Pubdate: Thu, 22 Sep 2005
Source: NOW Magazine (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 NOW Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nowtoronto.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/282
Author: Bairu Sium
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

WHEN JAIL BEATS SCHOOL

For Jamal, And Many Disadvantaged Black Kids Like Him, Downtown High 
Is The Real Enemy Territory

In the halls of Downtown High, where I teach, I watch daily as urban 
guerrillas carry on the business of life. These are the kids trying 
to survive streamed neighbourhoods and streamed schools, often by 
means of guns and drugs, while school boards and governments look the 
other way.

There's been a lot of discussion lately of the need for black-focused 
schools, and though this wouldn't necessarily be my first choice, I'd 
like to introduce you to the reason it comes up.

Meet 17-year-old Jamal Kendall (not his real name, of course). Cool 
and collected, he acts like a 25-year-old businessman. He doesn't 
look like the average businessman, and his business the selling of 
drugs isn't the conventional kind. It is convenient: he takes his 
work with him to school and at the end of the day brings it back to a 
corner near his home.

He's a member of the growing ranks of urban fighters. Unlike those 
guerrillas who fought for the pride of their nations, they fight for 
individual interests: money, power and respect.

Jamal is a respected leader of his loosely defined gang and enforces 
his rules on his own corner, both in his neighbourhood and at the 
main entrance to the school. His tough demeanour easily discourages 
trespassers. And I suspect he packs a gun when needed. He's created 
his own world, and he is its king.

He was born and is growing up in a housing project. His father's from 
the oldest black community in Canada, the destroyed Africville area 
of Halifax, and his mother's from the Caribbean. Jamal has elaborate 
tactics for avoiding talking about his father, who's been absent from 
his life. His mother sometimes holds two jobs. Her son admires her 
courage, hard work and love for him and his siblings.

However, her work keeps her away from home most of the time. At 12, 
Jamal turned from latchkey kid to a fixture on the drugs- and 
prostitution-infested streets, along with a horde of other neighbourhood kids.

His often empty home propelled him out to where the action was. 
There, he and his friends took abuse from older youths. Older drug 
dealers who watched him complete his transactions from a safe 
distance used him as a mule for very little compensation.

Many times, without knowing it, he found himself in the middle of 
turf wars. As a result, the police took notice of him at an early age.

His school, Downtown High (not its real name), a microcosm of 
Toronto, is potentially a model for how the whole world could live 
together. People from almost every region of every continent are 
represented here.

Students are streamed into the gifted, academic, ESL, applied or 
partial rotary (special ed) track. It's at the discretion of 
administrators and guidance counsellors whether students enter the 
academic (university-bound) or applied stream. At Downtown, all 
guidance counsellors and administrators are white females.

Once students are assigned a level, they may at their own request be 
moved down a stream, but moving up is impossible unless they're 
willing to spend years catching up. There is no second chance for 
late bloomers or those who want to change course.

Jamal is in the applied level, and a good example of what's wrong 
with this system. The course is too easy for him, and he's always 
bored. He completes in-class assignments in a fraction of the time it 
takes most others, and does a good job.

Part of the problem is that streaming is done on the basis of 
achievement rather than potential, which isn't easy to measure. A few 
years ago the principal of Downtown convened a meeting of 
administrators, guidance councillors and teachers to discuss the 
streaming of specific grade 10 students, many of them black. There 
were two racial minority teachers in tha t gathering, myself included.

One teacher suggested that any student who gets less than an average 
mark of 65 per cent be streamed to the applied level. I quickly 
raised the issue that this would mean students who were bright but 
hadn't applied themselves would wrongly end up in a lower level.

My comment was met with silence. Then, as if nothing had been said, 
the criterion the other teacher had proposed was adopted. Of course, 
it's no easy matter to re-jig the entire system.

Sometimes Jamal feels he's in enemy territory. Some of his teachers 
presented the upheavals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda 
and elsewhere in Africa as "tribal" conflicts, while they spoke of 
"ethnic conflicts" in the former Yugoslavia. Jamal asked me what was 
behind this difference in language.

I am Jamal's first black teacher. This doesn't surprise me. Out of 92 
teachers at Downtown, only three are black. If there were 10, perhaps 
five would speak up and make administrators aware that differential 
treatment exists. Don't get me wrong, Jamal likes and respects most 
of his teachers. However, the fact that he doesn't see himself 
represented among the staff can only be puzzling.

The issue that may be closest to Jamal's heart is the wearing of do 
rags and wave caps. They were banned inside the school together with 
baseball caps and other head covers. Jamal asked me to advocate 
against the ban. He felt they had religious/cultural value, like the 
head covers worn by Jews, Zoroastrians, Moslems and Sikhs. In the 
end, I was unable to help him, and they were outlawed, leaving him 
angrier and more defiant than before.

Jamal has been in and out of jail many times. The most serious charge 
so far was armed robbery. After four weeks in jail, he was let out on 
bail. He came back to school clean-cut, beefed up and well exercised. 
"You look good," I commented on his first day back.

"Why not? Three meals a day, good gym facilities I'd go back any 
time," he said. It was a stark reminder that prison meals and 
facilities are superior to those at home.

Jamal once raised the issue of suspensions and expulsions when we 
were discussing police profiling of black men. He wondered why a 
black student who was accused of stealing a bike (nothing was proven) 
got expelled, while a white student who defecated during class to win 
a $50 bet got away with a suspension.

A white student who sprayed staff and students with pepper spray got 
away with a suspension, and no police report or arrest was made. The 
list goes on and on.

This period of Jamal's life is payback time for all the earlier 
abuses, putdowns and letdowns. He holds the neighbourhood, the police 
and the school responsible for his and his mother's sufferings.

Short of a miracle, no amount of intervention will easily turn his 
life around. Bringing in a parade of basketball stars as positive 
role models won't make much difference. Such well-intentioned 
programs won't help Jamal and his mother deal with the root cause of 
their situation: poverty. Neither will breakfast and lunch programs.

Now and then, after a counting of bodies, the media, with their short 
attention span, swoop down on the housing projects with a "Turn your 
back on crime" message. But when all is said and done, the fact is 
there is no substitute for easy drug money.

Let's assume Jamal wants to change his life. Would he be able to get 
the intensive academic tutoring needed to cope with a community 
college or a transitional year at a university? Would he get funding? 
The fact is, as I come to the end of writing this, I learn Jamal has 
dropped out of school.

Kids like him are aware that society sees them as ticking time bombs. 
The sad part is that it may be true.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman