Chanel Pfahl and the Ohana Dramah
Critical Social Justice and the Modern Cult of Ugliness
By
For readers who may not be familiar with Chanel Pfahl, one of the most important anti-woke voices in Canada, I offer a small sampling of the counter-woke resistance work she does. For Chanel’s back-story, read Intimidation Masquerading As Virtue Is Chilling Free Speech.
As a “far-left hate researcher”1 and independent journalist, Chanel is an outspoken advocate for education in Canada. Below is a delegation she gave last Tuesday at an Ottawa Carleton District School Board meeting:
In January of 2023 I watched Chanel deliver an inspiring address on the topic of free speech at a protest event in Toronto supporting Jordan Peterson, who was being persecuted by the College of Psychologists of Ontario for wrong-speak on social media. To see (and read) Chanel’s speech: In Defence of Free Speech: Ontario Teacher Stands with Dr Jordan Peterson
When Chanel shares evidence of school indoctrination on X, the Social Justice activists, who are incapable of self-reflection, often react in a similar way as Sarah Melissa (she/her), who called Chanel a Transphobe:
I would argue that Chanel is not a transphobe. In fact, she is far more open minded and thoughtful than the average person, especially she/her’s like Sarah Melissa. To illustrate, checkout this conversation between Chanel, Catherine Kronas, and Trans person Julia Malott:
I cannot accept as genuine, any claims of transphobia on the part of Chanel in this open-minded conversation, or in any other criticism she has expressed concerning trans rights activism or gender ideology in schools. The sense I get from Chanel’s work, and from conversations I’ve had with her, is that her concern is with children, and with the state of education in Canada. It is not a fringe belief to feel radical trans, race, and gender ideology are not age-appropriate for children.
On these issues Chanel stands with the majority. What makes her a minority is her willingness, despite great personal costs, to speak out and criticize the woke madness happening in schools across the country. For this, I will be forever grateful to her.
Last September I published in these pages a piece based on Chanel’s research. Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! which contains 26 examples ( A to Z) of the types of classroom material and activities that Chanel exposes.
Below I’ve included a few more recent examples from X. The Highlights tab on Chanel’s profile has countless more examples of the colonization of Critical Social Justice ideology into Canadian education:
From that thread:
How many Canadian parents do readers think would approve of a book that teaches their elementary school aged children that some of them are neither a girl or a boy, and that others are “somewhere in between” ? I have two middle school aged children and the thought of someone within their school putting this book in front of them makes my blood boil.
The Gender Unicorn is like “Where’s Waldo?,” it can (and does) pop up anywhere/everywhere. I have no issue with cartoon unicorns, it’s the insane notion that sex is “assigned at birth,” that is confusing to children. Thankfully, becuase of people like Chanel, parents like me were able to understand what was happening in our children’s schools before it was exposed to our kids. I have had many conversations about these issues with my kids. They have been warned about the “Gender Unicorn,” among other Social Justice oddities, and inoculated against Wokeism.
A closer look at the Gender Unicorn:
Here we have an “Anti-Oppression Day Dictionary” :
With a closer look we can see the word “Privilege” cleverly written in white letters. Although the description is not legible, the reader can be confident that it refers to white privilege. Also notice that the artist Jean-Michael Basquiat, a drug addict who died from an overdose, is featured.
Readers can judge for themselves, but its clear Basquiat made the type of modern art Sir Roger Scruton denounced so thoroughly. The types of images that require art history intellectuals to inflate the aesthetic appeal and convince us Basquiat paintings are in fact brilliant feats of artistry, and not the sloppy childlike scribbles they appear to be. What comes to mind when I look at a Basquiat are some terse words from Scruton:
“Ugly modern art is produced by the pampered children of the democratic state, who have never had to struggle, who have not known war, and who have entered at the earliest age into the lap of luxury.” - The Modern Cult of Ugliness2
Here are a few examples of the works of Jean-Michael Basquiat. Is this the type of art we want to expose young children to? Are these works perhaps not more appropriate for more advanced post-secondary art courses?
