Reflection+4

qqq Africentric Plan Sparks Concern ([|Link]) qqq An Ancient Profession adjusts to a 21st Century Classroom ([|Link])
 * Reflection 4 **

Post your reflections below-

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 * Julie Liang **

Africentric Schools While the Africentric schools might help to lower drop out rates and raise academic scores of African-Americans, I think it would also encourage racism and segregation between races. There is proof of this in the article with an Asian student saying how his parents might pull him out of the school altogether. Some students or their parents might feel that it is equally unfair to focus on just black history when there are so many other cultures and races in that school (60% being visible minorities). I think separating the African-American students and teaching them more about their own culture while teaching others about "regular" Canadian history will just segregate cultures even more than they already are. I think offering a course focusing on black history, as mentioned in one of the articles, would be much a more reasonable solution to the problem of high drop out rates and low academic scores of African-Americans.

Teaching in the 21st Century The article makes it seem like Canada's educational system is amazing, when in actuality, it's not. From my own and others' experiences, I can say that there is much that can be improved on. The standards for selecting teachers should absolutely be raised as they are the ones responsible for the next generation's knowledge and learning skills. Requiring a Master's degree and more frequent evaluations is of course a way to solving this. However, basing teachers off of student evaluations might be a mistake. Depending on the type of student and past problems between the student and teacher (such as a bad grade), the student may feel dislike towards the teacher or it may cause teachers to become too lenient with grades and disciplinary actions. So while our system is not perfect, I think it's good that we're taking action and trying to rectify the errors.

**Vivian Liu**

** Africentric Schools ** I feel that Africentric schools would result in more negative consequences than positive. While the board’s intention is to reduce dropout rates and help the majority of students feel more comfortable, it may cause the other students to feel the opposite. For example, at Oakwood, 40% are black students while 60% are visible minorities. If Oakwood becomes an Africentric school, that other 60% might feel pressured to leave the school. The students may start feeling that they don’t belong in that school and it will no longer be a comfortable learning environment for them. Their parents may also decide that their children should move schools. This will ultimately result in a less diverse school, as well as much more racism that what was intended.

** Teaching in the 21st Century ** While Canada is already high up in the ranks of excellent teachers, I can totally understand that we want to improve our standards even more so that we are on par with other countries like Finland. I definitely agree that the teachers should have ongoing training, as well as ongoing evaluations. In this way, the teachers can be given suggestions as to how to improve their teaching skills; this can happen regularly and more often instead of only every 5 years. The requirement of a Masters degree may also be beneficial, as the teachers can be more educated overall. I also agree with accepting more diverse candidates, as this can help provide diversities for the students and they can feel more comfortable. However, there is one main aspect of this concept that I do not agree with, and that is having the students evaluate the teachers. While it may seem ideal to receive the students’ input, all students are immature at one point in time, and may not necessarily give the most reasonable and honest opinion. Overall, I think raising the standards of Canadian teachers will ultimately be very beneficial for the schools here.

**SingYu Lam**


 * Africentric Schools **

I think my opinions on africentric schools are mixed. Bot only do I think the term "africentric" to be generalizing, but I find it true that many Asian families are to some degree racist/ Although one can argue that many cultures that are comprised of black populations in the Americas have originated in Africa, I believe each of hem have evolved culturally enough that "African-American" is stereotyping and borderline racism. I also don't believe simply raising the amount of black students in a certain school will necessarily improve drop out rates and marks. By putting their ethnicity in the spotlight, I believe it actually may engage racism to some extent, as a group-like culture will begin to develop between the separate groups of ethnicities - black people on one hand, and visible minorities on the other, only increasing pressure and stress. Eventually, the drop out rates for the visible minorities may increase as well and lead to an all-black school with few exceptions, which isn't good in any way for the diversity of the area.


 * Teaching in the 21st Century **

As a country already high in the ranks of education, I'm not surprised we Canadians feel the urge to improve our ranks of chalk dust-covered warriors. Ongoing evaluations and Master's degrees are good additions to the requirements of being a teacher, although I don't agree with the teacher rated by students system, as many students may dislike their teachers for reasons other than the teacher's ability to teach. Nearly every teacher is bound to have one or two students who many dislike them for whatever reasons, and things like these are unavoidable. Recertifications and ongoing evaluations are an excellent way to keep teachers up to date with teaching styles and skills to apply in a classroom environment. I think it's a great that the Canadian government is taking note and hope that it will improve education standards for now and the future.

