Parent's rights

There is an interesting debate in the Alberta legislature these days about what rights parents have to pull their children from classes on topics they don't want teachers educating their children on. The debate is sparked by the high-tension sexual health segments of school curriculum as well as lessons about religion.

Hmm. In the CBC news article on the topic it suggests that perhaps teachers are not presenting the material in ways that some parents would like their children educated on these topics. Presumably, these parents will provide some sort of homeschooling to compensate for the child's absence from class.

I agree that parents have the right to control, influence and effect what their children learn about the world and how their children learn it. Of course they can't control everything their child learns, but we have a human right to inculcate our children with a worldview that we believe is good. And to introduce them to ways of experiencing and living in the world that will enable them to become mature contributors to Canadian society. Provincial curricula are just one way to educate children. And you can see across every province a myriad of teaching methods, curricula, and pedagogy at work making children into what Canada is. A beautifully interwoven patchwork of differences.

It is what makes our country so great, that we have so many ways of doing everything, and yet more or less we manage to remain a cohesive society. It is what makes me so proud to call myself Canadian. We are diversity at its best. So what of parents pulling their children from classes on topics they don't agree with...I don't agree with this tactic. It doesn't bolster critical thinking in children nor does it support the fundamental Canadian value of diversity.

To me diversity means recognizing there are ways you don't want to live your life, but that for some people they are good ways to live.

A better tactic for parents is to be more involved in their children's classroom learning. Asking about what children learned at school, supplementing school lessons with parental views and values. Adding more information and being a part of the education of children. Trying to make a one size fits all education system in a country like Canada is ridiculous. And trying to give kids outs on education is not the right answer either.

As parents we are responsible to be part of our children's education. We are responsible to make our children's education unique and custom fit tour each child. Sure kids will learn things you don't want them to learn, but with good parenting you will help fix right beliefs in your children. And further prepare them to face the diverse ways of living that exist in Canada. Diversity and tolerance aren't about accepting every ones way of life, but affirming that your way of life is right for you. And accepting all Canadians have the same self-affirming right.

I want to use the example of evolution, as evolution is usually the topic people always say, "you have to learn it, there are uncountable volumes of scientific [ie irrefutable facts] that support evolution, if parents don't want their kids learning evolution then they should home school or not expect to get a science credit from any respectable Canadian school." It seems to be this inarguable truth in education that only simple rock creatures wouldn't agree with. Evolution explains life.

Personally, I have long disbelieved in evolution. I always viewed it as a story, like an Aesop fable...a very good and useful story that hopefully will endure 2000 years as the fables have endured...but in the end it is merely a way of explaining, not an irrefutable truth. It is the moral of the story that is the enduring point. The moral of the story of evolution is "life changes" and evolution teaches that, so it is a useful story to teach. Where as the biblical creation story somewhat falls short of teaching us that life changes and thus is not so useful in that regard, but it does teach belief in the fantastic; which i consider an essential life skill...so it has its place too.

Anyway, even this belief in evolution which we hold up as the bastion of modern though is these days up for debate. Darwinian evolution is fast falling out of favour with many in the scientific community and the whole story itself is changing. But children educated to look at it as "one way" of explaining life are well prepared to handle this debate, this change and the shifting explanations that are now spewing forth from the scientific community. But will children learn this by pulling out of evolution lessons? Even if it isn't the best explanation or the full story, it is a piece of the puzzle. And that's all we should hope for in education...pieces of puzzles.

And parents have the right, and should have the right, to help their children lay with those pieces.