Replacing curriculum a delicate operation once again
Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative government has repealed the province’s remarkably controversial sex education curriculum, thus fulfilling a campaign promise. It has temporarily reinstated the previous curriculum, which dates from 1998, pending a rewrite. And on its face this should please the party’s social-conservative supporters, for many of whom this was a key issue.
But the Tories don’t seem overly enthusiastic about the endeavour. In the legislature on Monday, Education Minister Lisa Thompson attempted to reassure opposition New Democrats that all their progressive concerns would be addressed in the new order.
“We are going to stand firmly in support of students and the realities they face in 2018,” she said. “We know they need to learn about consent. We know they need to learn about cyber safety. We know they need to learn about gender identity and appreciation.”
The Ford campaign didn’t promise what would or wouldn’t be taught, but the focus on gender identity was one of the key flashpoints. So, outside the legislature, this caused some consternation. Social conservatives are well accustomed to being abandoned by conservative leaders they’ve just helped elect. They can smell it coming.
By the end of the day, though, Thompson had rowed all the way back to port.
“We have made no decisions on what the new curriculum will look like,” read a statement from her office. “The final decision on the scope of the new curriculum will be based on what we hear from Ontario parents.”
Ford himself, meanwhile, has promised the largest and most comprehensive consultation in Ontario history, averring that the process “won’t be the end of the world” and that “everyone is going to be pleasantly surprised.” It reminds me of Big Three automaker ads from the early 2000s: honestly, folks, this thing we made isn’t as terrible as you think.
The premier is certainly right that the fate of the world does not hang in the balance. Some have predicted terrible outcomes for atrisk kids. But this coming school year would have only been the fourth in 20 years not to use the 1998 curriculum. Society didn’t turn on a dime in 2015, and it won’t turn back come September: a few hours of sex ed just isn’t that powerful a force.
Moreover, while the 1998 document doesn’t mention consent, same-sex marriage, sexting or gender identity specifically, all those concepts could easily fit within its framework, which is much vaguer than the 2015 version. In Grade 2, students are expected to “explain the importance of being able to say no to exploitative behaviours.” In Grade 4, to “identify the characteristics of healthy relationships” and “demonstrate respectful behaviour towards others.” In Grade 5, to “apply strategies … to deal with personal-safety … situations,” and in Grade 7, to understand “refusal skills.”
Ford has insisted teachers will have “flexibility” in teaching the 1998 curriculum.
And there’s little reason to think it’s incompatible with modern life.
Making a new curriculum, though, well, that’s going to be interesting. Some Tories had privately suggested not much of an overhaul would be necessary: bump a few things up a grade, sand down some language, tweak a few things here and there and people would be happy to accept more or less the same thing from a friendlier government. But Ford is already promising to go much bigger, vowing to take consultations to parents in every riding.
That’s naturally going to draw out those most passionate on either side of the issue, and some of the opponents in particular are very passionate indeed.
Some believe we’re on a slippery slope to legalized bestiality.
Some think the curriculum was somehow poisoned by Benjamin Levin, the former deputy education minister who was convicted in 2015 of child pornography charges. (Yes, in a hierarchical sense, he oversaw the curriculum’s production. No, there is no reason to believe he secretly engineered it — in a way undetectable to the human eye — to groom children for pedophiles.) And, of course, some parents will find a reason to object to any sex education curriculum at all, no matter who writes it or promotes it because they simply don’t think it should be taught in schools.
That said, if the Tories are serious about it, it’s conceivable it might actually work. Much of the complaining over the Liberals’ lack of consultation was a pretext for objecting to sex ed itself, but not all of it. Parents may well be more likely to accept a curriculum that makes them somewhat uncomfortable if they feel its designers are at least taking their concerns into account.
The new curriculum is unlikely to please the old one’s most passionate supporters, but early signs are the government isn’t intent on truly radical change.
SOME HAVE PREDICTED TERRIBLE OUTCOMES FOR AT-RISK KIDS