Congratulations to the many parents groups and organizations that have been involved in sharing their concerns about the proposed new sex education curriculum that was yesterday withdrawn by Premier Dalton McGuinty. Parents do have a right to be informed about and to inform the education of their children.
While many are celebrating – and justifiably so – having their voices heard at Queen’s Park, it is important to note that the Premier did not announce a permanent withdrawal of the planned curriculum but the need for a “serious rethink,” noting “We’ll take it off the shelf and bring it back in government.”
Only days earlier, Mr. McGuinty (MPP, Ottawa South) and other members of cabinet had defended the curriculum in the Legislature. Yesterday, he noted the proposed changes were not communicated well to parents. So, this may not be so much surrender to the will of parents but a retreat to reassess how best to communicate the plans that a former education minister, Sandra Pupatello (MPP, Windsor West), defended with these words:
Tell me that you are not in the Dark Ages about what a Grade 1 student is coming home with through the Internet or through the school yard. We want those children taught properly.
The curriculum was released in January, and many parents and parent groups had noted their objection to the Premier and Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky (MPP, Prince Edward – Hastings), who was handed the political hot potato by predecessor Kathleen Wynne (MPP, Don Valley West). But it wasn’t until the media picked up on the vocal objections of several religious communities that parents also received the attention that resulted in their voices being “heard” by the Premier.
The Premier has noted the need to “create more opportunities for parents to lend shape to a policy with which they are more comfortable.” He has not concluded that teaching 8 year old grade 3 students about gender identity or 11 and 12 year olds in grades 6 and 7 about masturbation, oral sex and anal sex is a bad idea.
Mr. McGuinty, tear up that book! It is time for parents and child educators – who understand child development and are without an agenda to indoctrinate children into participation in a hyper-sexually oriented culture gone rogue – to have serious input into what’s happening in our schools. Children, after all, should have the protection of the adults in their lives from being progressed into any form of engagement in behaviour that is beyond their years; especially when the behaviour is being introduced by the very people they should be able to trust with their childhood.