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The Current Transcript for April 3, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

If you close the only school in a community, and I have kids and I'm looking at the community I might not move there anymore. It effects businesses, in the neighbourhood and the community... the vitality, I guess, of a small town.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: So is a town still a town when its only school is forced to close? Across Canada countless rural and small town schools face survival issues. In Ontario alone hundreds of schools are being re-assessed. And what happens when in one small town the major employer offers to pay to save the community's only school? The Current's John Chipman looks at access to education through the story of one small town, in an hour. And speaking of learning, we know that a traumatic incident can lead to a diagnosis of PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But sometimes it can also lead to growth.

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Post traumatic growth holds a very important idea: We don't bounce back from challenges, we bounce forward.

AMT: So why can some people who experience trauma be transformed in a positive way? We're exploring the research on that in half an hour. And let's just stay with how our minds work and our brains function, shall we? Because when it comes to our brains, Elon Musk wants to plant a micro-chip, in yours.

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Recently Elon Musk has announced a new business venture called Neuralink. So what exactly is Neuralink? Well, your dreams have just become a reality.

AMT: We're starting with the idea of Implanting artificial intelligence, and no, that is not the same as planting fake news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

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Elon Musk wants to merge human brain with artificial intelligence

Guests: George Dvorsky, Miguel Nicolelis, James Giordano

SOUNDCLIP

ELON MUSK: If you assume any rate of advancement in AI, we will be left behind by a lot.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That is Elon Musk, the inventor and entrepreneur behind such futuristic endeavors as Tesla, SpaceX, and Hyperloop. And as you heard, Elon Musk has AI, Artificial intelligence, on his mind these days. He says AI machines could soon outsmart us all. And his philosophy is if we can't beat them we should join them by implanting AI computers directly into our brains.

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ELON MUSK: One of the solutions is to have an AI layer. If you think of like, you’ve got your limbic system, your cortex and then digital layer, a sort of a third layer above the cortex that could work well and symbiotically with you.

AMT: Of course, turning humans into cyborgs may sound like the stuff of science fiction but then again, that is Elon Musk's forte. So would he develop this kind of technology himself?

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ELON MUSK: Somebody’s got to do it.

CROWD: [laughing and applauding]

ELON MUSK: I'm not saying that I will but somebody’s got to do it. I mean, somebody should do it. I mean, if somebody doesn't do then I think I should probably do it.

AMT: Well it appears he has. Later this week, Elon Musk will be letting the world in on his latest venture. We do know that it's called Neuralink. And for more, we are joined by science journalist and futurist George Dvorsky, who has been covering this for Gizmodo. George Dvorsky is in Oakville, Ontario. Hello.

GEORGE DVORSKY: Hello, thanks for having me this morning.

AMT: So what are you expecting Elon Musk to announce later this week?

GEORGE DVORSKY: Well I certainly expect some more details. Right now, the so-called Neuralink is quite vague in terms of what this is supposed to look like, what it’s even supposed to do, aside of course from some of the comments that Musk has made in recent months. Specifically though what I am expecting to hear though will be, I guess, the initial approach towards achieving this, you know, chips that will be implanted in our brain and what we hope to accomplish with them. Initially it's quite conceivable that Neuralink will be working not to enhance or to even, you know, add AI to our brains initially but to actually become therapeutic. These same technologies can be used to treat, say, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or even seizures for example. And I think that's a good pathway into this particular area. But knowing Musk of course and knowing the kinds of visions that he has, he’s not going to be content to stop there. And with the same sorts of technologies, you can now start to perhaps modify other aspects of cognition, things like memory and intelligence, even for example transmitting thoughts to and from a computer just with, you know, with just thinking about it, you could transmit your, you know, your memories and your thoughts to a computer. It's difficult to say if Musk will get to that level of specificity in his comments later this week, but that's certainly what I would be looking out for this week.

AMT: Well George, his venture is to develop something called neuro lace. Can you help us picture what that is?

GEORGE DVORSKY: Because he used the word lace there, I'm imagining that it is going to be a kind of mesh that will be overlaid over certain parts of the brain. As we know, the brain isn't just a big piece of mush that does everything and anything everywhere. Our brains are broken down into different modules. So for example, if you put this mesh area around the motor cortex, the area that controls movement, then this lace would pick up those signals. When we say for example, I want to move my finger or I'd like to move my leg, the lace will pick up those signals and it will then transmit those signals, I would hope wirelessly, because no one wants to have wires sticking out of their heads. And we already do have chips in animal models for example, that can transmit wireless signals to a receiving device, namely a computer. Hence which is why we're using the word interface here. So it basically would look like that, a kind of a mesh. If not a mesh, the lace could also conceivably be a literal chip, a literal brain chip that again rests at a specific area of the brain.

AMT: What we're talking about something surgically implanted though eventually.

GEORGE DVORSKY: Absolutely. In order to get the kind of fidelity, the kind of, you know, the power of the signals to move let's say an artificial arm or to even transmit our thoughts, we're gonna have to get right there into the brain. I mean, we do have what are called EEG technologies today, which is like a cap you can wear on your head. But the amount of information that can be extracted just through your electrical signals externally is extremely minimal, very I mean, you might be able to make a gesture like you're thinking of moving to the left or you're thinking of moving to the right. But no no, if you want to get down to the levels that Musk is talking about, we've got to get right into the brain itself.

AMT: Well, you know, we've got somebody waiting in the wings who's already using technology where the brain can control a limb through, or the brain can control movement of a machine. So what would be different with this technology? What would he really want to use it for?

GEORGE DVORSKY: Well I mean, he wants to save the world apparently. And I mean, right now he, as I mentioned earlier, there's going to be a therapeutic aspect to it and that's going to be wonderful. And he has listed this company, it is listed as a medical firm. So they are going to be producing medical devices at first. And of course, this is a multimillion dollar industry, so he knows what he's doing by, you know, becoming one of the first to market here. But as Musk has said, you know, artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly and we're getting to the day, maybe 20 years from now or maybe 50 years from now, but we will get there eventually when artificial intelligence exceeds human capacities in virtually every way. And Musk's solution is an interesting one, he’s not the first to suggest this, other futurists have also suggested this, is that the best way for us to be able to control and contain our artificial intelligence is that if you can't beat them join them mentality. We will merge with our machines. So the idea here that he literally believes that we can kind of save ourselves from perhaps subjugation or some kind of an artificial intelligence disaster by augmenting ourselves along with our artificial intelligence, and that way we can kind of keep up with them should anything go askew in the future.

AMT: Do you see any resistance to this as he goes forward?

