Eight paragraphs from Barbara Kay’s Sep 3 National Post article about “Pushing back against woke classrooms”

The full National Post article can be seen here.

Excerpt

The only way school boards will be cleansed of racially divisive and potentially psychologically damaging gender theories is through the election of candidates who are determined to bring the boards back to their wonted disinterested centrism.

Ontario school board elections will be held Oct. 24. Two candidates caught my attention, due to their courage and integrity in openly declaring for a “shared platform” called Blue Print for Canada (the Blueprint), a deeply researched and intelligent manifesto created by Peter Wallace, who is running for a position on the Trillium Lakelands District School Board.

Everyone intending to vote in these elections — and those open to being persuaded to vote — should read the Blueprint, which is reader-friendly and easily navigated. It covers the gamut of contemporary “cultural hot points” (Wallace’s words), but it also offers ideas for needful practical changes to the curriculum that will better equip students for success in the world they are inheriting.

The Blueprint calls for: “more emphasis on personal finance, computer skills, tech and sciences”; regular surveys of parents’ opinions, promising to “hear and respond to (parents’) concerns in a fair, non-judgmental way”; removal of “extremist ideology” from the classroom; limitations on exposing children to “fringe adult behaviour”; and “merit, fairness and equality” to replace “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Teachers and staff would not be required to include pronouns in their email signatures.

The other on-the-record supporter of the Blueprint, Chanel Pfahl — an openly gay, former high school science teacher and a highly public dissenter on gender ideology — is running for trustee in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board.

Currently under investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers for having opposed CRT in a private Facebook group, Pfahl’s case is included in the Blueprint’s “Defending Teachers” section. (In her defence, the Democracy Fund “has made submissions to the Ontario College of Teachers that the complaint fails to disclose any misconduct and that the college should close its investigation.”)

As noted above, there are parent and teacher dissenters in this country. They channel their resistance through membership in groups such as Parents as First Educators and the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR).

FAIR’s Waterloo chapter leader, David Haskell, wrote in a C2C Journal article on the subject of parental push-back: “Beyond what’s happening on social media, what’s happening in the classroom is really starting to catch attention. More and more parents are hearing from their kids about activist teachers promoting highly biased, factually questionable, ideological instruction and they’re joining forces with others to bring change.”