July 17, 2012

Another slide shows the following text, again written in a child’s hand:

“€œI think Mr. James Watsons [sic] shouldn”€™t have won the Nobel Prize because this man was a racist….This man said that black people don”€™t have the intelligences [sic] that white people do but at the end of the day who is are [sic] President? And what colour is he?

Again, Barack Obama isn”€™t “€œare”€ president here in Canada, but I guess in the TDSB’s eyes, he are”€”I mean, is“€”the universal, Nobel Prize-winning President of Black People International Incorporated, so whatever.

Now: James Watson”€”the co-parent of DNA and “€œperhaps the most distinguished living American scientist“€”€””€œhas”€ more “€œintelligences”€ than every teacher working at the Toronto District School Board (possibly combined).

Yet he famously resigned from the lab he”€™d run for 40 years after “€œmaking politically (but not scientifically) incorrect statements about African IQs.”€

Those vastly superior intellects at the TDSB”€”besides accidentally helping to make Watson’s point for him”€”aren”€™t “€œgloomy”€ about Africa at all. Their Africentric lesson plan also features the following “€œmath problem”€:

Imagine you are an expert Kente cloth weaver in Ghana. The people of your village have asked you to make a special cloth to send as a gift to President-Elect Obama for his inauguration….How can you accomplish this important task?

Frankly, if I was an expert Kente cloth weaver in Ghana, I”€™d be thinking, “€œHey, how come Obama’s brother still lives in a hut? Hell, why do I still live in a hut?”€ (Although that presumes I was still equipped with my Western white-girl IQ, right? It’s all so confusing.)

To turn this scenario into a math problem or something like it, teachers instruct children to calculate the cost of making such a gift and to “€œdescribe the length [of the finished cloth] using standard and non-standard tools,”€ such as whatever the hell “€œa Susudua”€ is.

(Just a reminder: An American teacher was forced to resign after assigning math homework with slavery-themed problems. But this is different. Because reasons.)

I suppose we should feel a touch of relief that Toronto’s Africentric math problems aren”€™t phrased in Ebonics.

This flaky curriculum is ostensibly designed to appeal to the city’s “€œat-risk youth,”€ none of whom ever seem to be Jewish or Japanese, but all of whom”€”at least if our newspaper’s depressingly frequent murder reports are to be believed”€”are “€œaspiring rap artists.”€ (Notice that they”€™re never “€œaspiring brain surgeons.”€)

Local liberals decry Toronto’s “€œgun culture,”€ but dozens of dead “€œaspiring rap artists”€ a year? Bug or feature?

If that sounds “€œracist,”€ then I plead guilty, with an explanation. I can”€™t help myself, you see. The Toronto District School Board says so.

Included in their “€œPackage for Educators Grades 7-12″€ is an item called “€œTeaching about Human Rights 9/11 and Beyond,”€ where children are taught that white people can never experience racism. They can only ever be the racists.

It’s right there in black and white.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

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