Reflections

-Frank Liu


 * Africentric Schools **

//Africentrism- The reading of world history that emphasizes the importance of African people in culture, history and philosophy //

The world we live in currently is considerably less prejudiced than previous generations. In 1979, the United Nations finally adopted women’s suffrage as a right that all women should receive. In 1963 however, “The Great March on Washington” took place and Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. Observers could say that society has improved tremendously over the last century based on just these 2 events of civil rights and equality. However, I believe the fact that africentric schools are being established in areas with a significant amount of black people makes the entire idea hypocritical. Africentrism is an attempt to counter racism and to teach students knowledge on the African people. Thus, the establishment of a school with the vast majority of people as one race would not help ease racism but rather encourage it. If the true point of this is to allow more people to understand the history of the African people, then a significantly easier and more effective way is to make the African people a topic of world history that students in Canada can take. By doing this, the course is educating more people; reaching out to more people and helping students understand a history that has been rather neglected in our current courses.


 * Teaching in the 21st century **

The first thing that I noticed in the article was the fact that one of the teachers would a rather plump, older woman of presumably Caucasian decent. She is holding a ruler in one hand and crossing her arms. First thought: really don’t want to have her. The new and improved teacher is young, male, of a darker complexion, and presumably more full of energy and nicer. Right there and then, I immediately thought that this article would be generally biased and trying to deceive readers in at least some way. As I read on, I found that the article was inherently biased and sometimes contradicted itself. Canada’s education system has many faults. These faults have been exposed when Canada’s students are compared with those from other countries. The article claims that faults exist but then neglects to really mention any. After the article is read, many readers would simply think: “Wow, Canada has a good education system.”

Since Canada is a first-world country, one could expect a complicated and beneficial education system for the students. However, teachers are not really regulated and many teachers yell more than they teach. Others, students like but simply do not teach at all. These teachers though few, can ruin a student’s education through the course of just one semester by helping the student lose motivation, become careless and lower respect for other teachers. So far for me, the education of the teacher have been relatively good, but many teacher lose the respect of their students overall and just aren’t fit for the job. The Canadian government should reassess and evaluate teaches more often so that they are actually regulated and to ensure that all teachers are actually teaching their students.

**Alan Li**

** Africentric Schools- **

I have mixed feelings about this, which is predominantly because Canadians in particular are constantly being fed conflicting moral ideals (Or, at least, that's what I feel). Consider this; We strive to treat everybody equally and not divide people based on backgrounds and beliefs, and yet at the same time, support individualism, and actively wish to be different and be respected as an unique individual. Because of these contradicting moral values, the TDSB is constantly under fire for not being able to sufficiently meet our ideal learning environment, one where students pursue different goals together, underneath the same roof.

The catch is that we'll probably never be able to simultaneously teach math to one student, and music to another, within the same classroom. I mean, seriously guys. It's perpetually impossible. Just like how we'll never be able to fully spark the interest of two separate cultures at the same time. So what are we really striving for? Individualism or collectivism? Conformity or segregation? Hell, you could even tie a capitalist, communist argument into this if you wanted to.

In my opinion, we're better off supplying additional courses for our secondary schools. At least we won't be burning as much money. B)

** Teaching in the 21st Century **

It's probably best to continue raising the bar like this. I mean, with ongoing advancements to communications/educational technology, and a relatively stable economic climate, there's really little reason not to expect a little more 'omph' in student education and standardized testing scores. I don't know what this will bode for teachers, but I feel like even without this kind of emphasis on student success, competition will still be constantly stacking up. With low demand and a high number of applicants, you're probably better off getting that master's degree anyway, if you're looking for a job within the school board.

Although I would not deny the prominent role teachers play in student success, I'd just like to point out that success within the eastern countries is not because of better teachers, rather, their entire culture has much more of an emphasis on getting better standardized testing scores (notice how I chose the wording, rather than simply saying education), so it's not that our teachers are falling behind.

