Fed up mothers

The Globe & Mail - August 29, 2002
'They're turning my kids' education into a three-ring circus'
MARGARET WENTE

Catherine Hedford, mother of two kids in the Toronto school system, can't pinpoint what pushed her over the edge. Was it the three afternoons her fifth-grader spent in school drawing a picture of an unmarried couple living together? Was it the day she found out there would be 36 other kids in his class next year? Was it when some angry parents took the kindergarten class to their MPP's office for a protest against funding cutbacks, with the school's approval?

She's not sure. What she does know is that she's had it - had it with the politics, the wrangling, the teachers who think "equity" is the most important word in the curriculum, the hostile principal. This week, she's shopping for a uniform so that her older kid will be ready to go back to class next week - at a private school.

"I truly do believe in public education," she says. "But everyone's brought their politics into the school. They're turning my kids' education into a three-ring circus."

She is also tired of getting dirty looks at the school her younger son still attends, so she asked me not to use her real name. I won't name the school, either. What I can tell you is that it's in downtown Toronto, and its reading scores aren't too high even though its kids are mostly middle class. It is an extreme example of how fads and ideologies can take over public education and drive even liberal-minded parents crazy. It also reflects a set of beliefs that many people in Ontario's education industry - teachers, trustees, consultants, parent activists and Queen's Park bureaucrats - hold dear.

Last June at the school was Diverse Families Month, designed to promote tolerance. That's how Ms. Hedford's son got his drawing assignment (which he thought was stupid). When she asked him how he planned to do it, he said: "Well, I'm going to make the house a really nice colour ... and I didn't put a wedding ring on them."

But what bugged her most was the stupendous amount of time it took up. "What kind of message is the school sending with that?"

During Diverse Families Month (which followed Black History Month and Global Harvest Festivals Month, when the kids learned about the inequities of food distribution), the second-graders learned about same-sex relationships. The fourth-graders learned about artificial insemination and sperm donors, and the fifth-graders learned about transgendered people. Everyone discussed gay rights. They wrote poems and drew pictures about diverse families. One Grade 5 class was assigned a crossword puzzle. Question No. 3 down: What is an eight-letter word for heterosexual?

"They're giving my kid a college-level course in family sociology, but they can't even teach him to spell 'family.'" Ms. Hedford has his poetry assignment to prove it. She also thinks they left some parts out. Maybe she'll take him over to Regent Park for another perspective on single mothers.

"What is age-appropriate here?" asks another mother, who'd like to know why kids are learning about sperm donors before they're taught how their own parents managed to have them. "This is not on their radar screen."

But when Ms. Hedford and other parents wondered whether this was all just a waste of time, and why the school should teach it in the first place, and why nobody told them about it or asked their opinion, they found that tolerance and diversity didn't apply to them.

"They thought I was homophobic," says Ms. Hedford. "I said, 'All I'm asking is for you to respect the diversity of my opinion.'"

"If you don't conform, you're dinosaur material," says the second mother, who's also taken her older children out of the public system. "I'm just so glad they're not there being confused by all this crap."

It's not just Diverse Families Month. It was the two months of social studies spent on "children's rights," where the kids learned how children are oppressed around the world. It was the repeat visits from the conflict resolution group. It was the principal, who agreed that the Grade 2 teacher was teaching inappropriate material about diversity but said there was nothing she could do.

"I read the auditor's report and disagreed with a lot of it," says Ms. Hedford, who is dismayed by the Tory government's funding cutbacks. "But he also said something like, 'The trustees think they can solve every social ill through education.' And he's right. That's a big part of the public education system's problem."

But it won't be her problem any more. "At the end of the day, I can beat my head against the wall. Or I can worry about my own kid and work a couple of extra days a week to pay for private school." She groans. "Do you know how much money I'm borrowing?"

As for those parents who don't have that option, here's a hint: The answer to No. 3 down is "straight."

mwente@globeandmail.ca