Strategies for not woke parents fed up with radical ideology in education

From boards of trustees, parent councils and the broader political picture, there are many obstacles parents and concerned citizens face in the battle to restore liberal principles to education

By Corrie Mooney

Introduction

Lighthouse was set up as a forum of concerned citizens to share experiences and understanding of the radical left identarian politics that has infiltrated our school boards, curriculums, and classrooms. We are a group of concerned teachers, parents and citizens who recognize the dangers of woke ideology that is erroneously being presented to children as factual information. We are worried about how this will fail the next generation of Canadians academically and culturally. We are also deeply alarmed at how this may be affecting the mental well-being of children from kindergarten on up. We feel the need to act, and as such we are putting a hit-list together for public consumption on WHAT IS TO BE DONE. This is that list.

School Council – Get on it!

Given that we are only at the beginning of the term of the current board election cycle, the first most important impact that someone can have, is to get elected to school councils. On council you can influence the direction of the agenda, obstruct or distract from woke initiatives and ensure not-woke parental participation. Confronting the woke directly can be very intimidating so it's better to line up with other like-minded parents ON COUNCIL, so try to get a team together to run. If alone or just not possible, passive resistance, like deflecting away from woke agendas can be effective. Try forcing a focus on academic performance or neutral activities. School performance metrics can be found here, or here. Directly confronting a fully woke council or board can be very intimidating, and result in your (unjustified) rejection from council. This will take courage, resolve and time.

If you do manage to chair the council, you can get on the Board's Parent Involvement Committee or equivalent for a broader platform.

School Board and Council Meetings – Attend and Speak Up!

If you cannot run for council, then the next best thing to do is attend school council meetings and speak up! Here you can risk being direct and oppositional: Ask questions! Be honest! Take them head on! But stay on high ground. It'd be a good idea to be fully versed on the tenets of wokeism, so reading Cynical Theories (Lindsay, Pluckrose), or other books recommended by Woke Watch Canada can help prepare you. This can possibly get you ejected from the meeting (don't go too far), or called racist, or accused of hate, but if enough parents speak up they will start to bend and maybe back off. This would not be a final victory, but you'd have won a respite. You'd have also marked yourself to like-minded parents who haven't spoken up yet, but needed a prompt to summon the courage; then you can build a team. If this is too much then the passive resistance can help, though not as much as if you're on council. There are also Board meetings which are open to the public.

Politics: Federal, Provincial, Local

Ultimately this will be won or lost based on real politics, and elections at the Municipal, Provincial and Federal levels. While it is helpful overall to have not-woke people at City hall, the thrust of municipal elections for schools is done through the school board elections. More on this below.

Realistically, given the current slate of political parties, left, right or centre, the only prospects for pushback against woke ideology will come from the right- that means conservative and populist parties. The NDP has been predominantly identity politics focused since the 1990s, and has gone almost completely woke - they are no longer the voice of the working class. The Green Party, once a refuge for the not-woke left, submitted rapidly over the past few years. The Liberals have generally succumbed, especially with the current Prime Minister, and while there may be many members who do not like woke ideology they feel their hands are tied. Even the conservative parties are questionable with little support in Ontario from the pretend populist Doug Ford, - some are wavering elsewhere. Only the populist parties (People's Party, UCP, Sask United Party, New Blue, Ontario Party and now CAQ) have shown reliability in opposing wokeism.

It is a tough pill to swallow for those of us who have traditionally been left to support right wing parties, but it is now no longer possible to expect the woke movement to simply fall out of fashion. The only way to save the left is to punish it. Across the English speaking world, every party not on the right is culturally incapable of pushing back against wokeism.  Of course we all have our limits as to how far we are willing to go, but be very careful of media claims that so-and-so is a racist, or such-and-such a party has links to white supremacy.   Remember the woke use very different definitions for those – and THEY are the racists.

Federally, if you are in a riding that has a Conservative MP, contact them about wokeism either in general or about specific woke issues. The most prominent Federal issues concern men in women's spaces (sports, prisons, washrooms, etc.), the medical transitioning of children, and conversion therapy. You can try to contact a Liberal about specific issues, threaten to vote for someone else because of it. If your riding is NDP or Green, contact the riding associations of Conservatives, PPC or even Liberals about the woke issues that will affect your vote in the next election.

Provincially, if you have one, contact a conservative MLA/MP and bring up school related issues; namely the curriculum, anti-Canadian attitudes, politics in the classroom and keeping secrets from parents. Use examples from your school district of woke items. You may also want to bring up the unreliability of the Human Rights Tribunals¹. The Liberal Parties positions vary from province to province, but is generally fully woke. Make your communications purely issue focused for them.

Prepare for Trustee Elections 2026

The next trustee elections will take place in 2026. This may seem far off, but a lot of work will need to be done to get ready for them. Given that the incumbent woke trustees utilize the well-worn NDP electoral machine it may not even be enough time for a grass roots push on unseating them. Not-woke candidates should be recruited and nominated. A canvasing team will need to be enlisted. Funding will need to be secured. If a full slate can't be found for the board, vulnerable wards will need to be targeted. We'd recommend a minimum of two trustees in each board as lone trustees have been very vulnerable to harassment and cancellation. Yes, democratically elected officials have been silenced because of their politics.

Support beleaguered teachers and others

Finally, a number of teachers face cancellation for their not woke 'normie' political views. This is also true of many professionals including nurses, psychologists, social workers and others. Indeed professional associations have been set up for cancellation of any political dissenters, with avenues for secret complaints and woke codes of conduct. When this happens they need help with funds and support, places like The Democracy Fund can help.

Professionals should pay close attention to association elections, so called anti-racism codes and other woke incursions and mandates. Speak up when you see something. Vote for not-woke candidates, and if need be, run yourself.

And, finally - speak up in whatever group, whenever you can!

Conclusion

This is going to take time and persistence, battles will be lost, people cancelled, our institutions tested.

But what choice do we have?

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read Why we need the word ‘Woke’

1) By subscribing to the paid version of the Woke Watch Canada Newsletter for - $5/month or $50/year

2) By donating to the Canadian School Board Investigation fund, which is raising money to expand Woke Watch Canada’s research and investigation into dysfunctional Canadian school boards.

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1. https://genderreport.ca/tribunal-avoids-putting-guardrails-on-gender-identity-theory/