=Africentric Schools Reflection= Since I sometime discriminates, my first reaction was “Why did they make Africentric schools?” and that question still hangs in my head unanswered until I realize racism was involved. In my perspective, I think African-Americans (or would be referred to as “blacks” in this block of writing) are using the Africentric schools as both a shield and a sword. They would use it in their advantage, because if they are the majority in the schools, and the other ethnic races started moving their kids to other schools, the blacks would have not much opposition to compete against for marks, and I am guessing the parents are using the new schools as an excuse for having their kids study their own African history instead of European history, just because they think their kids would like their own culture better than others’ histories. I also think they are imposing too much “hatred” toward Europeans since if the other ethnic races hate the school, it would become a “blacks only” school, or a segregated school where there are the blacks on one side and everyone else on the other. The quote “History would repeat itself” would be useful to describe the segregation, when Europeans bought black slaves from Africa and segregate them, except that in the present time, the blacks are thinking they should be as high status as someone like Obama, by creating schools in their favours and using that as backlash to Europeans for bringing their early ancestors as slaves to North America. First they start with achieving freedom (Martin Luther King Jr) then overcoming the government (Obama) and now wanting education that is highly in their favours? I think in the future, we may regret allowing them to use us as their tools to success above everyone else… (and yes, I was discriminating a little bit in this article). -Edward-


 * Teaching in the 21st century reflection would be posted later...

I feel that an africentric school might be a good idea---if it stops the 40% dropout rate of black students. One problem I find in the concept is that the black students will learn more about their background/culture in depth and the other students will also be required to learn this. Now, most parents might not agree to this condition; many parents might be against the fact that the students might only learn about black history. A possible solution to this situation could be that the other parents demand that the board introduce an “asiancentric” school (one already exists), or any other school that promotes only one specific culture. Such a situation could disrupt the interaction of all the students in the school. When you have an africentric school, you have only one specific race learning about its cultural heritage. If it were a normal high school, everyone would interact with different people and learn more through their friendship. Maybe introducing better teaching methods might interest students enough to keep them in school or offering specific courses such as History, but only on Africa, for example. Then, that way, the students could choose their courses, but still maintain an interaction with other students of different backgrounds. In my opinion, I think the idea is okay, but would be better if it could avoid possible reasons for racism or exclusion.
 * __ AFRICENTRIC PLAN SPARKS CONCERN-by Birunthaa __**

**__ Teaching in the 21st century- by Birunthaa __** A student’s education, it is said, depends on a good school, but more than the school, a student learns from a teacher. A teacher teaches students new methods of problem solving or teaches them to work out challenging problems in order to enhance their knowledge and learning skills. If a teacher doesn’t teach properly or doesn’t follow the curriculum properly, a student will never be able to learn how to learn. Canada’s teaching methods were once really outstanding, but now, other countries’ schools are improving their teaching standards. A solution to this is improving the standards of teaching here in Canada. This could enhance the knowledge of students and introduce them to concepts they might have never heard of or learned, or review a concept they’ve already learned, but in greater detail. My opinion is that improving teaching standards here in Canada would benefit everyone.

Johnson's Reflection by Johnson himself

After you read us the article, I truly thought about how the black people would respond to how some of the white and asian parents responded. By saying the school would be less safe, I think more racism is involved towards the black people. By giving this reason, I think they further the argument and cause even more commotion. I feel this way because I think I have an idea on what some of these parents mean when they say less safe. I have notified of many bad neighborhoods and have even been in one where I have been mugged once. The people that mugged me were black. I don't want this to turn into a racist comment itself so I'll end it here.
 * __ AFRICENTRIC PLAN SPARKS CONCERN __**

**__ Teaching in the 21st century __** What really stood out for me or stood out at all was how at the start, they compared our education to that of other countries. To be honest the rest did not really interest me. Anyway I like the idea of how countries compare themselves to other countries to see what they can do better. Competition is a good thing in my eyes. You see what other people can do and do better to keep up with that person. With this, I think education is ever so growing. With this motivation to keep going, you think of new ways, faster ways, ways to get better. By doing all this you really enhance whatever it is you are competing against and it favors everyone! This also kind of reminds me of the Flat Classroom Projects. New ways made to enhance learning and really helping students like this are already being done.

Tim's Reflections

Africentric Schools I personally think that the idea of an Africentric school is a pretty bad idea. My main problem with this theory is that as Canadians living in Toronto, we have pretty much branded ourselves as living in a diverse, multi-cultural society. By putting Africans in another school, I think that this just contradicts the type of society that we have put in place for ourselves. At Oakwood C.I., the parents were pretty much outraged that they weren’t notified of the change, and one of them brought up a good point: why don’t we create some sort of course for African Culture or something similar? I personally share the same view. I think that simply separating the students will not solve the problem of lower academic performance. Instead, I think that we should start getting students interested in school by giving them courses that relate to their lives, like African History or something. Also, I think putting students in Africentric schools will just promote racism, and not only with the students, but also with parents. Being in a diverse school like Don Mills, I’ve made friends with people who aren’t Asian, and I understand other races a bit better now. We need this type of integration on a daily basis in order to promote a good learning environment.

Teaching in the 21st Century This article talked about changes in schools and learning, and needless to say, this English course was definitely a change from the traditional method. I agree with the article when it says that learning should be more technologically-driven. With technology increasing in use, I think that it is important to make sure that we are prepared for the new workplace. I also like the idea of teachers having to get masters’ degrees in order to teach. I personally think that the most important thing in a teacher is that they know about what they’re teaching. As students, I’m pretty sure that we’ve all had some teachers that were awesome, and some where we didn’t really learn much. Therefore, I agree with the idea of teachers having a mandatory masters’ degree, so they can be more effective as teachers. The one thing that alarmed me was that teachers are getting paid according to student performance. I personally find this unfair, because a gifted teacher will probably be paid more than a special ed teacher, and also because some kids are better at learning than others. Also, since teachers want to get paid, students would probably receive more pressure from teachers to perform well. Let’s face it, if we are continually expected to improve, those who pressure us to do so are going to be disappointed because you simply can’t improve all the time. Inevitably, there are going to be some down times, and you simply can’t blame the teacher for that. So overall, I think that as students, we are benefitting from these changes, but the teachers? Not so much.

Michael Zhang 309 M33k **Africentric Schools** I feel that africentric schools are a good idea but they should open new schools that are africentric rather than start in existing schools. This is because doing this for the minority of Africans in a school will greatly affect the majority. It was already stated that dropout rates of Africans in public schools are really high and changing a school to be more africentric would lower these rates. It was also stated that the majority "feared" these African people and I think that if more the school was more africentric, it would lead more Africans to come pouring through the school doors thus raising a higher dropout rate in the majority of non-Africans. Although I think that schools concentrating more on African culture subjects would benefit the society or groups within the community, it should be the schools decision whether or not they change after a proper notification. What I don't understand is that if our community was so concentrated in its multiculturalism, wouldn't making an African centered school create more diversity between the Africans and the rest of society? With all this in thought, I think that africentric schools should be placed, but not too much and not implicated into existing schools without prior notice.

=Teaching in the 21st Century= They say that teachers are being judged too much by the test scores that appear out of their students' test results. Teachers are being more specially selected to better suit the education of normal and specially educated students. Personally, I think that our parents also play a big role in what we learn at school and how motivated we are towards learning it. It is possible that within a family, the more a parent is involved with their child's education, the more the child would learn. I agree that teachers should have a higher standard for employment based on experience and their qualifications. I also disagree with it because it shouldn't be based on that too much because I think a teacher's effectiveness also comes from their attitude towards teaching and students. Interest, qualifications, and experience are all great factors to bring into play when employing better teachers. It is also a great idea to provide more motivation for teachers to apply for the job such as their power over how they teach rather than the guidelines placed upon them now. Another good way to draw experienced teachers to come would be their salaries being significantly increased. The resources teachers and students can work with such as books, online media, computers, newspapers, etc. are all great ways to more "developed" learning. Overall, the integration of better teachers with a bigger variety of resources and technology will ensure that the education of students will elevate.

Kevin Cai

** Africentric Schools ** I think that for the school board to open up africentric schools is a very interesting thing to do. Based solely on the fact that students of African descent have a higher dropout rate, they assume that opening up schools whose focus is more directed towards African topics will increase their grades, or lower the dropout rate. Personally, I think this is not very efficient, comparing the funds spent on this type of school, compared to the results from it; one of the main reasons why these students dropout is because of things outside of the school itself. It’s not because the subjects are too Euro-based, but because of things such as family issues, gang problems, or the lack of will to study. Although changing the subject matter may encourage more students to be more actively participating in school, there are many downsides with schools that have Black history month all year round. First of all, racism will be an issue even bigger than it is now. Tied to that, is the fact we can’t over look of gang fights. These schools will turn the community around them into a mini Jane and Finch area. Saying this is legitimate, seeing as the main population of the Jane and Finch area is black. Never the less, I think that the TDSB is trying to do something good, but as always, they never succeed.

