growing through it.

I’m a teacher. An English teacher. In France. Who also happens to be Canadian. And Tamil. Relevant information fo’ real. Here’s why: I feel like because I’ve lived in Toronto my whole life, a multicultural place where diversity is celebrated, I’ve been living in a bubble not knowing reality. 

I was at the conseil de classe with my 4e, where there are all of the teachers, two delegate parents and two students. They stated that there were racist remarks being said amongst the students, and from the teachers as well. I wanted to speak to the students about it after class. They said one kid, who is half-black, and also mentally challenged (perhaps unknown to the children and interpreted as “dumb” and “shy”), gets racist remarks from his “friends”. Because he always laughs it off (because he’s not capable of responding any other way). The delegates told me that they were shocked by the remarks made by their classmates, but didn’t feel like they could say anything because the boy would laugh it off. I told them that they have to. I told them that if they watch injustice happening and they don’t speak up, then they’re going to be just as worse as the oppressors. They said that they would. 

They broke my heart again, when they told me that one teacher, whom they all dislike, threw THREWWWW a blackboard eraser at the black kid and said it was “to whiten him up a bit”. All the students were shocked and the teacher tried to play it off. Another teacher was accusing the delegate (who happens to be Arab) of stealing a new tennis racket and that he was demanding to see a receipt. This boy started crying, right in front of me. And I told him the miserable truth: that people will categorize him and label him with stereotypes and it’s going to be happening for the rest of his life, which is why he needs to do better and be better at school. 

1. go camping

2. go to a music festival (preferably garorock)

3. go on vacation somewhere hot

4. have more real date nights (not just spending time together, but spending quality time)

5. have a date night at the garonne 

6. go away somewhere for the weekend (ie. bordeaux, prague, amsterdam,  ...) 

7. go to toronto 

8. go to morocco 

9. go to more concerts together

10. go dancing more often