Where's the Sense in That?

Are we striving for cohesiveness, for inclusion, for an education system geared to bringing Canadian children from all walks of life and a multitude of ethnicities and traditions together to educate and inspire them to learn, while introducing them to a social atmosphere of acceptance or not?

If not, why not? Is it in the children's best interests that singular groups representing a specific culture or tradition or religion detach themselves from the mainstream and decide on the superior advantage of separation? Or is it in the interests of special-interest groups determined to hold themselves and their children separate and apart?

How does that benefit the children? How is that of any social, educational and practical benefit to the future of a country which has opened its borders to immigrants? The whole situation is absurd. Immigrants wanting to make a new home for themselves should logically accept the reality that they're not cattus-fly larvae, installing themselves in any serendipitously discovered shelter and hauling it about until nature consents that it mature into adulthood.

Respecting one's original culture and the traditions that flowed from it is one thing; expecting to import both culture and tradition into the new surroundings for the purpose of displacing the host's is insulting and unworkable. If finding economic, political and social refuge is the purpose for emigrating from a source country, then be prepared to accept and adapt to the prevailing culture of the new country.

Accepting the new realities of new laws, protections, freedoms and accepted social mores. Usually it takes a generation, even two for the metamorphosis to complete its trajectory from immigrant to citizen-resident, not a necessarily a seamless change, but a necessary one. For the intellectual comfort and social need of succeeding generations. But if those children whose promise is to emerge into full participation with the prevailing culture are side-lined it becomes a formula for future problems.

In a just and fair society where personal freedoms are guaranteed, it is also incumbent on immigrants to find their place in the society, to gradually accommodate themselves to their new geography and their station in it. Successive generations once guaranteed that while the original immigrants might live between two worlds, their progeny would accept the reality of the presence, the only world they know and have adapted to.

So why compound the problem of integration by insisting on separate schools for children? Thus ensuring that there will always remain mysteries and suspicions between ethnic, cultural and religious groups, rather than have all children come together under a common educational system designed to prepare them for a future life of independent success in their country?

We don't need parochial-inspired schools that keep children's minds prisoners to the 'heritage' left behind. We need children whose experience has been universally designed to ensure that they feel comfortable in their society and their country, despite their parents' diverse backgrounds. This is what makes them Canadian. We should also do away with public funding of separate schools of Roman Catholic design.

And we most certainly do not need children of African heritage, children whose forebears were brought to Europe and North America and the Caribbean centuries earlier to celebrate their uniqueness by removing them from the common experience. African-centred schools, the latest invention of psyche-injured rejection of what is perceived to be Euro-centred ubiquity, insulting to the tradition of all those not sharing that heritage seeks to ensure that simmering resentments remain alive.

If the current educational system is seen by informed and neutrally-capable investigators schooled in educational needs for a child population comprised of a multitude of backgrounds to be lacking, then it should be re-designed to better reflect a more balanced approach that is more inclusive and productive. Ultimately expressing Canadian views and needs and values.