In conversation with Sherwyn Solomon, Principal Ridgemont High School 

Tuesday 11 February, 2014.

It was a cold frosty afternoon when Black Ottawa Scene arrived at Ridgemont High School for an interview with the Principal, Sherwyn Solomon.  The warm hearty smile from Sherwyn quickly dissipated all thoughts of the winter chill as he ushered me into his large spacious but busy office. Our hour long conversation was however interrupted  for over fifteen minutes, as an announcement over the PA started the process of a school wide “lock down”, an emergency procedure that is implemented in the case of a potential threat to the staff and students. During this brief but rather tense situation, Sherwyn met with the the School Resource Officer, a constable from the Ottawa Police Service. The lock-down was cancelled once it had been established that there was no longer any threat to the school.

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Good morning and how are you today. Thank you for having Black Ottawa Scene here from your busy schedule. First off, could you tell us about your early childhood, where you born and what was it like growing up?

I was born in Toronto, I am a twin, from Caribbean parents both from Trinidad and Tobago but the early part we left Toronto and went to Northern BC.  My parents actually worked in Alaska but we lived on the other side of the panhandle which is far north especially for brand new Canadians. They’d been in the country only a year and half. From there we moved back to southern Ontario. It think I was about 5 years old when we moved to Kitchener-Waterloo and there I spent the majority of my childhood till I left for university in Kitchener.

What university did you go to?

I got my first degree in zoology from the University of Guelph I always wanted to be a bird biologist, that was my early career. My speciality was birds of prey. So I did owls and hawks and falcons.

Did you ever work in that field?

I worked for a bunch of different organisations: the Bureau of Land Management in the US, Institute for Bird Populations in the US, University of Saskatchewan, Lakehead University, University of Guelph, Trent University, Ministry of Natural Resources and on and on.

Wow, you’ve  travelled around while a bit eh?

As a bird biologist, I had to because your job would necessarily last six months, because birds migrate south and I’d work in Alberta and I might find myself in California and back up north to Saulte Saint Marie and I did a lot of backwards and forwards, never in any one place for longer than six months or so. For the most part it was during my studies in Guelph from September through to April. And I would immediately leave to the next research port that I would be working on. If you ask my mother in a good year I would be done and ready for school in September. I continued to work till October with the result that I lost that semester.

So when did you get into teaching and why?

I can’t tell exactly when I decided to become a teacher and many educators will tell you that from the time they were young, they wanted to be teachers. I was not one of those. I wanted to be a biologist and I did that and I loved that. I was working in California and I can tell you when the light bulb came on for me. My employer at the time indicated to me that they were going to be bringing a group of young people from inner cities of Los Angeles to our research station. The idea was they wanted to give them an opportunity to meet a biologist, a scientist to inspire them to become scientists perhaps. We were probably not thinking, we wanted to do a community service, so the instruction I had from my boss was: give them a spotting scope or telescope so they can look at birds from afar; tell them what you do and then get back to your base and do your business. I had been a camp counsellor for years in Kitchener, and loved it. My first year as camp counsellor, I was 15 and it’s funny I never wanted to be an educator and yet everything I did as a young man whenever I look back and reflect, suggested I was going to be an educator. When I was 15 I started coaching a minor soccer team, so my brother and I coached a team for years and years. Too young to have driver’s licence, so my parents had to take me, the coach was being dropped off by his mum.  We started with 4 year olds, some of these kids my brother and I still know till today. My experience with kids earlier on made me realise that the day had to be better programmed for the students to get something out, to receive value from what we did, value in their time. One thing students hate is when their time is seen to be wasted. Same for adults as well. We can waste children’s time, they can’t vote with their feet that adults can. They are required to be in school by law. Sometimes it means that they will get a little bit lazy for want of a better word. In terms of making sure their needs are being met and no disrespect to my employer at the time, but his answer was: it doesn’t really matter, show them the birds and they are going to walk away and do their own thing.

So you were talking about you came about to become a teacher. Could you tell me what happened after you were exposed to those students who wanted to know what you did?

