.380 doing well? And like, these are not, if they were working, I'd be fine. I'd be like, I know what,
00:28:33.060 I'm totally wrong, but it doesn't seem like there's any indicators that they're,
00:28:36.660 they're working in any way. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, you also document in your story that
00:28:43.860 even the Ford government hasn't really done a good job, hasn't done a great job about getting back to
00:28:49.860 the basics as Ford promised he would do. It's, it seems to me that the capture of the education
00:28:56.580 system is so deep that even a conservative premier is finding it very hard to make substantive changes.
00:29:03.460 What, what will it take for root and branch reform to actually occur?
00:29:08.100 So that's what I've spoken to with a lot of teachers and my personal feeling from their
00:29:14.260 experiences and what they've shared with me is that I think at a security level, I do think
00:29:18.580 it's going to take, unfortunately, a teacher being severely harmed or killed at this point,
00:29:23.220 which is, it's just scary to think about, but clearly there's been students that have been killed
00:29:27.940 recently and there were tons of violence and like, that hasn't changed the system.
00:29:32.340 There have been work refusals by dozens of teachers that hasn't changed it. Like,
00:29:35.700 I unfortunately think that it's going to come to that point. And that's scary. Like,
00:29:40.580 that's really scary because a lot of teachers I spoke to, like, they're really politically across
00:29:45.620 the board. There are people who voted NDP for their new democratic party, which is left of liberal
00:29:51.300 party in Canada, like who voted for NDP for years or like Globe and Mail readers who love like
00:29:57.540 intellectual curiosity. There are conservatives, but like, it really is like really a Canadian mosaic
00:30:03.300 of people I spoke to of different age groups, different sexualities, trans people and gay
00:30:07.780 people. And like, they just are unified by the sense of like, something is broken here. And
00:30:13.540 a lot of people who went into teaching with the love of like helping children out and trying to
00:30:19.220 pass along amazing stuff to the next generation feel like they can't do their jobs.
00:30:23.540 And so unfortunately, I think like at a violence level, I think that's probably going to be one of
00:30:26.980 the wake up calls. Everyone has basically expressed a real deep frustration with the Ford government
00:30:31.380 conservatives and non-conservatives that I've spoken to basically saying that I think very much
00:30:35.940 in the same vein of like the Ford government's response to COVID, which was just like status quo.
00:30:39.940 It's like, we don't want to rock the boat. We want to stay in power. And how do we alienate
00:30:43.380 as few people as we possibly can? And so the Ford government's included in their like 2021,
00:30:50.260 I think math curriculum update was like filled with like woke math terminology. And it's like,
00:30:55.940 it's, you always wonder like who's steering the agenda. Is it like the bureaucrats or the politicians?
00:30:59.860 Um, but the Ford government has not done really anything substantial. I've heard even like some
00:31:06.980 theories amongst some of the people I've spoken to that they think that the Ford government is trying
00:31:10.820 to sort of let education wither and just erode. And like, this is sort of like a circumventing way
00:31:18.420 to encourage like privatizing education or allowing people to have their tax dollars follow their students,
00:31:23.380 which could be a bit more conspiratorial, but like, I can sort of see that if you don't care about public
00:31:27.780 education, you just want it to wither, like, let like just chaos reign and like the state of nature
00:31:34.580 just return.
00:31:34.900 Yeah, that's a very interesting theory, much like what is happening with the healthcare system. Right.
00:31:40.260 Um, and, uh, yeah, that's, that's fascinating. I, you know, what you saw painstakingly document is,
00:31:46.900 you know, one important facet of a much larger culture war that we're living through right now,
00:31:52.260 based on your research and I, into the education system, and I know it's still ongoing. You still
00:31:57.460 have another story, excuse me, coming out. Where do you think, where do you think we're heading here?
00:32:03.460 Is there, um, is there any reason to be optimistic that things will get better? Uh, do you see a return
00:32:10.180 to some kind of common sense?
00:32:11.380 I think there's always a pendulum sometimes that swings. I think from speaking with a lot of teachers,
00:32:17.220 I realized that a lot of teachers are really, really nice people, common sense people that
00:32:23.140 don't want to be overly politicized. I think with everything, like same with probably universities,
00:32:27.780 like the agenda is steered by very vocal and well-organized minority. Um, but unfortunately,
00:32:33.060 I don't think it's hit rock bottom with Ontario public schools. I just think there are so many incentives
00:32:37.860 in place where unions are going to defend these policies. Um, Ontario college of teachers are not
00:32:44.660 going to oppose them. Uh, OISE is going to continue to OISE, like has a literal PhD in social justice
00:32:51.700 studies. And this is like the number of fourth ranked education studies program in the entire world.
00:32:56.660 Like, and it's explicit about like teaching teachers to be activists and to create children
00:33:02.820 who are agents of social change. Like there's no incentive or there's no actors who are
00:33:07.860 able to, to withstand these types of things. And like, it's just something which has become
00:33:12.980 so corroded. So I think it's very much in tandem with universities. Like what will happen on
00:33:17.540 universities? I don't know. Like universities, I see much more interesting because like admissions
00:33:22.180 are dropping to these disciplines and moving towards STEM fields. So that's going to cause like
00:33:26.340 a wake up call that might cause a similar wake up call in teaching. I'm going to have to look at the
00:33:30.340 data about like our teachers entering the streams, but if teachers are no longer entering the field
00:33:35.380 because it's too violent or it's too politicized, or it's not worth the stress that will cause a big
00:33:39.860 wake up call. Like, and I believe there's already a shortage of teachers in Ontario at the moment,
00:33:43.300 and that could cause a big public crisis, like an accounting of some sort. But unfortunately,
00:33:48.820 I don't see it. It's not capable of reforming itself at this point. And the Ford government
00:33:53.460 doesn't seem, especially the education minister, Stephen Latre does not seem capable of bringing about
00:33:59.540 any change like that. Yeah, well, that's very unfortunate. And unfortunately, we'll have to
00:34:04.580 leave it there, Ari. But I really wanted to thank you for coming on the show and for your reportage,
00:34:10.900 which really goes to the heart of the problem. And, you know, and for someone like me who doesn't really
00:34:19.700 track the education system as much as I'd like to, this was very informative and insightful. And I look
00:34:27.860 forward to your, the third part, the third part of the story. And, and, and I hope you'll be back on
00:34:35.860 the show sometime soon to, to have a follow up conversation with me. I would love to, I think
00:34:41.300 we're gonna hopefully run maybe about two or three more installments. Okay, I will, I'll definitely keep
00:34:46.260 you posted. And thank you so much for having me. I really had a good time. Yeah, wonderful. My pleasure.
00:34:50.580 And so I'll see you soon. Thank you so much. Have a good one.