Ontario Education Minister Tells TDSB to Shelve Guidebook Calling Schools ‘Colonial’ Structures Centred on ‘Whiteness’

A teaching resource for “challenging oppression” in the Toronto District School Board that describes white supremacy as a “structural reality” in classrooms and calls for the “decolonization” of schools has been removed as a teaching resource at the insistence of the education ministry. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) document issued to all teachers across Ontario’s largest school board has been labelled as “divisive” by Education Minister Stephen Lecce. Titled “Facilitating Critical Conversations,” the guidebook says it serves to “empower educators” when discussing “core beliefs” with students such as the importance of white supremacy being “dismantled” in the classroom. Authored by the TDSB’s Equity, Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Department, the document describes schooling in North America as being “inherently designed for the benefit of the dominant culture.” That dominant culture is described as white, middle-upper class, male, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and neuro-typical....