These incidents happened a long time ago, and I make no special claims for the accuracy of my recollections. They are based on my fallible memory, my inclination to organize memorable incidents into anecdotes, and not on a written record.
The year after Robron Secondary opened, John and I joined the faculty.
It was a brand-new building -- so new, in fact, that there was still some ongoing construction – which housed a newly-assembled student body, staff, and administration. There were still a lot of start-up problems, and before we left, our solicitous colleagues at Carihi had made a point of acquainting us with rumours about all of them.
The school had opened with Grades 8 to 10, added Grade 11 the year we joined, and 12 the year after. With very few exceptions the school drew its student body from Pinecrest and Rockland, the most middle-class parts of Campbell River. Consequently, with the exception of a significant cohort of children of immigrant South Asian parents, the school was very white.
In the years when there was still a forest between Rockland and Pinecrest, before Robron and that part of Campbell River were built up in other words, there had been a number of nasty racist incidents in our Rockland neighbourhood, including at least one pitched battle involving a group of Sikh young men pitted against a group of their Campbell River yahoo contemporaries. Fortunately, if I’m remembering correctly, the police managed to break it up before any serious physical damage was be done. But the tone had been set.
Anyway, that legacy had entered the school’s culture, carried by some of the students, including some of the most senior and the most socially elite.
Racism was more overt in Robron than I had ever experienced it in a school before, and particularly ugly when it involved South Asian girls, who had the double burden of being obviously South Asian and female. So it wasn’t at all surprising when it became the topic of a staff meeting.
I’ve always attributed the plan that emerged to the Vice-Principal/Principal team of David Brown and Kieran O’Neill. It now seems unlikely there wasn’t some kind of class instructional component, it being a school, and all, but what has stuck with me is the part that actually worked. And that was simplicity itself: it required each member of the entire staff to instantly confront any racist act or word with the admonition: “We don’t do that here.”
Lecture, lesson, follow-up not required: just “don’t”.
I initially had my doubts. In my experience, teachers (and I count in my own inclinations here) don’t like confronting students they don’t know well, and don’t like dealing with issues not directly connected to their particular part of the curriculum. Especially social issues like racist beliefs and culture; teachers tend to believe schools have Counsellors and Administrators to tackle those tasks. Furthermore, this initiative required unanimity, which is also really hard to achieve on a very diverse staff.
But it worked, and remarkably soon we (almost) never again had to confront racist sentiments in the halls.
Years later, when Timberline opened, melding the high school components of Robron (closing because of dropping student numbers) and Southgate (becoming a middle school) we experienced a similar issue. For some reason homophobic expressions were very common that first year; you literally couldn’t travel the halls and common areas without hearing someone call someone else a “fag” usually in jest, but frequently to wound or belittle.
That was clearly inappropriate and unacceptable, and the staff agreed to institute a program similar to the one that had been a success at Robron, years earlier.
This time the program initially appeared to be less successful than before, possibly because it was a much larger school, possibly because there were many more common areas and hallways which were hard to monitor, and probably because there was less staff buy-in. But it was successful in the longer run; by the time I retired some seven years later one hardly ever heard homophobic slurs in the hallways.
I’m quite sure no fundamental racist or homophobic beliefs were modified, but they certainly weren’t amplified either, and that’s the point. It is perhaps enough that it became unacceptable to express them at school.
I think that’s probably as much as any school can aspire to.
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