From Samuel Tecle, the takeaway is that community can be dominated by simple narratives and perceptions that can leak into those who live in the community. It impacts the conceptions, biases and prejudice of teachers who work with students coming from the Jane and Finch area, showing a deficit model of teaching. It was also interesting and upsetting at the tokenistic support for Sam’s poem on Jane and Finch. The rhetoric that he was successful because he left was frustrating due to the implied nature that he would not have succeeded if he had stayed in his home community.

The last takeaway is that lives in schools are products of interaction and influence between parents, teachers, peers, and significant others. We need to do better to not neglect areas like Jane and Finch under the guise of Eurocentric ways of being and ways of achievement. Schooling in these neighborhoods should not be based around “getting out”. As educators, we need to focus on collaboration and partnership between teachers, administration, students, parents, and the community to create reflective solutions for ALL communities.