High time for sense to prevail
Professional development days for teachers are supposed to be for learning about new ideas, new methods and new teaching plans.
But under Doug Ford’s government, upcoming days will be used to learn about an old, outdated and discredited sexeducation curriculum. It was developed two decades ago and hasn’t been taught since 2014.
It doesn’t even include teaching materials on important issues such as consent, cyber safety, same-sex families and gender identity.
But that hasn’t stopped Education Minister Lisa Thompson from insisting school boards must be ready to teach it this year.
So, only weeks before school starts, she’s come up with her government’s latest scramble on this file. Now, she says, boards will be given resources to teach the old curriculum at their professional development days this summer.
And what about the boards that don’t have professional development days before school starts? No word on that. And that’s no surprise. This is just one more mess in a long string of messes, as the Ford government tries to keep an election promise to social conservatives that it should never have made.
It’s already resulted in weeks of contradictory messages about what’s in and what’s out of this year’s sex-education curriculum.
One moment, Thompson or Christine Elliott, the deputy premier and health minister, will insist that issues such as consent, cyber safety and gender identity will somehow be included in the old curriculum.
And the next, they’re thrown under the bus when Ford refuses to commit to that, and they have to “clarify” — as in completely walk back — those statements.
It’s no wonder, then, that more than 25 school boards, as well as educators and health organizations, have publicly decried this backward move and begged for clarification on what will be taught in schools. And at least one board has outright refused to teach the old curriculum.
There’s no reason for any of this uproar and confusion. Other than, as NDP Leader Andrea Horwath points out, continuing to pander to the social conservatives within the PC Party who helped Ford win the leadership campaign.
And now Ford risks alienating everyone who supports the existing curriculum.
The protesting boards include the Toronto District School Board, which represents schools in Ford’s own riding, and districts represented by his cabinet members Elliott and Thompson.
The Ford government really should stop scrambling with all these half measures and simply let sense prevail. The wellbeing and safety of children is more important than keeping a misguided and opportunistic political promise.
Sex-education, after all, not only teaches children about their bodies but gives them the tools they need to protect themselves against everything from the potential pitfalls of social media and sexting to bullying and sexual assault.
The curriculum the Progressive Conservatives are bringing back to schools was written before same-sex marriage was legal, and before Google, Facebook and Instagram even existed. That does not speak to the world students live in today and need to learn to navigate.
Ford and his cabinet ministers have been busy moving on all sorts of issues that were never raised during the campaign.
They’re cutting Toronto city council in half, with the election already two months underway, and removing the right of citizens in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka to elect their regional chair. And they’ve chopped a planned welfare increase in half, and disturbingly promised yet more changes on that file.
None of that was mentioned as Ford canvassed the province but, clearly, he is adapting to the new powers of his office. It’s time he adapted on this file.
Instead of dragging this charade out any longer, Ford should reverse his stand on the sex-education curriculum.