** Teaching in the 21st Century ** Canada’s education system is one with many flaws. From going through most of it, I can safely say that many of the teachers are unfit for their jobs. From what I can tell, a teacher’s job is to teach students the materials needed for later grades/life. Further from this, we need to say that students should be learning throughout their entire school experience. This is not the case for many students. The article talks about salaries based on student performance, student evaluation, and ongoing evaluations. I think that all of these can be biased. For example, a teacher may give higher marks to students, so their performance raises, and with it, his paycheck. The students may then like him, further raising his paycheck. Ongoing evaluations will need to be based on an interview-like process, which may not be accurate.

**__ Austin O'Boyle - Reflections: __** **__ Africentric Schools: __** I have mixed feelings about the idea of creating Africentric schools to help black students in their academic focus. On the positive side, it does have the potential to help black students if they are more eager to learn about their culture than what they were learning in a mainstream school. However, there are students that just may not want to learn at all. I also think that the idea of having schools dedicated to black students is quite hypocritical. It is like we are taking many steps back to when there was major segregation going on and black students were bussed privately to schools where only black students would go. Canada, and Toronto in particular is known as a very diverse area; and creating Africentric schools is like starting a small scale version of what was going on prior to 1960. It is like our society is taking a huge leap back into the past and reigniting the flame of racism against black people. Creating Africentric schools was intended to reduce racism but in reality, it probably increases it. A good example was the Asian boy that said his parents would not even send him to a school that was labelled as a “black school”. I personally think it would be much more reasonable to create a black history course rather than to create a full school dedicated to it. I think that the cons of having an Africentric school outweigh the pros significantly so that is why I am against the idea of Africentric schools. They really are just another example of segregation and racism creeping back into our society. **__ Teaching in the 21st Century: __** <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Canada is a very highly ranked country in terms of teaching and academics in general. This article describes Canada’s education system as way better than it is. From my personal experiences in the system, I know that there is a lot that can be improved. Teaching is a very important job in terms of shaping the future generations. I think that the job is undervalued substantially given its importance to society. I completely agree that teachers should be treated with more respect as a noble profession. Even though Canada’s education system is good, I think that it will always need constant improvements. One way to help keep the teaching aspect at a high level is to have the teacher going through periodic workshops and training as well as having them evaluated more often. The one problem with this method is that teachers can put their act together when they know they are being evaluated. I also think that standards for becoming a teacher are much too low. The idea of needing a master’s degree is a good idea but it will have both positive and negative effects. Teachers need to be very knowledgeable in the subject areas that they teach and having a master’s degree in their teaching area would pretty much guarantee that they have a deep background in that area. Overall Canada’s education system is pretty good and teachers in Canada are pretty good as well. However, to get to the level that Finland and some other nations are at, there will need to be improvements made in the categories listed earlier (Training, evaluations, standards for teachers, etc.) Eventually if we continue on an upward trend in our teaching quality and education, we will be able to reach the level that countries like Finland are at.

<span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Kevin Lee <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">Africentric Schools <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">In response to this article I beleive that this may be a bad idea for the school to become africentric, especially ====if the rest of the population are visible minorities because they may feel that it is not fair for blacks to get African history, but they don't get focus on their culture. Also some people may be somewhat racist or stereotypical and think that they have African focus that they are all going to learn basketball in gym (an exaggeration and I am not trying to be racist). But in the end I believe that this school becoming Afrocentric will actually educate the people who are not taking the africentric courses more than those who are, because it should be able to drive away common stereotypes of blacks.====

Teaching in the 21st century
====This article reminds me of an interview that I watched on the Colbert Report with a man who was trying to get the message out that America is not producing as many geniuses on the world stage as they used to and that america is falling behind. Especially in the case as with China, Korea, Sweden even Canada and many other countries. And during this interview he said that alot of it is that people from other countries come to america to study but then go back to work for their own countries. The thing is that if we don't watch our backs we could start to fall behind just like the united states is doing, because in the 1960's america had some of the smartest people in the world when they put a man on the moon, but now they are falling behind and we have to keep ahead.====

** Michael zhang(310) **

** Africentric Schools **

After listening to the article, I really would try to support the idea of an Africentric school. It seems like a good idea because it hasn’t really been tested yet. Obviously, something would need to change with the schools if the dropout rate is so high, and this seems like a good idea. If it weren’t for the fact that they declared the school Africentric without telling the community, I would entirely support the idea. However, since they did so, it could cause some issues within the community, such as a change in demographics and other changes. This could be quite devastating. The population in the area would change completely and cause conflicts with different peoples. There are other concerns also related to a community change.

