Sylvia Mittler, an Associate Professor of French in the Department of Language Studies at UTSC, discusses changes in the makeup of the UTSC student body over time, highlighting in particular the ethnic diversification of classrooms, which, for her, has allowed for an enriched teaching experience.
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0:00
Wow, we’ve changed with Canada, in a nutshell, okay? We’re a microcosm. So, I love it.
0:10
Already when I was teaching Italian and I remember I was doing conversation, it was far more kids of European background. We had a number of Greeks, we had a number of Italian background students.
0:24
We were beginning with some students with backgrounds from India and backgrounds from Pakistan.
0:34
You would not see different dress. You certainly didn’t see hijabs, and you never saw a niqab, never.
0:46
I’d say the mid 80s, it was starting to change. Ethnically, it was starting to change.
0:54
Life was progressing and the world was changing, period.
1:00
The ethnic background change was heartening to see. And I remember already by 2000 and certainly already in the 90s, I was doing classes where I would find people from 20 countries.
1:19
It was fabulous. You’d have 30 people in a class and you could count, I remember doing it, 20 countries. Man, was that nice!