GEORGE DVORSKY: Most certainly. I mean, as I'm sure your listeners are aware, that this issue is fraught with ethical difficulties. Everything from how do you find test subjects who are willing to have chips implanted into their brain or these meshes implanted into their brain, what kind of levels of consent can you get? I mean, at this point, are humans being treated as a means to an end in order to let's say stave off the threats posed by artificial intelligence? What kind of animal testing would be required, you know, through these kinds of experiments? And of course, there's a broader more philosophical question as to what this means to our humanity, what does it means to us as humans? You know, for example, these sorts of technologies don't just stand to improve our intelligence to let's say Einsteinian levels, where we are these mathematical logical geniuses. These technologies, they have the potential to utterly transform what we are as humans and enter into the realm of the so-called post-human. In other words, this kind of entity that exists after humans. And at this point, we were talking thousands if not even millions of times, you know, greater levels of capacity than current humans. So we have to ask ourselves right now how will these technologies alter who we are as humans? In what ways could that be of benefit, in what ways could that be detrimental? So it opens up a whole, you know, whole area of discussion for sure.

AMT: Well we'll keep the discussion going. George Dvorsky, thanks for your thoughts.

GEORGE DVORSKY: My pleasure.

AMT: George Dvorsky, science journalist and futurist. He’s in Oakville, Ontario. Brain to machine interaction may be Elon Musk's latest passion project. But my next guest has been doing pioneering work in that field for decades. Miguel Nicolelis is a Professor of Neuroscience at Duke University. He also runs a lab in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And that's where we’ve reached him today. Hello.

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Oh hi. Good morning.

AMT: Good morning. How soon do you think we'll be connecting our brains to computers?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Well, we have been connecting our brains to computers for a while. For, you know, since the late nineties at least. But what I have heard so far, you know, either in the announcement and the commentary that we just heard, it is really far removed from reality and far removed from what we consider, you know, as a scientific field or a brain machine interface is the name of this field. Basically we cannot download our thoughts or upload all the works of Einstein in our brains and suddenly become theoretical physicists that can win a Nobel Prize. This doesn't exist and probably will never exist. Neither should we be worrying about the possibility that artificial intelligence, which is all totally based on digital logic, may one day overcome the human condition. That is also preposterous because we don't work these on digital logic and we simply cannot be threatened by machines that never ever will acquire the notion of what is to generate knowledge or to process information the way we do. So these are all scenarios that sound beyond science fiction. It sounds pretty preposterous to me.

AMT: Tell us what you're doing though, because you're working with monkeys, and they are actually able to move things. What does your work do?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Yeah, we have been working with monkeys and humans for a while now. And we can, exactly, using brain machine interfaces, we can record motor intentions and allow subjects, animals or humans, to control the movements of robotic arms, robotic legs, even virtual bodies through this brain machine interfaces. But we are talking about movements and simple movements. We are not talking about, as I said, downloading our memories, which cannot be done because these memories are embedded in the tissue of the brain, it cannot be extracted by any recording device that we have so far. And I don't believe we ever will have anything that can do that.

AMT: The application of what you're doing is for people with, this would be reparative right? This would be about people who are quadriplegics, paraplegics, who can suddenly move limbs that, am I right?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Yes, exactly, exactly. We have developed, first of all in the nineties, we developed brain machine interfaces to study the brain, to investigate the basic principles of physiological principles of how brains operate. And then we suddenly realize that we could apply this into rehab patients that have suffered devastating lesions of the central nervous system and that's exactly what the field has done. Our lab has shown, first with upper limbs and now with locomotion, that in fact you can use EEG in the case of locomotion, to get paraplegic patients to control exoskeletons and to walk. And this effort, the most important aspect of this effort has been that you can induce partial neurological recovery in these paraplegic patients by letting them use these brain machine interfaces in a routine kind of training. So exactly everything that is working really in this field is geared towards medical applications. And the fact that someone is considering the hypothesis of implanting healthy human beings crosses a variety of ethical boundaries that I think will never be accepted by any board anywhere in the world.

AMT: Well, let me ask you just a few more questions in the limited time we have.

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Sure.

AMT: So the machines you are working with now, brain signals are sent to machines to move them to move the limbs then?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Yes.

AMT: What about the reverse? Can machines feed information directly into our brains?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Well in animals we have shown that you can send signals back from robotic or a virtual arm back to the brain. But this is a very limited kind of information that you can send. We are just learning how that can be done. We also have shown that you can exchange information and you can combine information from multiple brains to achieve a particular task. We call that a brain net. But again, the amount of information, the quality and range that you can send back to the user of a brain machine interface system is very limited and it’s nothing close to uploading a thought, uploading in language or any kind of knowledge. That doesn't exist.

AMT: Are you at all worried though about the unintended consequences of that technology?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Oh I'm very worried. I'm worried about this type of announcements that seem to be just a self-promoting marketing tools and to take as a field that is very serious and he has put a lot of effort to, you know, propose things that are not even science fiction. They're bad. They're really not well thought. And this mesh that Mr. Musk has been talking about has been tried once in a mouse preparation and it is several decades from being used in humans. So it's very concerning, it’s very worrisome.

AMT: But given how much you have advanced with your research, is it totally off the charts to say that the research could get to the point in the future where the kinds of scenarios he's talking about could exist with our brains?

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Well the scenarios are rehabilitation of course they will come and they are already here, and we will see more of it. I have no doubt about it. The field is progressing very nicely and will help millions of people in the future, I have no doubt. Talking about augmentation of healthy human beings, a lot of what I heard both from an announcement and from what the media has talked about is not real, it’s not going to help. Besides the rationale for suggesting the creation of this company is bogus, is baloney. Machines are not going to supplant human beings. This is a kind of hype that has been going on for a few years that looked funny in the beginning but now it is starting to look pretty dangerous, to the point of suggesting experiments in healthy human beings. They are basically unethical.

AMT: Miguel Nicolelis, thanks for your time today.

MIGUEL NICOLELIS: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

AMT: Miguel Nicolelis, Professor of Neuroscience at Duke University. We reached him in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he runs a lab on this very issue. Well, when you start down the path of boosting brain power through artificial intelligence or even just musing about it, you arrive at hefty ethical considerations. James Giordano is a Professor in the department of Neurology and Biochemistry. He's Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Georgetown University Medical Center. He's in Washington DC. Hello.

JAMES GIORDANO: Hi Anna Maria, how are you this morning?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what you're thinking, what are the ethical implications of this technology, first when it comes to safety?

JAMES GIORDANO: Well I think, you know, Mr. Dvorsky has raised an interesting question. Is this safe? And clearly there have been ongoing studies looking at brain machine interfaces and brain implants and it is a neurosurgical procedure. So I think all of the necessary safeguards that go into neurosurgery are necessary. But that brings us to the next point, which is who are we doing this in? Are we doing this for people who have a pathological condition, for example a neurological degenerative disorder or a brain trauma that would necessitate the implant? And the answer there is no. So we have to balance safety with need.

AMT: But how would that be ethically different from other surgery?

JAMES GIORDANO: Well in many ways it isn't. I mean, the idea of neurosurgery carries with it its own ethical burdens of course. All the necessities that would go into any medical consideration. But as Mr. Dvorsky has mentioned, that of course as Professor Nicolelis had mentioned, the intent here is not necessarily at least completely for therapeutic benefit. It's towards some form of competition with AI and or some form of human enablement or enhancement. And then you have to really take a look at is this necessary or not? And I think the jury is still out on that. I tend to side with Professor Nicolelis in saying we really don't see such a threat coming from AI, at least not one that's realistic with regard to being able to threaten or put at risk the human condition.

