From A-Z to He-Zie: Welcome to woke education

Canceled teacher Jim McMurtry discusses Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy

Sir John A. Macdonald

By Jim McMurtry, Ph.D., is a Social Studies teacher in Abbotsford, B.C.

The reason Sir John A. Macdonald statues are being taken down so quickly, with only two still standing and under 24/7 police surveillance (one on Parliament Hill and the other at Queen’s Park in Toronto) is that people don’t know much about him. If they knew he wasn’t only Canada’s first Prime Minister but also its architect in the 19th century, there might be less vandalism.

As Patrice Dutil wrote in the National Post (Jan. 12), the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario adopted a resolution in 2017 to encourage educational authorities to remove Macdonald’s name from their schools.

To date, four schools have changed their names, beginning in 2012 with Sir John A. Macdonald High School in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia becoming Bay View High School. Last year, a Brampton, Ontario elementary school changed its name to Nibi Emosaawdang, and in Pickering, Ontario another elementary school took the name Biidassige Mandamin. In the Waterloo region a large high school was renamed Laurel Heights.

History as a school course in British Columbia is not entirely passé, but the emphasis is no longer on Canada, and far less on Macdonald, whose name is mentioned only in the Grade 9 guidelines in the expansive new provincial curriculum.

In Grade 1 the focus now is “Local Communities,” in Grade 2 on “Regional and Global Governments,” in Grade 3 on “Global Indigenous Peoples,” and in Grade 4 on “First Peoples and European Contact.” Macdonald does not appear in the Grade 5 guidelines under “Canadian Issues and Governance,” but “LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage” make the cut.

Students in Grade 6 take the Social Studies course “Global Issues and Governance.” The next year they study “The Ancient World to the 7th Century.” In Grade 8 the subject area extends from the “7th Century to 1750.” In Grade 9, students survey world events from “1750–1919.” One question they are to explore is: “Was John A. Macdonald an admirable leader? Explain the reasons for your answer.” The question itself is loaded.

Social Studies students in Grades 10 look at “Canada and the World: 1914 to the Present,” and the following year they study a hodgepodge of issues, such as “colonialism and contemporary issues for indigenous people in Canada and around the world.” Grade 11 is a blend of topics under the rubric “Explorations,” including how “cultural expressions convey the richness, diversity, and resiliency of B.C. First Peoples.” Grade 12 courses include Asian Studies, B.C. First Peoples, Contemporary Indigenous Studies, and Genocide Studies.

The B.C. Ministry of Education also has a tacit social justice curriculum made up of separate policy pronouncements, such as Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI). This policy was developed by Vancouver-based ARC foundation in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, B.C. Teachers’ Federation, U.B.C.’s Faculty of Education, school districts, and Out in Schools (a 2SLGBTQIA+ education program). There was also input from national and international LGBTQ community organizations.

Part of SOGI is learning about pronouns, for instance that HE, HIM, HIS, HIS, HIMSELF becomes zie, zim, zir, zis, zieself (the feminine version being sie, sie, hir, hirs, hirself). Of course, people have been inventing languages for a long time. A Jewish doctor in Poland developed Esperanto in 1887. It was to be the international language of the future, but it’s now of the past.

Another part of SOGI is knowing the new pride flag. For example, the black/brown chevron line represents people of colour while the white/blue/pink chevron represents the trans community. There are eleven colours in total, which takes time to memorize. Children also have to know the colours that signify certain racial groups, such as orange for indigenous people as students wear orange shirts on several occasions through the school year.

Apart from SOGI, students are submerged in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) and must declare their own race and religion, which is difficult for biracial or multiracial children as they can only choose one identity. They quickly learn to choose the identity with the most benefits. Many students struggle to identify their own religion because the words can be big, such as Evangelical Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Ahmadi Muslim, or Shia Ismaili Muslim.

If teachers don’t want to follow the unspoken part of the curriculum, there’s a problem. As law professor Bruce Pardy writes (National Post 23 Jan. 2023): “A new standard of practice is emerging for Canadian professionals: be woke, be quiet, or be accused of professional misconduct.”

I have first-hand experience as I was accused of “extremely serious [professional] misconduct” for saying indigenous children who died tragically while enrolled in residential schools did so mostly from disease, fires and accidents and not murder. Canadian politicians want voters to believe it was murder as they gave unanimous consent October 27, 2022 to a motion calling on what unfolded inside residential schools as a genocide.

Jordan Peterson asks, “What are your children going to be taught when all their teachers…are so afraid of the woke mob that they swallow all the ideological lies that are now required of pedagogues – regardless of whether they believe what they are saying.” (National Post 4 Jan. 2023).)

The woke ideology is driving Canada’s equivalent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its purging of traditions. Rex Murphy asks if any of us can remember “those long-ago innocent years, before wokeism and environmentalism and social justice-ism captured the school boards and entered the classroom, when teachers taught subjects (National Post 27 Jan. 2023).”

In Ontario, the emphasis is explicitly about something other than teaching subjects. The new, over-arching theme is Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRRP), which comes with the admonition: “Educators must consider this information to guide the implementation of curriculum and in creating the environment in which it is taught.” While CRRP is dressed up in words like “positive, inclusive, equitable, and non-discriminatory,” it is none of these things. It is a redistribution of outcomes, of grades, scholarships, entry into elite postsecondary programs, and selection for the best jobs. This is raw identity politics. Not every person is welcomed, included, treated fairly, and respected. Asian students know this too well as they meet quotas favouring less-accomplished students at every turn.

The recent case of Josh Alexander puts the lie to CRRP. He was attending St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, 80 miles west of Ottawa, before Christmas, and was recently arrested for returning to school. He had been “excluded” from classes for arguing there are only two genders, that students cannot switch between genders, and that students born male should not be permitted into girl washrooms. Alexander was accused of bullying because he disagreed with classmates and thereby violated their safe spaces. He summed up the problem as such: “They express their beliefs and I express mine. Mine obviously don't fit the narrative.”

Part of the narrative is that Macdonald and Canada were racist and students like Alexander are discriminatory and hurtful. Lost in the fog of this cultural war is that the woke are discrediting public education. That students can no longer question teachers or come to their own conclusions should be seen as educational heresy.

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Thanks for reading. For more education analysis from this author read Decolonization, the latest school fad

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