I  was a field biologist and we were in the middle of an open area, we were doing research on birds and owls. I felt strongly about programming the day from start to finish much in the same way as any teacher would plan a field trip and the activities were a hit. It was outstanding, the students had a tremendous time, My co-workers also had a tremendous time interacting with the young people, showing them in very rich, very deep way why the work they did was important, what the work looked like, having those conversations with kids in a structured way that allowed the students to have access at the next level. Everybody knows that biologists exist, even kids who’ve never been out of the inner city, know about biologists, probably seen them on the Discovery channel. It’s a whole different thing when you actually have one in front of you, so now you get to ask questions. We had very rare birds in the US, there was golden eagle that flew over, and the kids all had a chance to get on the scope and take a look at this magnificent eagle. And I walked out of this, and thought I could do this every day, all day. And I realised that the experience I had in the camp as counsellor and as a soccer coach was like a work experience. I had thought that because I wanted to be a biologist so badly, so for coop I became a science teacher, thinking that was the closest I could get to the science. I did field work with young people and I taught classroom science. As I look back over the years, I realise all these experiences, didn’t really prepare me to be a scientist, they were preparing me to be a teacher. I worked with kids my entire life and that moment hit me like, what was I doing?. It was very much like the past just opened up I saw and I realised, wow how did I miss it? I applied for teachers college the following December, and the next year September, I was there.

So you then decided to go to teachers college? Which school did you go to?

I went to the University of Ottawa to do my B. Ed. in 1999. It doesn’t feel that long ago, and I had a great time. I met a lot of tremendous people and professors, one of them being Awad Ibrahim, who was tremendous.

From Sudan eh?

Yeah, so many of the teachers did a lot to awaken my passion for education but he really allowed me to frame my degree about school and schooling in a way that I could get behind. I was already on my way in another career and I was quite satisfied being a biologist and I loved that work. As a matter of fact, I have a research turtle on my desk and I would go back and do the work in a heartbeat. So I had to get behind education and it had to be for me and this is not everybody’s thing but mine. I was going to be in a classroom, I had to be in a classroom environment that I felt was making a difference in the lives of youth, particularly, racialised communities. For my practicum, I did one at Merivale High School, I was in the English class at that time. I did one in my own school in Kitchener- Waterloo KCI, a very different school, probably very similar to this one. And I realised early on that I believed and still believe that when you’re teaching in a classroom with an academic load, it wasn’t my calling. I left my passion which was biology I had wanted to be a biologist since grade seven. Awad really allowed me to see there were places in the education system that I could get behind. I didn’t start off as an occasional teacher like most people, I started off as an educational technology integrator.

How’s that different from a teacher?

My job was teaching teachers how to use technology in a classroom. My role was to go and work with classroom teachers as they integrated technology into their classroom, maybe how do you build a website, how do you use e-mail, this was in the early days 1990-2000, how to use web resources in the classroom, what is a web quest, can you use things like video editing software to enable students express themselves in a way we hadn’t been able to do before, so those kids who were in the production piece, actually making videos or making music and then producing them on their own. In those early days it was very new and very exciting. And I also quite enjoyed that. I still wasn’t convinced I wanted to be  a classroom teacher, but I hadn’t given up on education .I believe that education was what I wanted to do. I decided to pursue my Master’s at that time. I was working full time and I decided to do it simultaneously full time, and I was also getting married , that was at Ottawa U.

That’s what I call multitasking!

It was a mistake if ever there was one and my now wife ever in support. I had my job from 9 till 3 and the I did my night classes Monday through Thursday and the weekends Friday Saturday Sunday I did my readings, wrote my essays  then start up again with my very full days , And that was not sustainable. Clearly age gives you wonderful wisdom which I did not have at that time!

You got married around that same time?

So I was working and beside it, I got married late October and in a moment of clarity my partner would tell you that I said: what am i doing? I had a great conversation with Tara and I said you know I am already in a Master’s here, it’s important to me, we both worked, so we decided that I would continue with my Master’s and I would quit my teaching job. So I quit my job and maintained my status as a full time student. And I would work part-time as an occasional teacher to help supplement the income. We then moved to Edmonton, so I did some course work over there so we moved back here. My partner is a federal government employee.

She was transferred?

Yeah, she was part of a program that moves them back and forth.

Must have been very taxing.