AMT: If we get to the point where this could actually be something, and I'm saying if because Professor Nicolelis has made the point this may just be fantastical. Who would even have access to technology like this?

JAMES GIORDANO: Well this is a huge question Anna Maria. I mean, the question here is who's going to get it and who isn't? In many ways what you're really seeing is a broadening of the gap between the haves and the have nots, and this would then be the neurologically enhanced haves versus the non-neurologically enhanced have nots. So characteristically, you would then say that those individuals who could afford this type of enablement or enhancement would be the ones to get it. Whereas if you're looking at a therapeutic situation, it would be those that may have the greatest need and of course here too you're looking at a variety of issues, such as insurance capabilities, standards of care, etc.

AMT: You're involved in the adaptation of this technology for the US military. How is it being used?

JAMES GIORDANO: Well, we're really not looking at implantable technologies as being able to create some capability with AI. What we're looking at here is a capability of implantable technology such as deep brain stimulation. And even the type of thing that Mr. Musk is alluding to, where we have an interface between the superficial levels of the brain and a computer interface or a machine interface, mostly to be able to compensate for neurodegenerative diseases, injuries to the brain, etc. Now, that's not to say that this cannot be used to perhaps augment or enable individuals to engage information processing, process information more quickly and more efficiently. But we're really not looking at the implantable technologies to do this as much as the non-invasive brain stimulatory technologies for that very reason. They're non-invasive, they tend to be far safer with regard to the surgical procedures that aren’t needed and also I think we're able to modulate that level of the input in different ways without having to worry about using surgery to get these things in and access to the brain.

AMT: Do you have concerns about how this could be abused?

JAMES GIORDANO: Oh of course. I think as with any type of science and technology, it is highly misusable and in some cases abusable. I mean, obviously we're also dealing with a technology that is very new. And so we're having to open the door questions of the unknown. We don't know what this technology is going to be able to do and in many ways that's part of the reason that we're going forward with this experimentally, because we're not only learning about the technology, we're learning about the brain and then in learning about the brain, we're adapting our methods and technological tools. But I think when it's very early in its development, clearly one of the things we have to look at is do we really understand the consequences of what we're doing? Do we understand that there may be some unanticipated effects? And are we prepared to consent patients to do that? And if we are prepared, do we also have the continuity of care and research in place so as to be able to take care of these individuals if and when something were to go wrong?

AMT: OK well, James Giordano, thank you for your thoughts on all of this today.

JAMES GIORDANO: My pleasure ma’am. Thank you.

AMT: James Giordano is a Professor in the apartment of Neurology and Biochemistry and Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Georgetown University Medical Center. He's in Washington DC. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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PTSD victims of violent crime find positive self-growth facing trauma: study

Guests: Jennifer Barkley, Benjamin Roebuck

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, The Current’s John Chapman takes us to small town Ontario, where dwindling student enrollment is threatening local schools and forcing some tough decisions.

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It really is really sad to have to say this well where we think the best option is to close another school, because at the end of the day, you don't want to see any schools close, you know. You know that it really affects everybody.

AMT: We are heading to Markdale, Ontario in a half an hour. Where Chapman's ice cream, the town's big employer has offered to spend millions to save the local school. But first, growing beyond PTSD.

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The terrible thing about this, when your mind is injured as it gets to be because of the horrific traumas that you go through, there are mornings some mornings I'll wake up and for a few seconds I'm actually back in my office actually hearing the sounds of the fighting going on and then it dissipates. It's real, absolutely completely real. This stuff does not dull. It stays vivid and powerful.

AMT: That is retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, putting into words what it is like to live with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in a conversation with As It Happens. His experience commanding the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda during that country's civil war and genocide in the mid-1990s transformed him. He has been open about his struggles with alcoholism and thoughts of suicide. Romeo Dallaire of course is far from alone in those struggles. Countless soldiers and medics, police and victims of crime live with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. But ongoing research shows PTSD may have the power to transform us for better as well as for worse. Post-traumatic growth is the term used to identify resilience. Some who suffer with PTSD demonstrate and the way in which some people push past trauma and find ways to improve their lives and the lives of others. It's the subject of a study at Algonquin College in partnership with the Victim Justice Network, which is a non-profit organization that works with victims of crime. It's going on at Algonquin College in Ottawa. Jennifer Barkley is helping conduct that research. She's also taken part in the study. And we have reached her in Ottawa. Hello.

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Good morning everyone.

AMT: You took part in this Algonquin study because of the violence you experienced. Your sister was murdered. Can you tell us what happened to her?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: It was roughly 18 years ago. It was in the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. And yes, she was murdered.

AMT: And how did you react?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: You know, for myself immediately following the violence, there was a large sense of fear, a lot of anger and confusion. For me, I was overwhelmed by grief and I was searching to comprehend the incomprehensible.

AMT: And it eventually led to a diagnosis for you of post-traumatic stress disorder.

JENNIFER BARKLEY: No, I'm sorry it did not. I've never been diagnosed with PTSD. For myself, it's been a lifelong struggle trying to understand the trauma and work through the trauma. And of course, there are always flashbacks of the time I was notified and the court hearing and the parole hearings but no, there was never an official diagnosis.

AMT: But how did you deal with the, you talk about the flashbacks and the parole hearings. This was a particularly gruesome murder was it not?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Yes it was. It was quite violent. There was a lot of anger in it.

AMT: And so did you ever receive treatment?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Treatment for myself was my education. So I immediately applied to Carleton University in Ottawa and completed a criminology degree with a minor in forensic psychology. That was my search for answers. And it ended up being my therapy. To be honest, my education was a great deal of my therapy. It led me to then do post graduate studies at Algonquin College in their victimology program, which led me here today.

AMT: So your whole career path and study path was really was prompted by the terrible tragedy?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: It was an immediate and definite response of the violence. Yes.

AMT: And so when you got to Algonquin College to study victimology, tell me more about why that was important to you?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Studying victimology was essential, because the victim service workers that helped myself and my family brought life to me again. They put light back in my world, they gave me strength and they held my hands through some of the initial parole hearings when my strength was depleted. And I knew after those parole hearings, that I needed absolutely needed to help people who suffered similar violence to me the way I had been helped.

AMT: And what was it about the parole hearings? Explain to me how that affected you? These would be the parole hearings obviously for your sister's killer.

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Well, with homicide, much like any violence, it's not over when the violence is over. It is something that's carried with you for your entire life. Now, homicide it's a bit different. It's unique in the fact that you are constantly involved in the criminal justice system. It really is never over for homicide survivors that have offenders in the system. And when I went to the parole hearing, it brought me right back to the initial violence that day in 1999.