** Teaching in the 21st Century **

After listening to this, I thought that the new teachers were a step in the right direction, since there were more ways to teach someone. Thanks to technology, teachers no longer need to focus on providing information and instead can focus on thought processing and thinking. This is a good idea since these areas are areas of need in today’s community. I also thought that with more diversified teachers, such as more male teachers and people from different backgrounds, allows a student to relate and learn more easily. In addition, the fact that teachers are evaluated on a more daily basis means that they will try maintaining a high standard of teaching, which is also positive. However, the fact that they are trying to pay teachers based on performance is something that may need to be revised, because it generally isn’t fair to the teacher depending on the students’ willingness to learn. Overall, it seems better, but not complete.

Alex Wu

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Gill Sans Light'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">Teaching in the Twenty-First Century Teaching how to learn and motivation on growth is far more important than the actual material itself. It is not meant to be misunderstood that actual material is not important, however the point of a plethora of information at our fingertips really does bring out the realization that school is not longer our main source of information. Giving teachers more freedom can go one of two ways, wether or not the teacher is qualified, having a looser standard curriculum can give the teacher more chances to surge the learning and challenge the students with excellent results. The other hand the extra freedom may give the teacher to be more lax and perhaps even cause student performance to be worse than if they were taught by standard curriculum. Such measures can greatly effect the students mark, with less standardized tests, bias marking and the variation of marking difficulty can increase or decrease the students GPA greatly. This not only increases the parental pressure, but for the increasing numbers of university and college programs basing their acceptance on scores received in highschool, it can change a students future drastically.

Africentric Schools

Overall I believe that it’s going against what we worked for. Trying to eliminate segregation and make diversity and acceptance an universal stance, Having afrocentric schools will give a false sense of acceptance, and once released in the world they will have to deal with other cultures. If the workplaces are diverse then shouldn’t schools be adjusted to mimic the conditions in a workplace? Having africentric schools lessens the opportunities to be introduced into new cultures and perspectives of living. If they want to adjust the curriculum for other cultures than having other courses available for minority cultures and history would be a much better idea. It does not only give more opportunities and selection for all students, but also leaves the school unbranded

**Allan Yuan**

** Africentric Schools- **

I feel that even the african families may be even more opposed than non-african families, especially Asian families. They (africans) may feel like they're being segrogated, or maybe feel insulted about their needs. Africentric schools don't really go with canada's thought that the we should be multicultural, and not create any stereotypes. This is kind of hypocrytical. I don't opposed the fact that there should be some attention to black students but instead of creating an africentric school in history where other races may feel left out, they should just incorporate some more african studies in history, or like many people suggested just make an additional course called african studies. This wouldn't scare off other white or Asian students, and instead of focusing primarily on africentric programs. maybe just promote the interests of black students (which may not be african history)

** Teaching in the 21st Century **

I agree with the fact that some teaching strategies, and overall how teachers are trained and what they do in the classroom should be adjusted. If teachers do not really get to know students and do not get to mold the curriculum to fit the classes needs, then how can the students really learn (well)? I think that Canada's current teacher standards are too low. Instead of just taking copying stuff from a Nelson textbook and lecturing from it pretending you acctually know all of the things in it, teachers should be telling students their own opinions and offer a wider view of life and their subject. Teachers should be telling stories, recounting their past experiences, and hopefully, the life of a teacher will teach us some lessons and maybe give us a bit of experience in operating in the big world. This is probably a better way to teach than boring kids to death from what some possibly dead person wrote what the standard of learning is. Teachers having higher standards could make students better too, but just having a negotiation may not be really good for all teachers. What if one teacher was a former con artist, and the other an asian immigrant? What if they were both equally smart, equally capable of teaching, and both contribute a equal amount of knowledge in different ways. But one is just better at negotiating than the other. Also, basing pay on how well a class does is not that fair. There are just too many things that would make it unbalanced. Like other people said, a gifted teacher and a special-ed teacher would have a very wide margin of pay. But what if there were two gifted classes (not implying anything), and one was filled with over-achievers and one with underachievers? For teachers, I overall agree with the direction of change, but I think many things need to be tweaked to make it fairer and better for teachers and students.