Yes at same time, in retrospect it would have been difficult. If you don’t live a life full of challenge, I’d probably be bored. I surprise people when I tell them the longest job I’ve ever had is three years. And I just completed that in June. In my entire life, I’ve never been in any one place I would have like to be there for a little bit longer, life has so many wonderful experiences. Change can be frightening but I believe it allows you to grow. I certainly wouldn’t take back any one of the experiences I’ve had, having changes frequently in my role at work, whether it is as a biologist, tracking a bird for six months at a time, from place to place, or as a technology integrator, moving from school to school. everyone of those things is informed through. I’ve seen in my career, I tell people I have taught in private and public schools, I’ve taught in Alberta, back in Ontario I’ve taught in classes as young as kindergarten, and as high as the OAC when it still existed. I’ve seen a lot in education, been centrally placed as an education consultant, and I’ve been in the trenches in the classroom, Certainly it sort of belies teaching, but I’ve been in teaching since 1999, but I’ve not been in a place for ten years to say that having one or two experiences. I’ve seen a lot and that’s been very good for me and has helped me frame how I approach education. I don’t know if I would have it any other way.

You became principal of Ridgemont High School in 2013?

September was my start. I learned yesterday was Day 100 from my children . A hundred days is a big celebration in elementary school, My son came home with his cap and crown and they had to count a hundred and so I realised that he started school September 3  and I understand Feb 10 is the 100 day. So I’ve been a hundred days or five months, I guess.

Were you the first black principal in Ottawa?

No there are others: Patsy Eggard, she came from Brampton, she was first posted at Sir Wilfred Laurier, that would have been in 2007 or 8, she is currently at Longfields Davidson Heights. Also Malvert Major was principal at RA Wilson, became principal in 2008-9.  We have a number of others in the Catholic School Board. I imagine there are others in the French school board but I don’t know them. My understanding is I’m the first black male principal for whatever that’s worth.

And so Ridgemont High School is one of those schools identified as beacon schools? Is that term still applicable?

The language has changed considerably, we don’t call them beacon any more, or priority or whatever label that was used. Part of our profile is the way the old beacon school index based on the Stats Canada data looks at family incomes in the area, and other data points, the number of newcomers, past failure rates, lots of data would have gone into those beacon indexes. The beacon score doesn’t exist any more. My understanding is it would have been a beacon school. We are an urban priority high school

What does that mean?

There are 34 schools in the province that have been identified as priority high schools, I guess this is a provincial initiative, What that means is there are additional supports in place to help make sure the schools are able to function in a way that meets the unique needs of the school population. Most school resource officers have 15-18 different schools that they go into, it’s almost entirely reactive. In this school, and the other priority schools, our SRO is only tied to 3 schools so it allows them the proactive piece; it allows them to intervene and interrupt that cycle of criminality and really meet the needs of young people. It’s so easy to criminalise young people. This type of partnership that exists in these urban schools, because is a good model. Because we have a diversion student counsellor, means that if in fact , take shoplifting for instance, and nobody can tell me that shoplifting does not exist, it happens in every single school, what we can do is because we have a school resource officer, we have lots of options, open to us. We have a very caring adult who in the role of a police officer who can weigh all the pluses and minuses in deciding whether or not to lay a charge. It’s their decision, part of the SRO model is the benefit to the public good. Could we do more by having the student entering the youth justice system? In the diversion models he is in contact with the school counsellor, different than a guidance counsellor, he is a student counsellor who would come in and engage the young person in the community. Engage him in making reparations and therefore avoiding the cycle of the criminal justice system. And that’s a model that works very well.  And it works great in this school. It would work well in all schools. Because I’ll speak frankly, people would say the urban schools the mythology about drugs and violence and everything else, and I say this from a position of  experience: I have taught in many other schools, we have much fewer graffiti, this is part and parcel of being in a neighbourhood where the average income is far less than it would be in many other parts of the city. Our students don’t have the money to buy drugs, I’ve been in these other schools, they have the money there, and they buy them.

So the challenge is different?