AMT: And as you studied and as you talked about this and as you lived your life, were you able to experience post-traumatic growth?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: I believe so. 100 per cent I believe so. When the violence occurred, I have stated that I was angry and I had a very difficult time seeing other people's pain. I felt very alone. I felt I was in it alone, battling it alone, I was the only one this had happened to. And I couldn't see clearly that other people had pain, were in pain, and had experienced similar pain. I would say my growth was getting to a point where I became empathetic with other survivors and victims of violence, I could see their pain, feel their pain, and want to help with their pain. I was no longer selfish about my own pain.

AMT: In other words, you used the pain that you went through in that experience to see how others were suffering and maybe how you could help them?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: I would say so. I mean, pain I think, can serve many purposes. And for me, yeah, my pain in the end helped me see others but mostly I understand others.

AMT: How long did that process take Jennifer?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Oh goodness. I would say, my sister was murdered 18 years ago, and I would say it took about 15 years to reach that point.

AMT: Mm. One of the people who is working on post-traumatic growth and working with you is Benjamin Roebuck. He's a professor and the coordinator of Algonquin College’s graduate victimology program. He is leading the post-traumatic growth study. And he is in Ottawa. Hello Professor Roebuck.

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So you're doing a survey, what's the intent behind it?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Yes, so in partnership with the Victim Justice Network, we're hoping to talk with 300 to 500 survivors of violence living inside Canada and to learn about the resilience and the growth that they can experience following violence. So often and rightly so, research that happens around victimization focuses almost exclusively on the harm and the pain that can come through it. And there's a growing movement in research to try and explore a more three dimensional view, to say when people experience pain, absolutely, that's a valid and common experience to violence. But we're starting to learn more about the growth that can happen at the same time.

AMT: And in the case of Jennifer, she was never diagnosed with PTSD. Are you looking for people who have gone through something traumatic or who have actually been diagnosed with PTSD?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: We're looking for any survivors of violence. We recognize that that is a profound experience, whether there's a diagnosis or not it's a traumatic experience and there's common aftereffects. So whether it's childhood physical or sexual abuse, physical or sexual violence in adulthood, family survivors of homicide, human trafficking, terrorism, there's some commonalities to the experience of violence and trauma, both in terms of harm and growth.

AMT: And what kinds of questions then are you asking in this survey?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Well this is an applied research project, so we're actually trying to get a grounded understanding of what has been helpful and what has been unhelpful on people's own journeys to wellness. And the goal is to improve services and training for victim service providers and to really build resources that are going to support that growth and support the resiliency. So we're asking about personal change, we're including the post-traumatic growth inventory developed by Tedeschi and Calhoun, and we're looking at how people change through traumatic experiences.

AMT: And Tedeschi and Calhoun are the researchers who have done, Richard Tedeschi is the person who coined post-traumatic growth?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Absolutely and it's really remarkable, innovative work.

AMT: So when you're looking for post-traumatic growth, what are you looking for? How do you know?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Well it's interesting, because it arrives in all kinds of different ways. And so if we think about violence and trauma, people are walking through those experiences, but I tend to think of a seed that's buried in the ground. It can take some time before it starts to become visible and the growth becomes apparent. But the types of growth that we see from people, like Jennifer's already described, are this deepened empathy at times for the experiences of others or a greater connectedness. For some people there's a greater awareness of spirituality and for others they move in a different direction. So it's quite an individual journey. But consistently when I speak with survivors of violence all across the country, I hear these remarkable stories about, you know, the harm that they experienced and at the same time that there's some courage and perseverance and remarkable stories of healing and wellness that come in as well.

AMT: So in other words, it sends them on a path they weren't expecting.

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Absolutely. And for some people, it becomes quite an all-consuming path and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's common when we hear about especially profound cases of trauma, that people sometimes lean into that experience and build their life much like you heard Jennifer share, around that experience and that can be a pathway to healing. Other people might completely avoid that experience and say I'm not going to let it be central in my life and that can be a pathway to healing. So there's really different individual journeys that we see.

AMT: How is it characterized? Is it characterized as something positive? And the idea that something positive comes out of something so traumatic, is that a hard one for people to actually work with at times?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: It is and it's a difficult conversation. I mean, I remember speaking with a mother whose daughter had been murdered in the consultation process for this research. And she said she didn't want anyone to tell her that her daughter had to be murdered for her to experience the growth that she had in her life. And so we do have to be careful with how we use the concept. But the reality is if we look at humanity, when we're pressed, when we experience adversity, it tends to bring out the worst and the best in us in so many ways. And so people who experience profound experiences like violence will often reflect a great deal on what they've experienced on how they’ve responded. And that rumination or self-reflection tends to lead to greater awareness.

AMT: And when you are talking to them and you're doing this survey, have you discovered that those doing the survey have already thought about this or does this actually trigger them to think more about that growth?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: That's a great question. I think it's both. You know, when speaking with people who've done the survey and we're also doing 40 to 50 in person or telephone interviews for a more grounded and in-depth reflection, some people have considered a great deal how they've grown, you know, through their adversity and some people are new to that conversation. But as soon as we start to assess, they can recognize yeah actually I have experienced that and I feel stronger as a person. You know, trauma can break us and make us. And so that's really what we're exploring this dual process.

AMT: And Jennifer Barkley, when you took the survey were you surprised at your own answers?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: To a certain degree I was surprised that some of them. Those answers lived inside of me. So it was really a matter of tapping into them Anna Maria.

AMT: And what did you learn Jennifer?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: I learned that victims and survivors have serious strength. Whatever path victims and survivors choose, it just shows the strength and the courage because there is life before the violence and life after the violence. How do you move forward after the violence? And everybody that takes one step after the violence and then the next step and the next step is showing such strength and courage. And that's what I learned about both myself and victims and survivors in general.

AMT: And I'm wondering what you are each hoping to achieve then with this study, with the work you're doing together when it comes to post-traumatic growth?

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: On my end with this study, you know, we're so fortunate to have funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for social innovation. And so we really do want to have some grounded and tangible outcomes from this project. From hearing from people who have experienced violence, what are those things that have helped you to grow? If we can understand more about that, we can actually start to build those things into our systems. What type of message was helpful? What type of service was helpful? And we're working closely as well with the Ontario Office for Victims of Crime and the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime to share the messaging and the lessons from this so that they can enhance services.

AMT: And Jennifer, what are you hoping comes of this?

JENNIFER BARKLEY: I'm really hoping to build bridges that allow people to speak about their experiences. When they’re ready, know that there are people listening, know that there are people who are willing to try to understand and who do understand. I want those bridges built for communication.

AMT: Well, thank you both for talking to me and sharing your ideas. And Jennifer, your story. Thank you.

BENJAMIN ROEBUCK: Thank you Anna Maria.

JENNIFER BARKLEY: Thank you Anna Maria.

AMT: Jennifer Barkley, researcher on the post-traumatic growth study at Algonquin College. Benjamin Roebuck, Professor and coordinator of Algonquin’s graduate victimology program. And the lead researcher on this post-traumatic growth study. We reached them both in Ottawa. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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How a concussion led Carla Ciccone to value life's fragility

Guest: Carla Ciccone

[Music: The Disruptors theme]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well as part of The Current’s season long project The Disruptors, we have been sharing some of your personal stories, moments of disruption, unexpected events that forever changed your life whether good or ill.

