A Teacher Blogs

Short answer. Of course. It's part of it. For some. One cannot, with a straight face, say that acknowledging the existence of  sexual diversity is premature in the third grade, by which time children have been inundated with media that depict families led almost exclusively by a mother and father, and periodically by a single parent formerly in a heterosexual relationship.  I'm talking about sexual diversity here -- not sex acts -- the simple notion that loving and stable families are built upon different kinds of legally recognized relationships. But some will try. We begin with Sue-Ann Levy, who writes for The Toronto Sun newspaper:  Q to  @Kathleen_Wynne : I'm gay & think Gr 3 much too young to discuss same-sex relationships. Does that make me homophobic too? — Sue-Ann Levy (@SueAnnLevy)  February 26, 2015 No, because homophobes are typically heterosexual, with the exception closeted gays presenting as straight. Ms Levy is neither of ...

In recent years I've watched journalist and author Michael Coren truly evolve before my eyes. A devout Catholic and social conservative, he has, in the last months,  recanted his beliefs on same sex relationships and the LGBTQ communities. More recently, he's called for cessation of hostilities over the 2010 Ontario Health and Physical Education curriculum , which sat on a shelf for five years, and was recently... finally... released.  I've blogged a little about Mr Coren's broadcasts on the former Sun News Network. From early discussions with Dr Teresa Pierre of Parents as First Educators in 2010 ; to the genesis of the Ben Levin grooming document conspiracy, which surfaced on the network in 2013; and into speculation about the most recent iteration of the document -- it seemed to me that Mr Coren himself had become impatient, and perhaps a tad embarrassed, about the intellectual descent of the conversation. Today he broke ranks with fellow Sun News alu...

Elvira Kurt's widely circulated Facebook rant about Jian Ghomeshi's early attempts to spin allegations of assault into rough-and-kinky-but-consensual-sex is perhaps best-framed in the following quotation from her post:  …submitting a sex tape as proof of consent… that’s some next level delusion right there. She was alluding to a meeting that took place at CBC headquarters in which Ghomeshi showed his bosses video on his smart phone in an attempt to prove that nothing was amiss in popular broadcaster's bedroom. That was last November, and horrified CBC execs severed their relationship with now-former host of CBC radio's Q program. Several women and one man have come forward with allegations against Ghomeshi. A number of them have made complaints to police. And the one-time front-man of Moxie Fruvous is now on bail pending trial. Fast-foward to January of 2015, when the battle over Ontario's sex education curriculum begins anew. In the midst of what would see...

Back in April 2010, most Ontarians probably didn't know the name Benjamin Levin, who had been the Provincial Deputy Minister of Education during the development of the 2010 Health curriculum. Before that, Dr Levin served as Deputy Minister of Advanced Education and also of Education, Training and Youth from 1999 through 2002 in Manitoba. The OISE -- University of Toronto professor would go on to work on Kathleen Wynne's transition team when she became Premier. That changed in July of 2013, when Levin was arrested by Toronto Police Services, following investigations in London, Ontario and New Zealand. All tolled, Mr Levin was finally charged with seven counts of child exploitation, including charges of possessing and accessing child pornography. Before I proceed, let's be clear. There is indeed a place for moral outrage in this story, and that has to do with Ben Levin's conduct. The charges against Mr Levin are serious and disturbing to anyone with a grain of dece...

When Kathleen Wynne was first sworn in as Premier of Ontario on January 23, 2013, she had already indicated plans to re-introduce the 2010 Health Curriculum, which her predecessor, former Premier Dalton McGuinty, had withdrawn . Following her party's return to majority status in June of 2014, the only question was when. That answer in the late fall of 2014, with Premier Wynne and Education Minister Liz Sandals promising to have the updated sexual health components online for September 2015. How did the original curriculum get killed, and how did it take five years to make a return? Here's the backstory. As I previously blogged here , in April 2010, the Ontario government -- led by then-Premier Dalton McGuinty -- launched an ill-fated revision to the 1998 Health and Physical Education document. I say, "ill-fated," because the Premier would withdraw the curriculum within two days, later replacing it with an interim document -- minus content deemed too controversi...