The challenge is different. I can’t say hard drugs wouldn’t happen. We have tons of preventative methods, in place, which we have being a priority school, which I would challenge and say, it should probably be part of every high school.  Every school should have a drug counsellor, attached to them. Most high schools in Ottawa in the public board now do.  Addictions is part of the world around us, not just young people, from families of addicts , talk about gaming addictions, addictions of all sorts , not just drugs and alcohol, traditional model. I doubt that walking in a suburban school, and somebody says yeah, you don’t have problems with people who are addicts. I am sure we are not playing 12 hours of war craft that’s an addiction. We have addictions counsellors here to help deal with that, as part of I think it is what makes this school special. We’re not just pretending that this type of society doesn’t exist. There is crime in society, there is addictions in society, there is poverty in society. We put protective factors around the young people in the building to do that.  I feel very good about what we’re doing in terms of building protective factors by engaging the police in an active manner and by engaging addictions counsellors, engaging social workers during school days camp, through diversion counsellors But the protective factors are in place and our young people come out of their experience at the school four years later, so that we don’t lose kids. I think one of the things that I find is a wonderful thing, and I’m new to this school I’ve been in other priority high schools and I did see what happened there. Students there always see these buildings as a home. We offer programming that last well into the evenings Why, because we know that what students often get into trouble is between 4 pm and 6 p.m., an hour before their parents come home and that’s when they engage in activities that are probably not pro-social, so we provide activities during those times: literacy clubs, home work clubs, they are here every day after school, every night from Monday to Friday. So we have protective factors in place so that our students are not going to be either tempted or engaged in activities that are going to harm their futures. We don’t get them all, no school does, but I feel better sleeping at night . I am working to help kids in need in this area and in other areas. We’ve been quite fortunate to really be able to push that envelope quite a bit.

So what would you has been your biggest challenge, as a principal, now that you’ve come into your first 100 days? Has the challenge been different because you’re black or is the same as any other principal?

(Laughs). Interesting, right now at a 100 days I don’t know because I would say flippantly I’ve never  not been a black principal so I don’t know what their days look like. I would say that I am fortunate to be part of a principal intern group where there is a set of us, four of us new secondary school principals and a wider number of principals of elementary school together. We have a lot of the same challenges, schools are obviously very complex organisations and making sure that we are able to function as instructional leaders, as operational managers and that there is a balance between those two and not to mention the community that we serve, so we have a community leadership engagement piece. I try as hard as I can to hit those facets that are part of the board approved plan and then the leadership framework that’s been provided by the province. The biggest challenge in any organisation is in putting rubber to the road, and that’s my biggest challenge and that’s a challenge that’s shared by other principals that I’ve had conversations with. There are many things that we desire in terms of getting things to move in one direction and every principal is different. We all have the same goals in what has been mandated by the province. But how we go about it of achieving those goals in increasing student achievement, reducing the gaps in building confidence,  how we do those things, are different and often dictated by the site we are in and the staff that we have. So part of that is attempting to build relationships and fostering buy-ins and I would say that’s probably been my biggest challenge and part of the time piece is that it’s difficult to move an organisation in a hundred years, let alone a hundred days. And making sure that all voices are heard. I am one of probably a hundred adults in this building on any given day . I’ve a very strong office team. I have a strong care staff, a strong TA’s and teachers and the broader team, so I have probably 75 teachers. Often they are referred to as supporting staff and I am not sure that is the best way to describe them, in they are not supporting staff, when students have needs my expectation is that they are going to seek out whoever that adult is in their space. Whether it is a RHS grad such as Richard Sutton, who does amazing work in my development delay program, also in the extracurricular and has been doing that for many years and students would seek him out and why would they, because, he is an institution here and he’s no different than my office administrator, who’s been here for ever as far as I can tell, and who knows the history of the building and is a tremendous resource. That goes for many people in the building.  Principals are the sort of de facto leaders in any organisation, when you walk into a school, people see the principal as the leader and we do have that role and that function, often it is the leadership that’s been given to me by the board, and people around me, though I have to continue to work on building my leadership by empowering them to do the work that they need to do.

Looking at the staff picture from the 2013-4 year, there is just a small handful of people of colour, and yet here you are as a principal and leader. How did that go down with the staff and did you take your rightful place as leader?