[Music]

CARLA CICCONE: My name is Carla Ciccone and I'm a writer. And before I got a concussion in September of 2012, I was a television writer in Toronto working on a show for Country Music Television and just kind of going about my life and enjoying things. And then everything sort of changed for me. I was celebrating a friend's birthday at a very popular Toronto restaurant. We had finished dinner and we were all sort of chatting, waiting for dessert, and it was really really busy and all of a sudden.

[Sound: hard thump]

CARLA CICCONE: Something hit my head and it felt like a brick. It felt like someone threw a brick through the restaurant and that it hit the back of my head. My head kind of went forward and back and there was a guy across the table from me and his eyes just went like super wide because I guess the sound had been so loud and I was in and out of, like, seeing stars actually, like a cartoon character sort of. And by the time I was, like, steady enough to turn around, then I realized that it had been a stack of plates and there was a bus boy standing there and he was apologizing profusely and I could barely see him because my vision was blurry and my head was throbbing but I felt really bad for him because I mean, it was an accident. The very next day I was in so much pain and so disoriented and wobbly and all that stuff and blurred vision and couldn't look at a computer, so couldn't write or do my work. So right away, that takes you out of your normal life. And I was, like, in a totally different state of mind. But it took a while for me to even seek treatment for it because I’d never been hit on the head before, never really experienced anything quite like it. So in the days that followed, I had a terrible headache, couldn't really see straight or walk straight or do anything really. And after seeing a doctor, I was diagnosed with a concussion and my symptoms kind of got worse and worse and developed from concussion symptoms into a clinical depression. So it was quite a difficult time and a number of things in my life changed dramatically. Mostly my brain, [chuckles] my brain being reliable was the number one thing that sort of changed for me.

[Music]

CARLA CICCONE: What you're supposed to do when you get a concussion is just sort of rest and do nothing. Nothing means you don't read, you don't watch TV, you can't really go outside because the sun hurts your eyes. So it's basically like sitting in a dark room doing nothing and you're not supposed to sleep that much because that could be bad for you too. So I mean, I don't know, but I think for a lot of people that might be a recipe for disaster and for me it definitely was. And I woke up one morning with suicidal thoughts that really really frightened me and I ended up going to see my doctor and just kind of breaking down and telling her what was going on.

[Music]

CARLA CICCONE: I'm better now. Mental health is something I actively work on every day. And so, ultimately the whole experience for me turned out to be a bit of a blessing to experience the post-concussion syndrome because it opened me up to learn a lot more about mental health and to keep on top of my own mental health.

[Sound: clicking sound]

CARLA CICCONE: I think looking back at that moment, the experience has really made me aware of how fragile our heads are, our brains are and how fragile our lives are and how important it is to appreciate what you have and to work on and making the best of what you have.

[Music]

CARLA CICCONE: Concussions affect so many people, like, most people have, you know, more sport related incidents happen to them than, you know, getting hit in the head with a plate at a restaurant. But I think that it's wonderful that we're talking about it more and there seems to be more awareness around how tricky it can be to navigate a concussion because they’re different for everybody, they manifest in different ways. And if you are experiencing one, just be very patient with yourself, don't be hard on yourself, it's, you know, it's frustrating and it can take a really long time to heal fully, but it's worth it. And try to seek the help you need, if you're not getting the right answers from your doctors, get second opinions and third opinions and just don’t give up.

[Music]

AMT: Carla Ciccone sharing her moment of disruption. Her story was produced by the The Current’s Kristin Nelson. We want to hear about your moment of disruption, go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent, click on the contact link. While you're there you can listen to more personal moments of disruption, just click on the features on that page. Stay with us, in our next half hour, is a community still a community without a school? The question is all too real for many towns and cities across the country. We're visiting one of them in about 90 seconds. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti this is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent and on your radio app.

[Music: Extro]

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Why Chapman's Ice Cream is desperate to save local school from closure

Guest: John Chipman

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN CHIPMAN: So tell me about your product line.

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: Oh, product lines, yes. We’ve got a whole new line coming out this year that we call the Yukon. So everything's bigger and better. Big cones, big bars, big ice cream sandwiches, big big big big big.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Big big big.

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: Yeah.

AMT: If you're a fan of ice cream, and let's be honest who isn't it? You have probably heard of Chapman's.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN CHIPMAN: Gotta say my kids are pretty excited hearing that I was coming up here.

VOICE 1: Oh yeah, yeah.

JOHN CHIPMAN: [laughs]

AMT: The Current’s John Chipman made a pilgrimage to the Chapman’s ice cream factory, two hours north of Toronto.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: The one my kids loves the most, new cone that’s coated popping candy. They just go nuts over it.

AMT: Not to find out how Chapman's makes its ice cream. This is a story about where Chapman's makes its ice cream. The company is a throwback, family owned and operated, its sprawling plant the cornerstone of tiny Markdale, Ontario, population 1,400. Chapman’s has been in the news for something other than ice cream. Last fall, it offered a multimillion dollar donation to save or replace the one and only elementary school in Markdale, which is slated for closure in June. The offer has raised questions about the influence of private money on public schools and the state of education in rural Ontario. John Chipman is back from Markdale and he joins me in our studio. Hi John.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Hey Anna Maria.

AMT: Well, I want to talk to you about this proposed school closure. But I have to ask because you were in the ice cream plant, did you get to taste any treats?

JOHN CHIPMAN: That's what everyone wants to know. Actually the first thing my kids, producers, everyone here. And sadly, no treats.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: So this is hand sanitizer.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Hand sanitizer.

[Sound: soap dispensing]

JOHN CHIPMAN: Food safety, it's a really big deal for Chapman’s. You should've seen the get up that they put me in. I had to wear the special full head hair net, full length lab coat, the specialized rubber boots that were disinfected coming into the factory and then disinfecting going out. The precautions are meant to guard against food contamination, so there was definitely no finger dipping or eating when here in the plant.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: The reason why we have the boot washers is because the number one killer in the food industry is listeria. And nine times out of ten it comes in through your feet and through soil. So this way we cover ourselves.

JOHN CHIPMAN: The other thing that was hard to miss is how large an operation Chapman's is. It has about 575 employees, which jumps to 650, 700 in the summer. So it really is essential to the local economy. I mean, without Chapman’s it's really hard to see how Markdale could survive. But Ashley Chapman, now he's the son of the, his parents were the ones that started up the company, he’s a vice president now, and he's the one that gave me the tour. He says it goes both ways, that Markdale is essential to Chapman's future as well. And he feels that Beavercrest, which is the elementary school that's slated to close at the end of the school year, he says that's essential to Markdale’s survival.

AMT: And that's why Chapman's wants to save the school?

JOHN CHIPMAN: That's exactly the reason.

AMT: How much did it offer?