I linger on this question of art and artists becuase I genuinely wonder if the teacher who would put the above images in front of elementary school aged children, would first show their students the works below?
(There is more article after the paintings, but take a break from reading for a minute…you deserve it…just for a few moments, take in these masterworks. Is this not the type of art we should inspire kids with?)
End of Intermission - Back to the article
The Critical Social Justice movement is not just confusing kids about sex and gender, it also divides kids by identity and inculcates actual racism, through what it terms “anti-racism.” Chanel is just as likely to expose the race nonsense as she is the gender wang:
A Closer look at what is projected on the overhead screen, not all the words are legible, but the question “where can you find systemic racism” is answered as “education” on the blue square in the upper left. Does teaching kids that their schools are systemically racist against non-white students seem like a good idea?
Last week Chanel turned her attention to BC:
This brings us to Annie Ohana, a teacher at L.A. Matheson Secondary in Surrey BC. It would take a lot of words to describe Annie, so for the sake of brevity, I’ll embed a couple videos and let Annie do the talking:
On Wednesday, Jamie Sarkonak penned an excellent op-ed in the National Post, concerning “Woke teachers,” who “openly preach as common-sense colleagues are silenced.” Sarkonak explains:
“Defending her methods, Ohana says she’s just helping to create ‘empowered citizens that can speak up for themselves’. Elsewhere, she’s insisted that her students are just learning about ‘critical thinking.’ Which would be believable if the classroom included political posters from across the left-right spectrum.
Critical thinking would involve teaching students to contemplate more than one perspective.”
According to Sarkonak, Ohana’s classroom is “one of the more egregious examples of the politicized Canadian classroom.” The walls are covered with Social Justice posters. Some of them sloganeer about “decolonization,” others “inflame racial politics.” One example is a poster that suggests to young girls an equivalence between sex work and manual labour :
The sex work poster was first noticed by parent Lesley R Hudson. I am thankful for parents like this who pay close attention to what’s going on.
Needless to say, there was a lot of conversation on X regarding the “Ohana Dramah” last week after Chanel posted images of Ohana’s classroom propaganda. Many commenters on X were somewhat shocked that Ohana seemed genuinely surprised at the reactions of parents who were appalled at Ohana’s Social Justice indoctrination of students, and that she sees nothing wrong with her conduct at school.
One insightful comment, referring generally to Social Justice teachers who practice Critical pedagogy, came from Catherine Kronas:
“They do not see what they are doing. Have no frame of reference. Critical pedagogy which is suspicious of neutrality, has redefined what that means. Blame Henry Giroux.”
On March 23rd CTV reported on the social media interactions between Ohana and Chanel and other parents and critics of Critical Social Justice / Critical pedagogy. Ohana is featured and portrayed as the victim. CTV parrots unquestioningly Ohana’s claim that parents and critics were “harassing” her on X about her “inclusive” teaching methods and commitment to “Diversity and Equity.” For the most part, Ohana speaks in the language of Social Justice slogans. CTV did not also interview Chanel, as one would expect from balanced reportage. Here is the CTV segment:
Here is Chanel’s comment concerning the video:
I’m tempted to laugh this off and/or make a sarcastic comment, but honestly, what an utter tragedy that this is the state of our mainstream “news” right now. I know it’s not surprising in the least, but somehow I still expect more.
@izavarise portrays Ohana as a victim from the get go, relies on “experts” from CAHN (including “Elizabeth Simons” whose existence has yet to be verified), can’t even be bothered to include my full (2 sentence) comment, or the comments of a single one of the hundreds of parents/teachers who agree with me, etc. It’s truly a shame.
Indeed, I found the segment hard to watch…and stomach. And I can’t help but wonder what will happen if Trudeau’s Online Harms Act passes. Will parents and concerned citizens be permitted to question the practices of teachers without being accused of harassment?
Here is a comment from X user Matt Alexander to Chanel. I agree with him wholeheartedly:
Below are some bits of exchanges between Ohana and her critics. It should be reiterated that these exchanges where catalyzed by Chanel’s reporting. The first is regarding Ohana’s assertion that she often invites parents to speak to her class - “Parents are amazing collaborators and speak to my students often, on topics of their choice. Intergenerational learning and Eldership are key components of Indigenous Ways of Knowing.”
