In the wake of considerable pushback about their harmful Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training in the past year, the Toronto District School Board has doubled down with a teaching manifesto to help its educators adopt anti-oppressive practices in their classrooms.
The 37-page manifesto, called Facilitating Critical Conversations, was released Wednesday to help teachers better discuss the ways “injustice affects our lives, explore the relationships between identity and power” and identify structures that “privilege some (is that even a proper phrase?) at the expense of others.”
Straight out of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) playbook, the manual was developed by four visible minority anti-racism and anti-oppression educators with the TDSB.
Three of the four proudly list hip hop music as a pedagogy they use in their curriculum.
Two of the four, Ramon San Vincente and Jay Williams, have blocked me on X (formerly Twitter), likely because of my stories about disgraced DEI trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson.
San Vincente, a principal in Etobicoke, came under fire last October following the atrocities of Oct. 7 for this anti-Israel post:
While the board in years gone by denied its association with the racist tenets of CRT and its use in the classroom, this manifesto makes it quite clear that CRT dogma is not only valued but expected to be taught.
CRT essentially operates from the premise that whites are oppressors and blacks the oppressed, leaving no room for self-determination or the idea that one can work to rise beyond one’s circumstances.
It perpetuates victimology and a culture of dependence, in a nutshell.
The new TDSB teaching resource is based on a series of core beliefs.
These include the idea that schooling in North America is designed for the benefit of the “dominant culture (white, middle-upper class, male, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian and able-bodied).
It says the needs of the “dominant culture” determine the “norm” in education.
I have to stop right here for a moment.
If the needs are to achieve, what exactly is wrong with that?
The ridiculous manual also claims that education is a “colonial structure” that must be “actively decolonized” because it centres “whiteness and eurocentricity.”
But the best core belief is the one about “white supremacy.” The manifesto claims it is a “structural reality” that impacts all students and must be dismantled in classrooms.
This is the same nonsense peddled by race hustler Ojo-Thompson in the very training sessions in early 2021 where she aggressively attacked beloved educator and principal Richard Bilkszto.
The treatment he received at those sessions, followed by a series of acts to cancel him by the anti-racism-obsessed educrats at the TDSB, ultimately led to his tragic suicide last July, his lawyer says.
Toronto school board education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins has yet to report on a review she initiated following his tragic suicide – perhaps because she hopes that everyone will forget and it will simply go away.
Frankly, if I were her, I wouldn’t be putting out racist, anti-white training materials such as this manifesto. It merely reminds everyone of how DEI destroyed Bilkszto’s life.
Several pages in this manifesto provide educators with tips on how to engage in those critical conversations about identity, power and oppression.
One suggestion is to enter the learning with “humility and vulnerability” and recognize the privileges teachers might have compared to their students, together with their biases.
The document also asks teachers to consider whether the learning climate in their classroom is “respectful” and “safe for students” – completely ironic considering the chaos and violence in many TDSB classrooms.
When a teacher gets prepared to engage in critical conversation, the manifesto recommends they connect to present-day contexts in ways that directly name “systems of oppression” – white supremacy, settler colonialism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.”
They should also take into consideration “learning styles and cultural backgrounds” of their students (this is in bold).
The final 13 pages of the manifesto provide a glossary of oppression terminology (as if the terms haven’t already been rammed down students’ throats) and references.
But wait – this is only Part 1. There’s a Part 2 coming.
If I were these educrats, I’d quit now before they appear complete fools.
The manifesto is racist, divisive and I’m willing to bet something most educators will ignore.
It is yet another document and yet more proof of the lengths the TDSB will go to dumb down the curriculum and substitute feelings (social-emotional learning) for achievement.
I’m quite frankly tired, and I believe most of the non-woke are too, of these ongoing attempts by those in the race hustler game to make all of us feel guilty for being white, achieving success and not playing the victim.
If Russell-Rawlins and her anti-racism cabal at the board spent less time appeasing those who are convinced they’re hard done by and more time pushing achievement and consequences for violent and intimidating behaviour one might have a school board that operates the way it’s supposed to operate.
These manifestos are simply a distraction and an excuse – a pathetic one at that – not to do the job Toronto’s educrats are supposed to do.