JOHN CHIPMAN: So at first the company offered to buy the school outright. They would pay the ongoing maintenance costs and lease it back to the board for a nominal fee. But that was a nonstarter for a bunch of bureaucratic reasons. So then Chapman’s, they offered to donate 2 million dollars toward building a whole new school in Markdale to replace Beavercrest.

AMT: 2 million dollars is a lot of money. Any strings attached in that offer? Do they want ice cream vending machines in the hallways?

JOHN CHIPMAN: No. Ashley Chapman was adamant with that. No ice cream vending machines, they didn't want the new school named Chapman Elementary. He says that the company really just wants to help Markdale keep its school.

AMT: OK, well I was being facetious but.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It is a valid question. Is public education still public if it's funded in part by private money? Ashley’s heard the question from the very beginning.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: There is certainly a lot of talk about us starting a trend of a two tier education system. If we were to, you know, buy a school, run a school, and then we've got schools that are places that are have not places, places that are haves like we would be. But there's quite a few ways around it. Private money is somehow dirty for education, that whole concept is just not true.

AMT: John, what does he mean there are lots of ways to get around it?

JOHN CHIPMAN: So Ashley argues that there's already lots of private money in public education. The Bluewater District School Board, that's the local board, it has charitable status, as do many school boards. Charities and alumni groups, they raise lots of money for schools, so do parents groups. Ashley said that if he'd thought it through beforehand, he would have funneled Chapman’s donation through a local service group or charity, although he's not sure that would have worked simply because of the size of the donation.

AMT: So when charities or parents groups raise money for schools, what's that money used for?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well fundraising is typically used for add ons to students’ education. Not the education itself. Chapman's 2 million dollar donation, that would obviously have gone a lot further than that. Now, Annie Kidder says that's a really important distinction. She's the Executive Director of People for Education, that's a public education advocacy group.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNIE KIDDER: It's a lot different, because even in a school that's doing, and we've been tracking fundraising for years, so there are schools that raise 200,000, 300,000 dollars a year, mostly that goes into hard costs. So the new upgrade your playing fields or your play ground or you buy new books for the library or new computer equipment. And there are problems with fundraising because it definitely creates kind of have and have not schools. But what it doesn't pay for ever, because it's not allowed to pay for, is the ongoing costs of running an education system.

AMT: Hm. You said Chapman's doesn't want its name on the building, it doesn't want its vending machines inside. Is there a business case to be made for such a large donation to save the school?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Ashley thinks so. He says it's about keeping his employees happy. I mean, you know, Markdale’s a small town, there are roughly 50 students at Beavercrest, with a parent or both parents working at Chapman’s. None of those people are happy about the school closing. Now, Ashley also says it's about attracting new employees. I mean, business is booming for Chapman’s. They're in the midst of an expansion, which means the company needs even more workers, preferably close by. And it's a lot harder to convince people to move to Markdale to work at the plant if the only school in town is shuttered.

AMT: And what is the reason the school board wants to close the school?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, it's because there's not enough students in the school. According to the Bluewater District School Board, only 61 per cent of Beavercrest is currently being used by students.

AMT: So what, 40 per cent of the school is empty?

JOHN CHIPMAN: That's right, 40 per cent. Beavercrest has space for 314 students, the board says current enrollment is 195 students and it’s projecting that number to drop even more over the next decade.

AMT: How does that compare to other schools?

JOHN CHIPMAN: It's not great. I mean, the average elementary school in Ontario is running at 86 per cent capacity. so Beavercrest is definitely low but it's not unusual. There are lots of schools across the province that are facing similar problems. According to the Ontario's Ministry of Education, there are roughly 300 schools across the province that are currently under review.

AMT: 300 facing potential closure?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Not all of those. That number would include all schools potentially impacted by a closure. So in Beavercrest’s case, that includes the three nearby schools that would take Beavercrest students, that they'd be included in the 300. But the ministry did say that school boards have already finalized decisions to close 19 schools and more pending like Beavercrest, Bluewater will make its final decision on Beavercrest later this month. And, you know, I think it's safe to say that a significant number of schools in Ontario are facing closure.

AMT: And are they all in rural parts of the province or in small towns?

JOHN CHIPMAN: They're all over the province, including in Toronto. But many are in rural and northern parts of Ontario and small town Ontario where, you know, frankly, the stakes are higher.

AMT: Why is that? Why would you say that?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Because there are fewer education options in rural and northern areas. I mean, I live right in Toronto, downtown, there are public schools everywhere. My son, who's in grade five, he's a five minute walk to his school. Now if his school closed and they're not going to close, but if they did, the next closest school for him is a seven minute walk from our house. And if they close both of those schools, the next closest one is an eight minute walk from his house.

AMT: Mm. So yeah, lots of schools. That may be typical in cities, I guess.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Yeah I think so. Definitely there's more options in urban centres, so closing my son's school, yes it would be disruptive, it would be frustrating but it wouldn't be life altering. There are lots of other elementary schools nearby that he could attend and closing the school definitely wouldn't kill our neighbourhood. But you visit a small town like Markdale and you quickly realize how much is at stake.

AMT: So Beavercrest is the only school in Markdale.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It is and if it closes, all of its students will be bussed to one of three schools outside the community. They are either a ten a 15 a 25 minute drive from Beavercrest, that's one way. And another important point, half of Beavercrest students are already on the bus to get to Beavercrest. So the added travel time will be on top of the time they already spend on the bus. And that's just the impact on students, there's also the impact on the community. Is a town still a town if it doesn't have a school? Annie Kidder from Canadians for Education, says it's a fair question and school boards need to consider it.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNIE KIDDER: It is a problem right now. If you close the only school in the community and I have kids and I'm looking at that community, I may not move there anymore. It affects businesses in the neighbourhood and the community, the vitality I guess of a small town. I think that one of the things that we have to do better at is ensuring that municipality school boards, public health, all have to plan together. These are all assets that affect all of us, families, kids, seniors, and we should do a better job I think of figuring out a way that when we're looking at opening closing schools or community centres or libraries or public health centres, we should look at it all of a piece, so that we're making a kind of long term plan for a community not just, you know, in one silo the education plan, and another one the health plan, and another one the municipal plan. And we still are not doing a very good job in that area.

AMT: It’s a really interesting point huh? That the life of a community is affected by the life of a school.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It really does yeah.

AMT: What about the people elected around Markdale? What about the mayor?

JOHN CHIPMAN: So his name is Paul McQueen and he's the mayor of Grey Highlands municipality, which includes Markdale. And he argues that it's incredibly short sighted to close the school right now. Markdale, the mayor says, is on the edge of a major boom. So first off there's the Chapman’s expansion, which will mean more jobs. The Ministry of Health is building a new hospital in Markdale. And Paul McQueen says there are new business and housing developments right on the horizon.

SOUNDCLIP

PAUL MCQUEEN: We have a new grocery store, we have Chapman’s that is expanding, that is growing. We have two draft approved small subdivisions that are ready to go. The stars are, it’s aligning. And also there's just so many things screaming keep the school open.