Parent, Lesley Hudson’s response:
It is highly unlikely Ohana would invite anyone into her class who is not a full-throated Social Justice activist.
Here is another good one from canceled teacher Jim McMurtry:
This comment from Catherine to Annie was a good one. It nicely encapsulates the nature of the problem:
In the comment below, one of Ohana’s defenders, “who can’t think of a more dedicated #SocialJustice teacher” than Annie, declares support for the exact thing parents criticize Ohana for. Self-awareness is not a strong suit of the Critical Social Justice types.
And then there was this interesting turn of events:
And here is what was included in the post above:
Wow, imagine the segment CTV could have produced if they had done some investigative journalism and looked into both sides of the issue. However, readers of Woke Watch Canada know that that is not what our mainstream media is about.
When describing the politically biased nature of Ohana’s classroom, Jamie Sarkonak put it succinctly like so:
“There’s a Palestinian flag, but no Israel flag is visible. There are progress pride flags but no thin blue line flag. There are denunciations of colonialism but no posters honouring Sir John A. Macdonald or Queen Elizabeth II. There’s a Canadian flag — over which the text, ‘No pride in genocide’, is printed. Critical thinking would involve teaching students to contemplate more than one perspective.”
Amen. Thank you Jamie Sarkonak, I couldn’t agree more. And thank you Chanel Pfhal for continuing to expose indoctrination of Canadian students by Social Justice activists masquerading as teachers.
Lastly, I’ll leave off with some words of wisdom from Chanel that I hope inspire you this Easter weekend, as much as they do me:
Follow Chanel on X for her investigative journalism exposing Critical Social Justice indoctrination occurring in Canadian schools. And, subscribe to Chanel’s Substack.
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Thanks for reading. For more on Critical Social Justice in Education read, The Radical Canadians who made Education "Critical"
BREAKING NEWS:
A new long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy
James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers
Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!
There are now two ways to support Woke Watch Canada through donations:
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2) By making a contribution to the Investigating Wokeism In Canada Initiative, which raises the funds necessary to maintain and expand Woke Watch Canada’s research and investigation into Dysfunctional Canadian School Boards, Education, Indigenous Issues, Free Speech, and other areas of Illiberal Subversion and the Canadian Culture Wars.
This was meant to be funny, but I think it’s also true Chanel Pfahl 🇨🇦 on X: "As a far-left hate researcher, I am not at all surprised." / X (twitter.com)
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License? Where do teachers get the license to indoctrinate and exploit their captive audience of innocent, gullible young people? A lot of what we’re reading here is certainly unbecoming of professional educators. What do their codes of ethics say? Are there codes of ethics for teachers?
Teachers claim they have autonomy HOW they teach the curriculum, but how far can they go? As an active member of the Anti-Oppression Teachers’ Collective Annie Ohana claims that her work at her school has already made L A Matheson Secondary a hub for social justice. She unquestionably models a political agenda and transmits that to students, but is that the role of a teacher? Aren’t public school teachers supposed to present balanced, appropriate material?
Good that this article mentions Sir Roger Scruton as being a critic of modern education when he critiques ugly modern art. Not one to mince words, Sir Roger also had this to say about modern sex education in schools: “Modern sex education is conceived as a ‘liberation’ from fear, doubt, and disease - a ‘how to’ manual for children, which is also a form of vicarious paedophilia for their teachers.”
And why is the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat prominent on the teacher’s classroom wall? Do we recall the recent court case in Quebec where a school board is being sued for $1.5M by parents who object to their children’s art being sold online without permission? That art was in the style of Basquiat.
Why has public schooling become a cover for so much questionable practices? Keep on exposing and maybe we’ll either get serious reforms or (preferably) more choices to exit a deteriorating system.
Chanel is a genuine Canadian hero. Its amazing how ordinary people come out of the woodwork and step up when their society is threatened.