Dear Editor,
Re: [Encounter educates, The News, Oct. 14]
If only Canadian schools were as fun and safe as Linda Meyer had written in her letter.
While crime in schools is not as frequent as in in the United States where regular mass school shootings occur every two weeks, Canadian schools frequently face lockdowns due to the threat of gun violence, bullying is an ever increasing fear that has lead to deaths and permanent mental as well as physical scars on our children, and government cutbacks in education funding have dramatically reduced sports, chess and other fun activities, especially after school.
Historically, it is only recently that most Canadians became aware of the widespread systematic crimes committed in Canadian schools against Indigenous children, where untold hundreds perished during forced assimilation into a predetermined Canadian identity. It would be great if all this was not true, but that is the reality we must face and confess to our society.
Oh yes, like to remind everyone that in 1991 Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union, not Russia, though many were conditioned to view the USSR as Russia.
The Nazi dictator Putin is trying to establish Russian fascism once again over those 14 independent non-Soviet Republics and the Russian Federation. Education in the post-Soviet period is greatly more vibrant and fun than it ever was under Russian chauvinist rule.
Canada and Ukraine can learn to move forward to improve our schools, but must expose what had hindered the liberation of our school systems!
Lesia Moustakas, Maple Ridge
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• READ MORE: Ukrainian students create resource kit for other newcomers
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