Lilley: Schools Still Teaching Kids That Canada, Being White Are the Real Problems

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Over the last several years, the Ontario government has placed eight different school boards under supervision. Those include the Thames Valley District School Board, Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, Near North District School Board, Peel District School Board and York Catholic District School Board.

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“I will accept that the institution of education is an instrumental tool for maintaining and furthering the ideology of white supremacy,” said a slide presented at an all-staff meeting at an elementary school in York Region last week.

“It is not the responsibility of people with intersecting marginalized identities to prove this.”

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“Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges and a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions,” Ontario’s 2021 official curriculum stated.

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In the past, we’ve had leading math educators at the TDSB link math and objectivity to white supremacy and racism. Phrases such as “standardized testing,” “just stick to math” and “of course math is neutral because 2+2=4” were all described as “covert white supremacy” in a webinar given by Jason To as head of the Ontario Mathematics Co-ordinators Association in 2023.

To is currently the co-ordinator of mathematics and numeracy at TDSB, where he oversees “strategic direction in mathematics improvement from kindergarten to Grade 12.”

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