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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Random Thoughts on the FSA, choice schools, racism and preserving languages

Been busy lately, it's the end of the semester and I've been wrapping up my classes and trying to get everything finished in time for next week, so my apologies for not writing in a while. I am also writing this on my iPhone so I can't wait to see if autocorrect is going to mess around with me.
Just some random thoughts I hope to expand upon at a later time:
1) I would like to write about the FSAs here in BC but will wait until after this current round of "let's bash each other because of them" is over. I see value in them as an assessment tool but object to how they are currently used. I also dislike the fundamental bias of the test. It doesn't allow for the difference in culture and lived experience of Aboriginal students, and, as such, sets them up for failure before they even sit down to write it. Yes, I am affiliated with the BCTF and that ensures whatever I write will be questioned and/ or declared propaganda (I've enjoyed hearing and seeing all the comments surrounding the Principals' recent statements. Discourse, on either side seems in short supply).
2) I want to thank Mr. Chris Wejr and Ms. Janet Steffenhagen for sharing my recent post about the Vancouver proposal regarding an Aboriginal choice school. I cannot link to any of them, I am away from my computer again, please accept my apologies on that score, I will try to correct that oversight later. I am hoping someone will be attending the forums on the 24th and 25th of January to hear the discussion surrounding the proposal, and would perhaps be willing to share their thoughts with me? I live too far out of town and have parent meetings scheduled so am unable to. I hope to get into the city at some point.
3) On the note regarding choice schools, I received my first racist comments on my blog. In my blog, I need remind you, I was not advocating a segregated school but a school of choice open to everybody. There was no intent at segregating or developing a separate school system, as was made clear in the post. Racism in response is unnecessary. I am planning to write a post on that very topic and the response to racism (my request for assistance on how to respond went unanswered). I suspect that few who viewed the comment viewed it as anything but ignorance or snarkiness. It is the target, however who deserves the final say, and I felt hurt by it. I left it up for awhile but will be removing it.
4) Finally, I will be writing later on a presentation I saw yesterday about the ongoing language program being developed to preserve the Halq'meylem language. I've already spoken about the language app, but the rest of the program is also really exciting and includes books, computer games, education wikis and all sorts of add-ons. My Halq'meylem language is in danger of extinction, and as a spoken language there is a lot to fear, but I am thrilled to see preservation efforts are ongoing. More on that at another time.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

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