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“This talk of “a subject they love” brings us to the real crisis, which is both economic and cultural (or even moral). The point of work should not be just to provide the material goods we need to survive. Since work typically takes the largest part of our time, it should also be an important part of what gives our life meaning. Our economic system works well for those who find meaning in economic competition and the material rewards it brings. To a lesser but still significant extent, our system provides meaningful work in service professions (like health and social work) for those fulfilled by helping people in great need. But for those with humanistic and artistic life interests, our economic system has almost nothing to offer…

Fair treatment for writers and artists is an even more difficult matter, which will ultimately require a major change in how we think about support for the arts. Fortunately, however, we already have an excellent model, in our support of athletics. Despite our general preference for capitalism, our support for sports is essentially socialist, with local and state governments providing enormous support for professional teams.”

Source.

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A few weeks ago I attended a lecture on the systematic inclusion and exclusion of queer content in American and Canadian school systems.

Below are my notes from the presentation by Elizabeth J. Meyer, interspersed with some links to docs and personal commentary. What are your thoughts on how we can build more inclusive educational environments? When do you think these efforts need to be put into place and why?

Key Issues:

Systematic Inclusion

  • Structural discrimination perpetuated through social discourse and institutions (ex. textbooks with overt homophobic biases)

Systematic Exclusion

  • Issues of representation and visibility (ex. lack of genderqueer pronouns or accessible washrooms)

Consequences

  • Creates and maintains violent and risky environments

No “Pro Homo” Laws

  • No Pro Homo laws are pieces of legislation that explicitly state that any homosexual-related content cannot be included in educational material, unless it is “factual” and presented in a negative light
  • This goes so far as to insist on a counselling referral, suggestion for reparative therapy, and parental notification on behalf of an educator should a student “come out” to them
  • Neutrality laws can also be included in this section, meaning that while some school boards, states or provinces may not have explicitly homophobic legislation, some legislation may encourage silence. (Let’s keep in mind here the wise words of Desmond Tutu, who said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”)

Textbooks

  • California and Texas are the two states requiring the largest number of textbooks, meaning that whichever book(s) these states decide to use in their curriculum are the ones that are then offered to school boards across the United States. The Revisionaries (which I saw at Hot Docs in 2012) is an excellent documentary that sheds light on the issues stemming from this concentrated power:
  • I find it very interesting to take a step back and look at who and what events end up being discussed in schools. The first year human rights class at Carleton requires within the first few weeks a reading of Howard Zinn’s “The Use and Abuse of History,” which talks about how bias is interjected into how history is recorded. I was lucky enough to receive a slightly alternative education at the Island Public Natural Science School, where our grade five social studies curriculum included an introduction to the residential school system in Canada. As a TA for the first year human rights course in the final year of my undergraduate degree, I was shocked at the small number of my students who had even heard of the residential school system before taking that course. There were two out of my fifty students who had heard of the system – one of whom identified as Indigenous and spoke about their personal experiences with the intergenerational effects of this system

Canadian Laws

Bill 13 requires school boards to prevent and address inappropriate and disrespectful behaviour among students in our schools.These behaviours include bullying, discrimination and harassment.The new law makes it clear that these behaviours are unacceptable in our schools. It promotes respect and understanding for all students regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or any other factor.

This reminded me of the fight to establish GSAs within the Toronto Catholic School Board (which is publicly funded!)

  • B.C. TWU vs. SFU (2001) Creating what Meyer called “officially homophobic teachers”

In the absence of “concrete evidence [that] training teachers at TWU fosters discrimination in the public schools of B.C., the freedom of individuals to adhere to certain religious beliefs while at TWU should be respected,” said the Court. “Tolerance of divergent beliefs is a hallmark of a democratic society.

In 1997, James Chamberlain, a primary school teacher in Surrey, British Columbia, sought permission from School District 36 Surrey to use three books in his kindergarten and first grade classes. The books were Asha’s Mums, Belinda’s Bouquet and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads, and each presented families where both parents were of the same sex. Chamberlain asserted that the books were necessary to reflect the realities of today’s families and to teach his pupils about diversity and tolerance. A 4-2 majority of the board voted to deny the requested approval.

Christopher Stephen Myles Kempling (born October 15, 1955) is a Canadian educator and counsellor who was suspended by the British Columbia College of Teachers and disciplined by the Quesnel School District for anti-gay comments that created a discriminatory and harmful environment for his LGBT students. Kempling challenged the suspension in court, arguing that his right to freedom of expression had been violated.

  • B.C. Jubran (2005) Similar to how Jer’s Vision was established in Ottawa

A former North Vancouver high school student who was subjected to homophobic bullying has won his fight against the school district in a case that was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Azmi Jubran, 24, says he was teased and tormented for five years at Handsworth Secondary – and the school district did nothing to stop it.