Right, absolutely. I think it’s hard for me to categorise people’s feelings about me or about anything else, so I’ll leave that to others to make those categorisations, but certainly, I think I’ve been very well accepted by the staff, the community as a whole, and I don’t know that any of my success or failure to this point has been on my own, I don’t  know that any of that has been seen though a racial lens.  I haven’t had any of that evidence yet. And I’d say that with a 100 people here I don’t know the hearts and minds of everybody. At the start of this year, I invited members of the staff to sit down with me for 10 minutes for a conversation and I had many people who came and I had great conversations about their hopes and aspirations, for the school as a whole. I think I would be blind to say that, one of the things about having a black principal in a majority black school, is everybody can say here is the role model you’re looking for, if you are looking for a black role model but I would say I don’t know that I am any different than the role model of that would be provided by any of my teachers. A lot of the time the young people will seek out a caring adult, and I feel I’ve got a hundred of them, from my office staff to teachers to my care staff. But as always, there is a chance I would say, at the international black summit over the summer, and coming into this role, my biggest challenge is a mental one, how do you navigate that dual role, the double burden of being black and in this role, I know that many are going to see me in this role as any other principal, there is going to be an equal number who are going to see me as the black principal. And for them there is going to be an opportunity to be the great savour for the young black student here or at any other school and that’s a burden I am not blind to and I understand that. At an event recently, a young mother brought her 4-year old child and she said to me: can I take your picture with him? And I was happy to do that, so this is so you know who that is powerful to me.  I understand that my role as a principal is much more than just being the leader for this building. I do have a role in the community. Whether I want it or not I know that being the black at the school means more to our community than simply being just the principal of the school, also a great honour so I am doubly honoured, and perhaps I would be burdened by that. That’s part of the challenge which I relish and enjoy.

So let’s talk about the curriculum, I know that in the past, there has been some concern that the content has not reflected the multi-ethnic and multicultural experience and mosaic of Canada . How do you see that, do you believe that the current curriculum represents that reality?

Yes and no, it’s mixed. The curriculum gets reviewed every 6-7 years. I was very fortunate to be on a curriculum writing team , I’ve seen how it is created from the very beginning from laying the first word on a page to implementing it. We started that writing process in 2008-9. Often times critics say it ‘s nothing more than words on a page. Explicitly the ministry said that in fact I would say that every person go on line at www.edu.gov.on.ca, and take a look at every document there. The first part of the document has a statement that talks about some of the things that the ministry expects classroom teachers to do. This goes from English documents to Math, it talks about language learners, talks about students with learning disabilities, and also about making sure that we are achieving the equitable education lens. Depends on which version of the document, new or older, it talks about exposing kids to different points of view, from different parts of the world, that equity inclusive lens is in-built into every single curriculum document. We have the equity strategy that the province wants four years ago now. We also have the First Nations strategy, Metis, Inuit strategy as well. So it’s all there. But the words on the page are only half the story, we really want to make sure that the curriculum really  comes out to the classroom teacher. It’s how they bring these documents to life, how they interpret what’s being asked of them so to make sure that we have those inclusive lenses that are in place in schools.We need to make sure that teachers are well equipped and have the training and the resources that is required. I think it is fair and easy to say no teacher has enough resources in any avenue of their work. Those resources are part of the story and also part of the training that we provide. My role is equity inclusive and I know that role is continued by others. Part of that is making sure staff has access to that training. And also the support, are they being supported by their principal. Consider that algebra for instance is actually a name of a Muslim man Al Gebra, so we bring that into the space the same way that we bring what I talk about the fact that we bring that of a Greek mathematician. Pythagoras. Why this is important, that we use Arabic numbers system, do we have these conversations? But it is work that needs to be done and is being done. The work is happening and many teachers are engaged right now and one of the things we are doing is though cultural sensitivity training going forward.

So let’s skip to the performance of black students. Some years ago the Toronto School Board did a study which found that black students were many times more likely to drop out of school than the rest of the school population. I want to know your views about that and do you see the same phenomenon repeated here in Ottawa?

