Like many columnists and journalists, I received a press release from Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College, attacking the revised sex-education curriculum that was to have been implemented in Ontario schools this fall.
The release suggested that we learn more about the program at stopcorruptingchildren.com, which didn't sound very balanced to me, so I deleted the e-mail. I didn't think it would get much play. After all, it came from Charles McVety – the same Charles McVety who organized protests at the Royal Ontario Museum over its Charles Darwin exhibit. I never imagined that he'd become our go-to guy for school lesson plans.
This is Canada, I reasoned. Politicians seldom cave to pressure groups, even those claiming to represent “leaders from … groups with over 100,000 active members…” (I wonder if anyone verified that number). I assumed that some consideration would be given to the parents who support “corrupting children” but who were caught off guard by the controversy and did not have time to petition up.
I look forward to the day when a politician says, “Every letter my office receives represents the person who wrote that letter.” Not that every letter represents a thousand people who didn't write or a thousand votes.
The media frequently quoted Mr. McVety's summation of the program, even though his press release stated it would “subject sixth graders to instruction on the pleasures of masturbation, vaginal lubrication and 12-year-olds to lessons on oral sex and anal intercourse,” which no one was proposing to do. Still, these misconceptions were all over the papers until Premier Dalton McGuinty, making the excuse that he simply had had no idea all this was going on, shelved the plan indefinitely.
I'm a parent. I've read the new curriculum. I liked it. I think it's appropriate to teach children in Grade 1 the proper names for body parts. I wish, for example, that someone had taught Mr. McGuinty that he has a spine. The program does include discussions of same-sex marriage and gender identity, but in sensitive and age-appropriate ways. In fact, the 210-page document should be read by every parent, if only because it reminds us how complex and demanding teaching is.
The sex-ed portion is only slightly more detailed than the one previously taught. But despite the “evil” that Mr. McVety saw in the lessons, children aren't going to start questioning their gender identity in Grade 7 because someone mentions it in health class. If that were the case, poor Mr. Henderson would've had more success getting the boys in my Grade 7 class to wear deodorant. This is seventh grade, after all. I remember it as an age of such exquisite self-consciousness that only the few and the brave were up to questioning the merits of Rush.
However, were there to be a child struggling with a gender-identity issue, he might learn that he wasn't alone. Given the staggeringly high rate of suicide within this small but real group, his life might be saved.
Sexual education is science. We shouldn't cordon off areas of science and not teach them because they contain aspects of pleasure. Kids stop playing Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes quite young. They go further. They've always done so, and if the only thing they learn from a frank discussion about sex is that sex is something that can be frankly discussed, that's enough. That knowledge will protect them from sexual predators, who often rely on a child's shame to keep the child quiet.
Finally, enough about consulting families. In fact, enough about families from politicians for a while. It feels as if Canadian Families for Kicking the Cat could get a hearing these days. Governments aren't elected by families. They're elected by people, all of whom deserve representation, even childless ones, who might have opinions on education – because we educate our children, at public expense, for the betterment of our entire society.
One day, Little Tyler might work in a nursing home, caring for Little Old Lauren, who might be transgendered. It'd be nice if he had some long-standing understanding of this. And I cannot imagine how such knowledge could hurt anyone.
