How do we put a stop to the ridiculous indoctrination of our children? Fire someone! Photo Credit: Adobe Stock Images.
The hits just keep on coming. Every time we see some outrageous event taking place in our public school system, and the overwhelmingly negative reaction to it, the vast majority of regular citizens must think “Well, surely they won’t do that again.” But then they do! All of the recent outrages have involved issues such as critical race theory, gender identity, social justice pandering and the like. When one of these bozo eruptions takes place, the public criticism is loud and justified. You would think that would be a deterrent to future such events. Sadly, based on experience to date, that reaction may have even been an encouragement for future such stupidities.
Consider some recent developments. Last week, Oyster Pond Academy school in the Nova Scotia public system hosted a special presentation for children in Grades 7 to 9 from a drag performer about gender identity, sexual orientation and relationships. Some students were quite uncomfortable during this presentation, but were not permitted to leave. Also, as part of the presentation, the drag performer gave students their personal social media contact information, which allegedly contained considerable adult content which was highly inappropriate for that age group.
Furthermore, parents had not been given any advance notice that such a presentation would be made to their children, and were understandably upset when they heard about it after the fact. The following day, a number of parents pulled their children out of school in protest. When parents complained, school administrators claimed they were required to follow the Inclusive Education Policy and Health curriculum and that if parents had an issue with the subject matter, they should take it up with their elected Member of the Legislative Assembly. Excuse me? Suddenly the well-paid teachers and school administrators are not responsible for what they are teaching children? This is completely unacceptable.
Here in Ontario, parents are still absorbing the ridiculous field trip their children were exposed to last month where middle school students ended up participating in an anti-Israel rally. In this instance, parents were not only ill-informed about the field trip, they were actually lied to as they were told the trip was about raising awareness of the Grassy Narrows First Nations’ problems with mercury contamination. The trip was promoted as an “educational opportunity to learn about Indigenous activism, environmental justice and human rights.” The permission slips for parents actually stated that students would not be participating in any rallies themselves. This happened over a month ago and still, no heads have rolled.
These are only a couple of recent examples of the far too many incidents of this type that have taken place in our public school system across Canada in the last few years. Every time such an event takes place, parents are predicably outraged, politicians act surprised and teachers and other school officials try to pass the buck and pretend to be shocked by the negative blowback. Yet, no one loses their job or even seems to be reprimanded or otherwise disciplined for these unacceptable activities. Then another similar incident takes place a few weeks or months later.
How do we put a stop to this ridiculous indoctrination of our children? Fire someone! Fire lots of someones! That is the kind of message that is needed to send a shockwave through the system that parents and other taxpayers who unwillingly support these ridiculous events just won’t take it anymore. As well as this kind of material being highly inappropriate content for the classroom, the fact is it also takes up valuable time and resources from teaching our children the things we want them to be learning, such as literacy, numeracy, problem solving and other valuable skills that will actually help them in their adult lives. Training our youth to be social justice warriors will not be helpful to them as they pursue higher education and eventually seek employment, and will also skew their perspectives about our economy and our society.
Despite the constant whining of teachers’ unions, which are one of the key drivers behind the promotion of these unhelpful teachings, Canada has some of the highest paid teachers in the world, with great benefits such as gold-plated pensions, early retirements and other benefits. Our public education systems in every province – although some are better than others – are overall a big disappointment and are failing our children. Serious consequences need to occur when the ridiculous situations such as those noted above take place. Are our governments up to it? If not, we taxpayers who pay them need to inform them they had better be.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
