Shrunk wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:You can joke about this, but to me it's sickening that these parents force their own insecurities on their children and thus force them to remain ignorant.

I doubt many of them are. They'd like to think they are, but the kids know better.

They are right on one point: They can't shield their kids from knowledge. Anything the other kids learn in sex ed will become part of the general culture and spread to all kids thru osmosis.

felltoearth wrote:Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, folks.

Substantial parts of the curriculum contradict Catholic teachings... This is very personal and intimate material that we are asking educators to provide to our children. It is wrong for us to deny parents the opportunity to share with us what they think and that is why I am asking my Trustee colleagues to send a letter to the Ministry of Education requesting that we be allowed to delay implementation.

Parents can remove their kids from sex-ed classes for religious reasons, but any requests for students to opt-out of learning about gay families or diverse gender identities won’t be tolerated, says the director of Ontario’s second largest school board — one that expects to be hard hit by protests over the new health curriculum.

The same day as anti-sex-ed rallies were planned outside Liberal MPP offices across the province, Tony Pontes was to tell teachers and superintendents about the Peel board’s tough stand, saying if parents have a problem with such strong support for equity and inclusion, the public system may not be right for them.

“Let’s be clear: Some in our community may not like this,” he says in a speech to be given Wednesday morning, a copy of which was provided to the Star.

After noting the 905-area board is opening its first gender-neutral washroom at a high school as well as introducing a new gender identity guideline for educators, some parents “may choose to switch school systems … if so, that is a price we must be willing to pay.

“We cannot — we will not — by action or inaction endorse discrimination,” said Pontes, who cited Ontario’s Human Rights Code as applying to people of all sexual orientation and gender identity. “Supported by legal opinion, bolstered by our core values, I would no more say yes to someone wanting a child excluded because of a discussion about LGBTQ than I would a discussion about race or gender.”...

Parents with young and school-aged children in tow climbed out of a school bus and stood in front of the office, fighting the sounds of nearby traffic with shouts of “shame” and calling on Wynne’s government to “let kids be kids.”

felltoearth wrote:I've seen kids be kids. It ain't pretty. It's even worse when such behavior goes uncorrected into adulthood.

In protests and online messages, parents talk about “indoctrination.” Others, like Jotvinder Sodhi, feel that the curriculum forces kids to think about gender and sexual identity too early. “Let’s say my son likes pink,” he remarked. “You are saying, ‘Oh, you like pink?’ Then you’re slowly moving toward, ‘Oh, you may be a girl now.’ ” I told him that seemed like a bit of a jump. “It’s not a jump. It’s not a jump!” he said, his voice rising. “You have books in classrooms that have two mothers, two fathers! Why is that agenda being taught in the schools?” Some kids may have same-sex parents, Sodhi acknowledged, but why should that minority dictate what happens in the entire class? “If one kid is sick, do you treat the whole classroom?”...

After hours of speeches, the crowd assembled to march down University Avenue. At the head of the parade, Sodhi and ­Siddiqui clambered onto the back of a rented flatbed truck, joining other organizers at the forefront of a new movement. As the caravan began to move, a man on the truck led the crowd in a call-and-response chant. “Kathleen loser,” he yelled, his voice raspy after an afternoon of shouting.

“Loser, loser!” the crowd answered back.

“Liberal loser!” he shouted.

“Loser, loser!” said the crowd.

“Lesbian loser!” he shouted, before another organizer hurriedly wrestled the microphone away from him....

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Before I go thinking something stupid and racist, are a lot of the opposition to this curriculum and the scary gay premier to blame for it devout Muslims?

Toronto school offers sanitized sex-ed amid parent concern

An alternative to Ontario’s updated health curriculum is being offered by the Toronto elementary school that found itself at the centre of the sex-education controversy — with Grade 1 students having the option to learn about “private parts” instead of proper names for genitalia.

Thorncliffe Park Principal Jeff Crane said because a number of parents had concerns about their children being taught the words penis and vagina, the school decided to offer a class where teachers covered the key issue of inappropriate touching without being specific about body parts, a move meant to keep kids in school this week and at least learn some of the curriculum.

About 60 per cent of the 300 students in that grade were taught the proper curriculum, the remaining 40 per cent the sanitized version.

“We let parents know ahead of time when the health strands for human development were being taught and, for Grade 1, that there would be one lesson where there would be discussion of body parts … They were told if learning the names of genitalia was a concern, they could write me a letter requesting a religious accommodation,” said Crane, whose school is located in the riding represented by Premier Kathleen Wynne, who championed the updated health curriculum.

Parents were told “the lesson would be exactly the same, but instead of using proper terms like penis and vagina, we would use the term ‘private parts.’ The key learning in that expectation is that this is a part of your body always covered with clothes, nobody touches it and you don’t show anybody. We were able to maintain the integrity of the expectation with a very simple accommodation.”...