‘I didn’t know that what was happening to me was wrong’
Sexual assault survivor says provincial government must keep modern sex-ed curriculum
KITCHENER — Her mother called it a rite of passage that would make her a better wife some day. It wasn’t until years later that Amy would discover she was actually being sexually abused.
The abuse by her mother and her mother’s partner began in kindergarten, and to hide her from the truth about the mistreatment, they had her pulled from sexual education and health classes throughout elementary school.
Amy sat in the hall while her peers were in health class, but no one ever asked why she wasn’t included. The extent of her health education was receiving a copy of Canada’s food guide every year.
Now, Amy — who has lived in Waterloo Region for the last 10 years and whose real name has been changed — is speaking out about the importance of a modern, robust sex-ed curriculum in Ontario classrooms.
“I didn’t know that what was happening to me was wrong,” she said. “I didn’t have language to talk about (the abuse) and I felt like everyone else was experiencing it, so I didn’t have to talk about it.”
She was eventually kicked out and ended up in a foster home. Now, more than a decade later, she is still on medication to deal with the years of mental and physical trauma.
“The information is important, and it’s important it’s contextualized to the age, which I know it was with the (new) curriculum,” she said. Even though she was pulled from class — a right parents have to this day — the modern curriculum gives teachers and peers better tools to identify issues such as abuse, she said, and could help future students.
Last week, Education Minister Lisa Thompson announced the sex-ed component of the school curriculum would be “reverted back to the manner in which it was prior to the changes that were introduced by the Liberal government.”
Those changes, rolled out in 2015 by former premier Kathleen Wynne, were praised for modern- izing the curriculum by including topics such as online dating and social media, cyberbullying, cellphone usage and “sexting,” consent, and the recognition of the LGBTQ community and same-sex marriage.
The previous curriculum, developed in 1998, was in place until 2014.
Thompson walked back some of her earlier statements this week, saying that while the 2015 curriculum would still be scrapped, portions of it not included in the 1998 curriculum — including consent, gender, samesex relationships, gender identity and cyber safety — would still be taught.
On Tuesday, Premier Doug
Ford emphasized his government’s decision to rollback the curriculum, telling reporters the 1998-2014 syllabus will be “temporarily” taught, but that there’s “flexibility” within that curriculum. He also said again that there wasn’t enough consultation with parents by the previous government.
The Liberals say it was the most consulted curriculum ever implemented, including 2,700 teachers, 4,000 parents and 700 students.
Amy said it’s “an enormously irresponsible decision to rollback the sex-ed curriculum to something that’s 20 years old,” and the decision seems politically motivated rather than what’s best for students.
The situation has angered both sides in the debate.
A Change.org petition with more than 19,000 signatures is urging the PC government to reverse its decision to scrap the new curriculum.
The socially conservative group Parents As First Educators released a statement Tuesday criticizing the education minister’s comments during Question Period when she said the government understands kids need to know about more modern topics such as gender identity, which the parent group refers to as “gender theory” and considers a form of indoctrination.
The PC government did not respond to requests for comment by the Record.
When Amy was in her early teens, she started talking to friends about what she was experiencing at home and began doing research about sexual abuse on the internet. When she finally realized exactly what was going on, her mother kicked her out.
“I started fighting back,” Amy said. She left her small town and went to live with her father and his partner. But her trauma made it difficult to adjust and she was soon sent to live in a foster home.
It was while she was living with her new family that she finally started getting some of the support she needed.
“I was involved in church and the youth group, and that made a big difference for me,” she said.
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder soon after, and is now on anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication.
“It fades, but it doesn’t go away,” she said of her trauma. Her foster parents and the school board decided it would be best to keep her out of sex-ed classes during high school in order to avoid future trauma, and they agreed she would be taught at home, but that never really happened, Amy said.
Her younger sister was also abused and eventually became addicted to opiates and crystal meth, and is now in prison. Amy said the abuse was what turned her sister to drugs.
“She was looking for any way to get out of the house.”
Amy went to counselling to help get over the pain, and “I’ve gotten to a place now that I can go when I need to,” she said.
Her experience also makes her question the exemption process. Each board has its own policies about withdrawing kids from certain classes, but Amy thinks there should be some follow up when parents remove their kids from class.
“They need to have an assessment with a social worker. I don’t think you should just be able to pull their kids out without consequence,” she said.
The Waterloo Region District School Board says exemptions for students from health and physical education is counted by individual schools, not the board. “I can tell you anecdotally that requests are minimal,” said Alana Russell, chief communications officer with the board.
Parents often feel reassured once they meet with school administrators to review the curriculum and learn about its intended purpose and how the information is delivered, Russell said.
Richard Olson, superintendent of learning for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, said he is not aware of any requests for exemption at the Catholic board.
“We have a responsibility to teach the curriculum set out by the Ministry of Education, and we have always done so in a manner that conveys, respects and models our Catholic values to our students,” he said.
TK Pritchard, public education manager with the Sexual Assault Centre of Waterloo Region, said he talks with many survivors who were educated under the old curriculum and didn’t fully understand issues of consent or healthy relationships, which are key topics covered by the 2015 curriculum.
The modern curriculum is much more robust, he said. It’s 240 pages, or roughly six times the length of the 1998 document. The centre provided about 200 sexual education workshops in the region last year, including at many local schools.
“I’m unclear what the changes will be and what folks want taken out,” Pritchard said of the government’s efforts to repeal the sex-ed curriculum. He said the centre will do its best to look at the old curriculum and find some connections with the more modern information.
It’s been 10 years since Amy moved to Waterloo Region to attend college, and she is now married with two children under the age of five.
Starting a family of her own has opened up old wounds, however.
“The trauma I experienced was re-triggered by having children, so my postpartum depression has been extremely bad,” she said.
Her sexual education background was so weak she had to teach herself about her own anatomy in order to communicate effectively with her health-care provider throughout her pregnancy.
Amy says her two kids will have a more robust sexual education than she had, including using proper names for body parts, but she worries about other kids whose parents don’t show as much interest in what their kids are learning, or who want the updated curriculum scrapped.
“Good parents are going to educate their kids, but the problem isn’t with the good parents who want to be involved, the problem is with the kids whose parents don’t want that education and want to keep their kids in the dark.”