__**Africentric Schools**__ I can understand the feelings of the students in this article. If I put myself in their shoes, I'm sure I'd feel uncomfortable with the school making this huge decision without any warning. Students should be what schools are for, so even though we are young, by high school we're old enough to be able to make our own decisions. This would make me and most likely my peers feel angry, frustrated and looked down upon. However, on the other side, parents who are interested in Africentric schools will probably see this as a positive thing. Parents usually want the best for their children, and perhaps better than their childhood. Parents who had negative experiences in their own schooling may be reluctant to allow their child in certain schools, but with an Africentric school nearby there is no need to seek alternative schooling for their children. I don't think anyone could say that it will be a positive or negative experience, though most likely a bit of both - probably only time will tell.

__**Teaching in the 21st Century**__ Since I'm a student myself, I can safely say that I do agree that teachers make the largest impact on our education. Even though the source of the information does not always come directly from the teacher, the teacher is the one showing the students and helping them learn. For example, you can compare a course to a book. The teacher is the pages. If all the pages are neon yellow and the font Comic Sans MS, no one would ever read that book and have something positive come out. However, the idea of paying teachers according to their performance can be flawed and unfair unless fixed. Teachers of programs such as Applied or special education have classes that will not usually give the best results in terms of marks or have well-behaved students. If it is fixed to be changed for teachers who teach such programs, I think it could be much better - though there will probably always be some flaws.

- Katherine Ma


 * Africentric Schools**

Personally I find Africentric schools should not be made available in my opinion. My main reason for this thought is that these schools in a way almost encourage segregation and separation. If you look at the composition of these schools you see a lowering of minority groups after these schools are made Africentric. This is most likely a result of these groups not feeling that there education should be focused on a specific race. Thus through the lowering of other races it separates the students in these schools from the rest of the world in a sense that in surrounding communities many races mix and interact, and also throughout the real world.


 * Teaching in the 21st Century**

As I am currently a student I feel I am justified to say; Canada's education system has many flaws in the way they go about teaching. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">From what I can tell, a teacher’s job is not to teach students the materials needed for later grades/life. It is to facilitate the growth and development of the students knowledge. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">The article talks about salaries based on student performance, student evaluation, and ongoing evaluations. I think that all of these can be biased. For example, a teacher may give higher marks to students, so their performance raises, and with it, his paycheck. The students may then like him, further raising his paycheck. Ongoing evaluations will need to be based on an interview-like process, which may not be accurate. Also which must be considered is the type of students, it would not be fair for a teacher of the developmentally delayed students even if they teach to their full potential.


 * - Adam Winick**

**Africentric schools** I don’t agree with the idea of Africentric schools because the Black population within the larger more European population does not want to necessarily be singled out of the mainstream educational system; in addition they feel comfortable within Canada’s culture. It’s basically the same thing as moving to a new country but wanting the new country to be the same as the old one, it isn’t going to happen. I also think that if you are going to introduce Africentric schools then they should also include Asian and Middle Eastern type schools to keep it fair to the public; the main reason being that the African culture is already recognized during the month of February which is known as Black History Month. People from all over the world have come to Canada for various reasons, but everyone knows that the Canadian education system is for everyone equally. No teenager or child is denied going to school because of their race, color, or religion so why should society begin to separate different cultures. In particular when during the mid 20th century many people fought and died against segregation so why should we today (little more than 60 years later) destroy what they so bravely fought for. **Teaching in the 21st century** I don’t agree with the way that this article is about because it is putting unnecessary stress on both the teacher and the student. When it says that the teacher’s pay relies on how well the student is doing this then causes the teacher stress to get the students to achieve higher marks. This then puts stress on the student to achieve that higher mark. Now school is already stressful enough with having to worry about getting even higher mark if the student is getting a 75 for example. I also think that a way to improve education is to get more young teachers. Sure they don’t have as much experience as the older teachers but they can relate to the students more and they also know the new methods of teaching. Ultimately I don’t think that having the teacher’s pay rely on the student’s marks a good thing because it is unfair to the teachers and to the students. -Zane Raina