JOHN CHIPMAN: There is a lot of development happening in the area. Like just 30 minutes south on the highway from Markdale is the town of Shelburne, which is the second fastest growing community in Canada right now. I have to tell you, I drove through it on my way up, and the growth there really is astounding. There's a subdivision development on the edge of Shelburne that is so large it almost dwarfs the town itself.

AMT: So what's happening there, why is it booming?

JOHN CHIPMAN: It's the Toronto real estate market. I mean, people are moving further and further out looking for affordable housing. And Markdale’s mayor of Paul McQueen, he believes Shelburne’s boom is spreading north up the highway. But losing Beavercrest could jeopardize a lot of that development. One of the subdivisions that they're talking about, it's directly behind the school. And it's going to be a lot harder to attract young families if the school closes.

AMT: Well what does the school board think of those arguments?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, the board's primary focus is on the education system and students. So economic impact, municipal development, it isn't a big consideration. Plus Paul McQueen is talking about Markdale’s potential. It's easy to talk about potential. I think the board is really interested in the situation in Markdale right now.

AMT: Mm. What does Markdale actually look like right now?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, the Chapman’s plant is very impressive to be sure, but Markdale is not booming yet. I mean, it's a small town, one stoplight, takes a couple of minutes tops to drive from end to end. There's a post office, flower shop, couple banks on Main Street, along with a smattering of empty storefronts. Markdale looks like much of rural Ontario, that it's just trying to stay afloat. Which is why keeping the school open is so important to the town.

AMT: And is Beavercrest the only school in that area with low enrollment?

JOHN CHIPMAN: As I said, you know, there are three other elementary schools within 25 minutes of Markdale. They're all under enrolled but not by as much. Only one is in a somewhat similar state as Beavercrest. But the school board says closing Beavercrest and sending its students to the other three schools, it will increase the overall enrollment in the area from 72 per cent capacity to 92 per cent.

AMT: Oh and it argues that’s a significant improvement.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It definitely is. You know, now I should add in one case, adding Beavercrest students would push another school's enrollment to overcapacity. Ashley Chapman's daughter, she actually doesn't go to Beavercrest, she goes to MacPhail Memorial, ten minutes down the highway.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: My wife and I have always believed that being Canadian, you should speak French. My French is terrible [chuckles].

JOHN CHIPMAN: Mine too.

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: But we, from the very beginning, when we were first starting our family, we wanted our kids to be in French immersion. So they're going to MacPhail, which is in Flesherton.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Because there is no French immersion.

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: No French immersion in Markdale. But it is what it is, and it was fine at the time. We didn't think there would be any big deal about it. Yeah. And now my daughter, who's almost five, her education is going to suffer MacPhail because they're packing them in like sardines.

JOHN CHIPMAN: So adding the Beavercrest students to MacPhail will push its enrollment to 103 per cent. They're going to have to add portables to accommodate all those students.

AMT: Still, filling empty class spaces sounds like a reasonable goal.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It does, because maintaining all that empty space costs money, which is the other big issue with Beavercrest. The school is in pretty rough shape. It was built in 1950 and the school board estimates that it needs to spend 2.6 million dollars over the next five years just to keep it going. Now, some of those costs are disputed by the parents as mismanagement.

SOUNDCLIP

If you choose to neglect a building, which our board has, they have neglected Beavercrest for the last decade.

JOHN CHIPMAN: That's Darrin Patey. He and his wife Michelle have an eight-year-old daughter named Rebecca, who is in grade four at Beavercrest. And Darrin and Michelle feel the huge maintenance costs that are now facing the school, they could have been mitigated with a little more forethought earlier on.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHELLE PATEY: They’ve been patching a leaky roof now for ten years.

DARRIN PATEY: Yeah.

MICHELLE PATEY: They've spent more patching the roof than they could have to replace the roof. So instead, they put our kids in mouldy classrooms, our teachers in mouldy classrooms.

DARRIN PATEY: We had an estimate done on the roofer to put a new roof on and it's half a million dollars. And they've spent more than patching it for the last decade.

MICHELLE PATEY: It's really, where are you thinking?

DARRIN PATEY: [crosstalk] The school has been neglected and we're paying for that neglect now.

JOHN CHIPMAN: On the mould issue that Michelle mentioned, I did ask the school board about that, and a spokesperson confirmed via email that there have been problems with the roof leaking at Beavercrest. You know, he said that staff monitor for mould and there are no current issues at the school. And if there was mould in the past, you know, he stressed that the problems have been remedied.

AMT: Still, the problems with the roof and that idea of mould in the classrooms that they have to monitor now sounds like a reasonable concern.

JOHN CHIPMAN: It is. But I should stress, you know, that I didn't find any evidence that anyone at the board was purposely trying to undermine or sabotage Beavercrest. It's one of 41 elementary schools that the board manages, plus there's high schools on top of that. You know, they're trying to maintain a lot of buildings on limited funding.

AMT: Well, and so the couple we just heard.

JOHN CHIPMAN: The Pateys.

AMT: You can hear how frustrated they are now.

JOHN CHIPMAN: They really are frustrated. They're both heavily involved in trying to find alternative solutions, along with Chapman’s and the municipality. One of the ideas that Darrin came up with was, you know, go ahead with the Beavercrest closure but close another school as well. Holland-Chatsworth is also underutilized and it's old. It's about 15 minutes up the highway. His idea was to close the two old schools, combine all their students in one new school.

AMT: And what happened to that idea?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, the school board passed on the idea, at least in a preliminary report. Which is interesting because it's an idea the province has encouraged school boards to consider. I mean, replacing two old schools with one new one, that cuts down on maintenance costs and it solves the excess space problem because a new school can be built to the proper size. But in this case, the million dollar question is where do you build a new school? Do you build it in Markdale or do you build it further north? Close to where Holland-Chatsworth currently is.

AMT: Well I can guess where Darrin and Michelle Patey want it built.

JOHN CHIPMAN: In Markdale of course

AMT: Mm. Which must not sit well with parents from the other school. Is this school closure process pitting schools against schools then, parents against parents?

JOHN CHIPMAN: I mean, that's not the intent but it's definitely the result. I spoke with a parent named Kara Borowski. Her six-year-old daughter Scarlett is in senior kindergarten at Holland-Chatsworth, and her four-year-old daughter Rowan will start there in September.

SOUNDCLIP

I mean it's been yeah, emotionally draining, and I can really only speak for us, I can't speak for everybody but I'm sure Markdale has absolutely felt the effects of, you know, at one of the meetings we talked to the people at Markdale and it’s like, you know, we both said to each other, you know, we're really going to try not to throw each other under the bus here but I mean, at the end of the day they were proposing to close us and we were proposing to go ahead and that's the best option. It really is really sad to have to say to the school board we think the best option is to close another school because at the end of the day you don't want to see any schools closed. You know that it really affects everybody.

AMT: And how do the Patey’s feel about suggesting the closure of another school?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Not great.

SOUNDCLIP

DARRIN PATEY: We don't want any schools to close.

MICHELLE PATEY: No.

DARRIN PATEY: But--

MICHELLE PATEY: We think they're going to be next.

