We're starting a PETITION. Please sign!
Leave Woke Politics Out of Ontario Schools
Please Sign the Petition
Dear Premier Ford and Minister Lecce,
We call upon the Ontario Government to stop the politically biased teaching of children in our public schools.
As concerned teachers, we see the harm that an intense focus on identity and theoretical power dynamics is having on the quality of education in our province and on the mental health of our most vulnerable students. As parents, we see the confusion in the faces of our children when they share “lessons” from the classroom.
We do not consent to teaching our children that they must see themselves as either a victim or an oppressor (or as an intersectional mix thereof). We believe social progress is possible without reducing people to their immutable characteristics and opposing essentialist narratives on them with which they are expected to comply.
We do not consent to teaching our non-indigenous children that they are “settler colonialists”. We do not consent to them being portrayed as illegitimate occupiers of the country that is their home. We believe there is a path to reconciliation that does not involve shaming and provoking collective guilt.
We do not consent to our children being taught that our country, and all its systems, are dominated by “white supremacy”. We believe Canada has a broader history than simply racism and colonialism – a history of liberal democracy and social progress that must also be taught. We believe our children, perhaps especially our Black and Indigenous children, must be free to arrive at their own conclusions about how effectively Canada’s economic, legal, and political systems create the conditions for human advancement. We recognize that such systems, like all human systems, are imperfect and in need of improvement. Our children should therefore be taught to embrace, not reject, the liberal values that enable progress.
We do not consent to contested theories of gender being taught as absolute truth. We support the full inclusion of every child in our classrooms, and we want gender non-conforming children to be loved and protected, but such inclusion does not require teaching every child that the connection between biological sex and gender identity is always, and only, an arbitrary one.
Importantly, we view a robust public school system as the best tool we have as a society to empower every child with knowledge, meaningful skills, and a path to pursuing their dreams. Current pedagogies, however, are undermining that potential. As the classroom is increasingly politicized, our children risk falling behind.
We write to you as a group of fair-minded citizens of different backgrounds, religions, and sexualities. We are committed to fighting racism, to the advancement of disadvantaged groups, and to people’s fundamental freedom to live as they wish (and to do so free from harassment).
Yet within the current landscape of political tension and culture wars, our voices are being ignored, mischaracterized, and suppressed. We are counting on you, our elected officials, to represent us fairly, and to support the millions of Ontarians who share our liberal values. We are unaware of any society, at any point in history, where racial essentialism, identity politics and the use of school children for political ends has proved beneficial to social welfare and progress. Indeed, history makes a strong case that such practices have grave consequences.
We believe that the purpose of education is to help young people think for themselves so they can actively participate in democratic society. We call upon the Ontario Government to support our children by refocusing the Ontario Curriculum on academic development, intellectual curiosity and free inquiry.