Vinita Srivastava (VS): From The Conversation, this is
Don’t Call Me Resilient. I’m Vinita Srivastava.
Carl James (CJ): So this idea of resilience, we use that and they become trapped in that idea because they can come back. So there is that fear I have about resilience and not enabling the policies and programs we have to make it possible for them to be successful.
VS: In this episode, we’re going to explore the impact of systemic racism within the school system. Even before COVID, education advocates were sounding the alarm about the future of racialized children in our schools. They said unequal education opportunities and deep-seated systemic racism were holding children back. Our guests today are longtime educators who say the pandemic has only deepened the divide. Carl James is a professor of education at York University and a former adviser to the Ontario minister of education, and Kulsoom Anwer is a high school teacher who works out of one of Toronto’s most marginalized neighbourhoods. I spoke to them both at the start of the school year about the injustices within the education system and how we might make small changes that could have a rippling effect in our communities.