This morning the announcer on my kitchen radio shared news that a 14-year-old girl had been assaulted and bullied in a local high school... supposedly because of her Ukrainian accent. This school is ten minutes from my home. All three of my kids attended the institution set in a middle-class neighbourhood. I assume that means the residents have some sort of higher learning. How can war refugees be bullied? Where does this sort of attitude come from?
In my novel, Waltraut (Heritage House, 2024), my protagonist also gets bullied and ostracized because of her immigrant background. But that story was set back in the sixties. Has our Canadian education system still not enlightened students about the challenges of immigration? Is our Canadian society still afraid of people who have an accent, or a difficult-to-spell name, or parents who struggle with English? Are we Canadians still afraid of people who are different? Are our children learning intolerance from the adults in their lives?
As I did my daily walk in the woods close to Oak Park High this morning, I pondered the learning that happens in between the classes, between the official curriculum, in between the necessary bureaucracy. What are schools teaching our next generation? How can Canada better embrace its newcomers?
Waltraut reflected my own uncomfortable school experiences. Has nothing changed in fifty years? Shame on us.
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