We are just now getting that data, certainly if we look at this aggregate data, how black students are doing, how Asian students are doing, how students identified as LGBT are doing. We’re trying to figure out how, currently, this district does not have that data but we are getting there. From a few years back, we did a student census, we have that info, it’s coming. Speaking of the Toronto data, I think this is a semantic piece, but it’s important. I don’t know that I believe in drop outs I believe in push-out, as a phenomena, by George Day. Schools were initially designed for social reproduction, they were built to aid and assist in the order that existed. If you were born in poverty , the idea is that school will allow you to continue in poverty, that’s the historic nature of schools, I don’t think anybody who looked at the history of education, could reasonably say that schools were designed for anything else other than social reproduction, by fulfilling the needs of an industrial society. We’ve come a long way, The structures that however exist at that time still remain, so the bells that they talked about 100 years ago exist today. Perhaps for a different meaning but they would have the same impact. Extracurricular activities were designed because it would very quickly lose its work , formalise behaviour of new Canadians, by increasing their exposure to that normative aspect of school life. Students who didn’t fit the design of the school system don’t drop out. I don’t know I would ever look at any family or any student and have them say, education is not important.  I’ve had many who say school is not important. Where that disconnect happens is that schools can be more than what we have been. Schools can do more to educate young people in ways that meet their needs better. We’ve always had the phenomenon of push out, because students would get to a certain point and been told you don’t fit, they say, OK I don’t fit, I get it, and they would leave.

That’s different than drop-out?

I believe schools have an active role, whether it is intentional or not, I don’t know of any school where we actively say, I am going to make you Mohammed Ali, drop out of school, But because of the absence of programs that might meet Mohamed’s needs,  there is nothing to engage him in the whole , and so we are moving in that direction. So we have programs in place now, the specialist high schools so students who are at risk of drop-out or push out, because they are not engaging in the traditional method of teacher in the front and students receiving information, if that method doesn’t work for them, maybe they need to have a hands on  point of view, where they need experiential learning. So could I teach a student who says I want to be a carpenter, I could sit in a classroom and talk about carpentry or send that student to a house building project to have that experience. So we are moving in that direction. But I do believe we need to , there is a challenge we need to dismantle over a century of tradition. The reason there is no school in summer time is so students can help with harvesting, when the agrarian society was the norm. We start schools after Labour day as a lot of kids help with farming, we have the March break.They continue to exist. Our research is clear, in many cases, starting school at 8 a.m. is good for the adults, it satisfies our needs. We know teenagers don’t wake up early in the morning, not easily, and yet we have schools that function early morning, If we’re really saying we should we change the structure, to meet the needs of students, yes we could. We could have a late start school, could we have flexible start school? Sure . If a student requires more time than the 5 months per semester, let’s say it takes him 6 months to understand the curriculum in Grade 9 history, geography class, but the semester is only 5 months, so they don’t have all the info, so they fail. They have to re-do it. But it doesn’t change the fact that it requires them 6 months to get the info, so they start from scratch and they never get that 6 months. We need to change that piece. There are also students who can get that info in 3 months and they sit and they become disengaged, and  bored because they are well ahead and learn at a much faster pace than their peers. Could we get a curriculum to get that credit in 3 months instead of 5?  So we are building those systems through our student success programs, through the alternate programs in this and other districts. But it’s really opening up . We have to have student voice. I was in university before Windows 95, so what do I as an adult know about learning in a high tech environment?  So often the people who shape the education system are at least 20 or 30 years removed from having been in high school itself. That not a good business model for any organisation. Student voice is an important piece. We have to have them, young people in a meaningful way saying: school would work better for me if I could and they would tell us what that is. We are hearing those voices so we can eliminate or reduce that drop out approach.  Homework is not nearly as effective as the relationship students have with their teachers in terms of building student achievement. If a student tells me there is too much pressure about work, I have 4 courses, I have to look after my sister and I have a job. If I had said, build me a business model using your place of work, do a cost analysis of whatever it is, we can make a linear system about that, here are your costs, here is your income, where is the intersection point where you make a profit in this business? Cool that’s great sir, I could make that at work, I could ask my manager. Now they are engaged to learn. So you want to be a carpenter, we could design a system that allows you to work at a construction site.  Which we have now done.  And actually get those skills that are engaging you. Maybe you are not initially learning how to do a quadratic equation, making you are use trigonometry to build a house. But it is meaningful work.

What do you think of the Afri-centric school as they have in Toronto? Is that the answer to any of the issues that affect black students in the school environment?

I don’t know yet but looking at the push out phenomena in Toronto Board and other boards, with large black populations it couldn’t hurt having this as an option. We have art schools, for students who have talents in arts, we have schools and programs designed specifically for students with interest in fine woodwork, schools for high performance athletes’ needs, why not a school designed for students with a specific community of blacks to meet their educational needs?. The wonderful thing about the Afri- centric school in Toronto is that it is not exclusive to black students. Any body who is interested in curriculum through the Afri-centric lens has that available to them. And for all I know, students whose ancestry is from Jamaica might benefit from a particular learning style. For all I know, a student who is ancestry is from here in Canada, from First Nations tradition, perhaps that student can also benefit from that . I can’t see any harm in allowing students to have multiple looks at a system. There is nothing inherently god or bad about Euro centric education, or Afro centric education or whatever group. It’s simply an answer to a deeper problem.

But the question is this: you have a model that is “Afro-centric”   Can they take the next step and say let’s have an Asian centric, Chinese centric, Arabic centric school and so on? Where do we stop and what does that do to the school system in terms of the total package? Look at the whole picture of the educational system in Canada

I would say through our public schools we have all those schools already, we have Islamic schools we have Jewish schools

But those are in the private sector.

I would say Afric centricity or Eurocentricity or whatever group is not by definition a standalone piece. It doesn’t have to be delivered in a standalone method. Could be, why can’t I have in my Math class a Euro centric model in September , an Afri centric model in October, an Oceanic centric model in November?

Within the same school system?

Yes, within the same classroom itself

What you seem to be advocating is making it inclusive.

Absolutely, Again I don’t know if it’s working or not , but we know for a fact that we were doing wasn’t working. In the 80’s, the Royal Commission on Learning put out the call for centric or focussed school program as a model that might be beneficial to a community. Why couldn’t  we have that as a standalone model? Stephen Lewis’ words were “ a demonstration school”. Does this work, what does it look like? In the future what would it look like? I don’t think Toronto or any other board would say make it an exclusive club.

What would you say to critics who say that if it’s a demonstration school, why do you want to experiment with us, we are already vulnerable and secondly many people in our community feel that sending their child to this school would stigmatise them and would label them and damage their future because they couldn’t make it in the regular school system , therefore they went to a school that has lower standards.

Again, as an administrator we have one standard, we have a curriculum which dictates that, regardless of the school, the approach might be different. I don’t think anyone can say I have a high performance athlete going to the Olympics, that the standard used to educate that student is different, higher or lower. This is a different method because it has to meet the needs of that specific student. I see the power of diversity. I know in the US they have a system where they bus racialised students to different schools so they create their mixes. From my point of view, it’s a different way of learning. Experiential learning works very well for a young person, that’s he or she is going to learn. We believe it could benefit black students, that s why we have demonstration schools.There is no difference in the standards. They all deliver the same Ontario curriculum as any other.

You’ve lived in Ottawa for a long time what do you see as the biggest challenge facing the black community here?

I am the wrong guy to ask that! From an educational point of view, I don’t know that it’s different than any other community. I often believe that we are our own heroes. That advocacy starts at when we make that phone call in kindergarten or grade one  to the teacher to ask how our child is doing. There is something we are not sure of it and it starts with that. It starts when we say, any time in the community if I hear complaints about education, my partner says put up or shut up. I want to make sure my school my young daughter will go to will be a good school. When my daughter was 2, my partner says to get involved so I joined the school council, three years before she even set foot in that building. Although we moved before she could start, I was actively involved in that community. Because I wanted to shape the school curriculum, the environment for my child and that bit of ownership that we need. Idon’t know that I am qualified to say where the greatest need is for the black community. I would say in education, advocacy is the way to go. Get involved, attend board meetings. Be heard, be an instrument of change. Setting up your expectations of excellence are for your son or daughter. And holding principals, trustees, superintendents, elected officials like me accountable. We have a right to know as taxpayers. And we need to vote according to our impressions, bring up concerns at election time. Our real work is not in characterising the challenges but characterising the solutions.

Finally what message would you give readers of Black Ottawa Scene?

Continue on as readers, hearing and engaging with the people they see on those pages in their profiles in the community  and getting to know them There is really a lot of good stuff that is happening in the community  and a lot of good things are being done by individuals. You need to share that information within our communities but also the broader communities. You should get to know this person, he might be really able to help you, whomever that is. Celebrating Black History Month, we have those conversations.  Black History month is just a spotlight on a very broad and expansive set of contributions that are in the black community throughout the year. At all times be it February or June, the readers would do well to make sure that we are not just finding out what’s going on in our community but also sharing that with other communities.