DARRIN PATEY: Trying to play within their bounds, this was the best solution we could come up with. If, you know, if the buildings really are the problem, why not get rid of two?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Now, there is one other wrinkle to consider. Both Ashley Chapman and Darrin Patey suggested that if the province approved a new school to replace one or both of Beavercrest and Holland-Chatsworth, the new school should be a community hub.

AMT: And what would a community hub be? What is that?

JOHN CHIPMAN: So the idea of community hub is to combine in the school multiple services for the community to maximize space and impact. They all have to be aligned with education, that's key.

AMT: So like no private business?

JOHN CHIPMAN: No, you wouldn't you wouldn't put an auto shop in a school. But if a municipality was considering building a public pool, it could coordinate with the school board to build that alongside the local school or combine the public library with the school library which improves library services for students and it cuts down the cost of maintaining both separately. So community hubs, they are also a priority for the Ontario government. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, she's publicly encouraged school boards to work with municipal leaders to come up with community hub proposals.

AMT: So what was proposed in Markdale?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, I'll let Ashley Chapman explain what they came up with.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: We worked with the municipality, who have a hockey arena in Markdale, in a park called King Edward Park. And so our proposal was get rid of the arena, we'll take that building, we’ll repurpose it into a school, build on whatever 10,000 square feet around the school to accommodate classes, turn the arena into a gymnasium, gymnastics club stage, all these things they need. And save a considerable amount of money on the construction of the new school as well as place it in an area which is already quote unquote a community hub. There's the baseball diamond, there's the public library, there's a splash pad that's going in there next year. A few other things. So it could really help build up our community instead of killing it by taking the school.

AMT: He sounds very convincing. It sounds like an interesting idea. What did the school board say?

JOHN CHIPMAN: No.

AMT: Why?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Because the Bluewater School Board, they would still have to apply to the Ministry of Education to build a new school in Markdale. See, the local school boards, they pay to maintain the schools but it's the Ministry of Education that puts down the money to build new ones. And Bluewater already applied for seven million dollars to build a new school in Markdale in 2011 and they were turned down then.

AMT: But that was six years ago, why not apply again?

JOHN CHIPMAN: To be honest, I don't know. I couldn't get anyone from the board to agree to do an interview with me. But in its latest report, it did note that the size of the proposed new school, which would be between 200 and 220 students was a real challenge.

AMT: And why would a smaller school be a challenge?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Because a smaller school costs more to run. There are no economies of scale right? A guidance counselor costs more per student in a smaller school, a music teacher costs more, a librarian costs more. All of the specialized teaching costs more when you have fewer students accessing it.

AMT: But does that mean rural kids have less right to a full education?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, for Ashley Chapman, that is the key issue that this is really all about.

SOUNDCLIP

ASHLEY CHAPMAN: The province is telling the children in rural communities that they are not good enough. Think about that. It's just staggering. We've already set up a two tier system. If you're in an urban centre, you get the exact education you should, as a Canadian, as an Ontarian. If you're in a rural community, sorry about your luck. I guess it's your parents fault for wanting to live in the rural community and instead of an urban centre. It's brutal and it's going to affect all these kids, thousands of kids, an entire generation if not generations of students in rural communities in this province. It’s devastating.

AMT: Mm. John, this is a situation people face in rural communities across the country. What's the answer?

JOHN CHIPMAN: Well, there are really only two options. One is, you know, you close old inefficient schools like Beavercrest and move students into larger schools that are farther apart. They'll probably get access to better educational opportunities but it'll mean longer bus rides and fewer extracurricular activities after school because they'll all be sitting on the bus. So that's the impact on students. And then there's also the impact on small towns like Markdale, that have to try to figure out a way to hold on to their sense of community without a school to build it on.

AMT: Or.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Change the funding formula for rural and northern education. Annie Kidder from Canadians for Education, she says you can't apply the same formula to remote schools and city schools, it just no longer works for both.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNIE KIDDER: We need to do more to recognize that there are small schools and that those kids have a right to a good education. And I think that, and we did a whole report last year called The Geographic Divide, and we were really shocked at how big the gap was between what you can expect in your downtown Toronto school, and what isn't there and hasn't been there for years in a northern or rural school. So when school boards say we have to close a school because we can't provide a viable education for kids, they're right, but it's a funding problem, you know, as much as it's an education problem.

AMT: Well I get what she's saying, but a lot of people might say why should the people in cities have to subsidize education in rural communities?

JOHN CHIPMAN: I asked her that. And have a listen to what she had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNIE KIDDER: [laughs] Well, I think it's a great question but the question is, you know, when did we decide it's too expensive to educate a child? I mean, kids are already looking at you close schools, they're on buses for literally three hours a day, which as adults we don't want to be in our cars three hours a day. So that idea which is totally asked a lot, I think, why should I subsidize this? It's part of why we pay taxes, it's part of I think our expectation of people who live in a pretty fairly well-off province like Ontario or a well-off country like Canada, that we assume that kids, whether they live in, you know, Rainy River or downtown Toronto should get a good education. It's an incredibly important part of who we are that we have, you know, a strong public education system. And in that way, we all subsidize each other. You know, we subsidize roads we don't drive on, or health care we don't use and education whether we have kids in the system or not. And we do it because we're good Canadians, that's why.

JOHN CHIPMAN: And it's also important to note that as the situation in Markdale shows, this doesn't just affect education, it can affect an entire way of life. And Annie Kidder said that not recognizing that, that leaving people to feel like second class citizens because they choose not to live in the city, that can be dangerous.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNIE KIDDER: When you live in a city, it becomes hard to remember, you know, that there really are farmers and there really are miners and there really are people who work in rural areas, there really are people who want to live there and they're a very important part of our life. I don't think it's hyperbole to think about what other divides you end up having. And I think that if you look at what is happening and happened in the United States, part of that divide also is a rural urban divide. And I think in Canada, up to now, there's been a lot of coherence but that means you have to take care of the rural schools.

AMT: Well, she's put that so eloquently, I guess we can leave it there eh John?

JOHN CHIPMAN: I think so.

AMT: OK. Well we'll give Annie Kidder from the Canadians for Education the last word. John Chipman, Thank you.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Thanks a lot Anna Maria.

AMT: John Chipman, a producer with The Current in Toronto. We began that discussion with some tape from a tour of Chapman's ice cream plant and if you'd like to see the photos of John's tour with Ashley Chapman of the plant, along with that outfit John's wearing, visit our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. We'll post them from there. We'd like to hear your thoughts and your stories about school closures and the dilemmas they create in your community. Reach us on Facebook or on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. You can send us an email by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and then just click on the contact link. That is our program for today. Remember, you can always take The Current with you on the CBC Radio app. You can browse through past episodes of our show, start listening in just a few seconds. Use it to listen live to your local CBC station right from your smartphone or tablet, hear are the day's top stories, even make your own playlist of your favourite stuff to listen to later. All free from the App Store or Google Play. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, thank you listening to The Current.

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April 3, 2017 full episode transcript

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