Schools as the Centers of our Communities

Our kids are now 5 and 7 years old, and given that kids start school at age 4 in Ontario have been in the system now for a few years. Here in a Ontario we have a very different system from where I grew up - small town Nova Scotia. I am (very proudly) from a small town of 5000 to 6000 people, and we had 3 schools in town : Elementary, Middle, and High. There was no choice - you went to each one in turn when you were the appropriate age. Everyone knew all the other kids their age, and at the end of it all our grad class was about 70 students.

It is quite different here in Ontario, and honestly, I like it better when there was no choice. It bothers me when I see people here so (overly) concerned about which school is the "best", and trying to get their kids into it. In my former work place I used to see it quite often - it was almost a frenzy. People checking out school ratings and going through some truly heroic scheduling-acrobatics to get their kids into the "right" school. I see it as one of those circumstances where more choice is not necessarily a good thing.

We've been getting more involved in our kids' school - well, me especially when I was unemployed because my wife was always pretty involved - and I've really been developing more of a sense of community as a result. It is honestly quite frightening being a small-town boy raising young kids in a relatively big city. When I was their age I was wandering all over the neighbourhood on my own, going into the woods and playing and so forth, but here in Ottawa we have not even allowed our kids to venture on their own to the park at the end of the street, and that really makes me sad.

Part of the reason is that we don't know our neighbours as well as we'd like to. And sure, part of the reason for that is entirely our own fault because we have not been making the effort. But part of the reason is the crazy "grass is always greener on the other side" school system here in Ontario. First of all there are 4 school boards! English Public, English Catholic, French Public and French Catholic. Yikes! Add to that the notion of "cachement areas", and we had a choice of about 10 different elementary schools to send our kids to! Wow!

Right across our back fence is a South American family with several kids - the youngest of which is only a few months different in age from my oldest. I've often lamented how little we know those people. Sure, largely our fault, but I also think that back in Nova Scotia it was largely the kids who bound the communities together - it just happened automatically by nature of them being kids. Everyone went to the same school, and knew each other from there, and played together after school. You cannot believe how happy I was a few weeks ago when my boys were out in the back yard playing and finally coaxed the young lad across the fence to hop the fence and come play with them! My boys don't know him from school because they go to Public School, and he goes to Catholic School. After playing in our yard for a while they all jumped the fence into his yard and their mom invited them inside to play for a while. Finally!

And right next to us on one side is another young family with 2 kids each about a year younger than our 2. We still don't know them very well either, though again I was very pleased when the day after our boys jumped the back fence, they heard the kids next door playing and emboldened with their new-found liberty bolted out of our yard to go play with them. I came running behind them to find them all in the driveway playing a ball game with the father next door. Sure, I knew his name and we chat from time-to-time, but sadly, this was the first time our kids had played together. I think his kids go to one of the French schools because his wife is French.

One of the big reasons we bought our house where we did was because there was a school right around the corner, and so naturally that is where we sent them. Even though I was raised Catholic I am philosophically opposed to the notion of having religious schools of any sort - especially ones that are funded with taxpayer dollars as the Catholic schools are in Ontario! And we certainly could have done all the research to determine which local Public Elementary school had all the highest ratings, but honestly we just didn't care. There is a fairly modern and extremely well maintained Public Elementary school less than 2 short blocks away - why the heck wouldn't we send our kids there? I do know that it does not rate well in the ratings, but I also know from first hand experience in the school that there are some factors that these rating systems cannot take into account. The biggest reason for our school is simply that this is an "inner city" school with an extremely high new immigrant population. New immigrants have all sorts of language and cultural adjustment problems which indirectly yet very clearly skew those ratings. The teaching staff is actually incredibly fantastic and second to none, and the number of programs in the school is mind-boggling, especially programs geared toward community-building. White kids like ours are minorities in the school, and I would not have it any other way because our boys are learning a huge amount about diversity and mulitculturalism. We've used the boys' questions about different aspects of their classmates as home-schooling opportunities to teach them about the world around them, and all its diverse peoples.

Now that I am getting more-and-more involved in the school, I really am developing more of sense of community. Sadly, some of my kids' friends live fairly far away because of the cachement system, but luckily many of them live within a few block of our house. Just on the weekend we invited the family of one of my youngest sons' friends to the BBQ we had. Next time around we'll invite the family of one of my oldest sons' friends, too.

I should mention too that while I am saddened early in the morning when I see all the kids waiting for their busses when there is a perfectly good school just around the corner, and while I honestly don't agree with having religious schools, I do understand why someone would want to send their child to an alternate-language school here in the Nation's Capital. Sadly, our policy of official bilingualism is so messed up that some of the best jobs later in life are only available to those who speak both "official" languages. And while the idealist in me sees the school we are currently in as really the ultimate in cosmopolitan, multicultural experiences for our kids, the pragmatist in me also sees how easy it could be to decide to send our kids (on the bus) to French immersion. It wasn't really a tough decision for us for various reasons, but I can see where under slightly different circumstances it may have been. For one, my wife and I both have a natural talent for learning foreign languages, and we are hoping that is in the genes. My wife was able to graduate from (a small-town Nova Scotia) high school fairly fluent in French, and the French program in English schools in Ontario is so much better today than programs were back then. And I think we'll also openly admit that our decision was somewhat completely selfish too - it just made life so much easier for us sending the kids to the school around the corner. But honestly, in today's hectic world, there is nothing at all wrong with simplifying your life a bit.

I really do think that schools are the center of a community. Kids are just so much more open and honest than adults, and they just naturally weave a community together if left to their own devices. But they have to be given the chance to do so, and I think the system here in Ontario really keeps them from doing that. I honestly think we need less choice in our schools, not more. And that our communities will be stronger for it in the end.

And for those who think I'm robbing my kids of some grass-is-greener opportunity later in life, I will say only this : my "podunk" little small-town Nova Scotia high school of 200 to 300 students has graduated plenty of heads of industry (Empire Company / Sobeys), Union Leaders, Lawyers, Doctors, Heads of State, prize winning research scientists, and more. The notion that there is greener grass elsewhere just does not wash. I could not have possibly had an all-round better high school experience, and could not possibly be prouder of my school.