Is it enough to offer a different course in grade 12, rather than making all courses inclusive or integrating similar concepts into all course material? There are so many concepts lumped under “Social Justice 12,” that one teacher who was in attendance commented that they had to use their own judgment (and therefore, intersperse their own bias into the material), in order to pick and choose which topics would be covered. Teachers also do not receive any training or professional development opportunities in regards to having to teach this relatively new course. In Abbotsford, B.C., the course was not approved by the school board. The irony of this specific situation is that social justice activism eventually achieved the integration of the course into the curriculum.

Improvements

  • Reformations to California’s schools: AB1266 (Gender Identity); Fair Education Act (however, 95% of teachers have never heard of this law, and textbooks won’t be renewed for another three years)

Where Do We Go From Here? 

  • Educate teachers
  • Integrate concepts from Social Justice 12 into the entire curriculum, from pre-school to university
  • Encourage and incorporate more positive role models in educational roles
  • Fulfill quotas of gender variant and sexual minorities within educational roles

When I was in high school, our student body president transitioned from male to female. We had a counsellor from Delisle Youth Services present within the school who appeared (from what I can remember), to aid in any way they could. I do remember, however, observing that pretty much everyone was comfortable with the situation (not that the student body’s comfort should be a priority or focus). I think that experience speaks a lot about the openness of young people to topics, experiences, and identities that the adults, who control the development of school curriculums, could learn a thing or two from.

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A few days ago I attended a lecture about media framing in news reporting at the Vancouver Public Library as part of Media Democracy Day. It was definitely nice to have a refresher on some of the topics we covered in J-School. As the workshop facilitators were individuals from the non-profit/activist media-making community, I quite enjoyed hearing what they had to say as these topics were ones that I struggled to find space to talk about in my undergraduate studies. I think this is because most of my peers and instructors were concerned with the technical aspects of news reporting, and were reluctant to engage in conversations that were critical of that process in an age where the entire industry is being threatened by rapidly developing communication technologies, social media, and citizen journalism.

One of the main topics of the workshop was the use of algorithms and how online media can be contrived to pull in an audience who then have limited access to information according to dominant powers that be. The danger of this business is the control of information. Someone, somewhere, is profiting from not necessarily telling you what to think, but rather from telling you what to think about (even though they are finding you by playing off of your interests/affiliations/passions). For example, if you were to Google the Iraq War, you might read about Saddam Hussein, terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction. You are less likely to find information about Halliburton, George Bush, or how financial corruption fuels warfare.

These subtle linguistic differences change what we are talking about and how we talk about it. It doesn’t take much to see that PM Stephen Harper uses this tactic in his public speaking engagements – getting his message across without really answering the question at hand.

(There is an excellent MacLean’s article that talks about this practice. The key is to drone on except for one sentence, which you will emphasize in both French and English, encouraging journalists to choose that for their sound bite. As a journalist, I will admit that that tends to work).

From a business point of view, this makes sense. But I can’t help but feel weird about it from a… basic human decency point of view. And perhaps this speaks more about the temptation of laziness in news reporting, and the struggle to get things out before other news outlets.

This practice creates a cycle in which news largely perpetuates information and dominant values that we already believe to be true about the world, or are encouraged to take as truth. What does this mean for the future of news? Of advertising? Of our relationships with each other?

(One of the participants who I was sitting with was a self-titled conspiracy theorist who argued that banking families dictate the content of most of Canada’s newspapers. Take that how you will).

In the workshop, we were asked to list how we get our news. It seemed obvious that news gathering is done primarily in areas we already have interest invested in (websites that pertain to our own interests, social media in which we like pages we prefer and are friends with people we choose to be friends with). What does it mean for our understandings of humanity when we only seek out news (whether on purpose or not), that we have some kind of self-interest in? Who is dictating the boundaries of our interests? If most people get their news from social media and their social circles, how do we foster and encourage empathy for those who exist outside these categories?

How do we avoid contributing to this system? As much as I love documentaries, it’s not realistic to expect that to be my constant news source. Social media is deeply integrated in my life, and I do get pleasure from having access to information and sources that reaffirm my core values or speak on topics pertaining to various passions. And of course, from a rational perspective, there does need to be some decision in which articles go on the front page, and which topics are covered at all.

To avoid contributing to the use of algorithms, and thus encouraging more balance in the news you are offered online, someone in the workshop suggested e-mailing links because opening links from inside the body of an e-mail won’t be tracked. You can also use startpage.com, a private search engine, instead of Google.

What are some of your ideas? Is it a personal responsibility to seek out all sides to a story? Can news journalism be relied upon anymore, or was that assumption the problem to begin with?