Bulsha:- When Christine Moyer’s six-year-old daughter came home from school in November and said her class had learned that “a family can have two mommies,” the Whitby mother was shocked.
As self-described “observant Christians,” the local woman says she and her husband have concerns about “sensitive” issues such as sex, same-sex relationships and gender identity being taught in the elementary grades.
“We don’t want the school to be counteracting the values we teach at home, that’s not their place,” Ms. Moyer says. “As parents, we should have a say in what our children are being taught.”
Also frustrated is Pickering resident Nadima Hossain, who says teaching anything other than abstinence before marriage clashes with the Muslim values her Grade 1 and 3 sons are learning at home.
“School is for math, reading, things like this,” she says. “I don’t think the teacher should be teaching morals. That is up to parents.”
They, and many other local parents, want a chance to offer feedback before the Province finalizes an updated sex ed curriculum set to roll out in September 2015.
The 1998 sex ed curriculum currently being used in Ontario schools is the most outdated in the country.
It doesn’t address cyberbullying, same-sex relationships or myriad other current topics.
In 2010, the Ontario government attempted to introduce an updated version of the curriculum, but shelved it after resistance from religious groups that claimed some of the content was too explicit for students in younger grades.
The proposed 2010 curriculum included discussions of homosexuality in Grade 3, puberty in Grade 6 — with masturbation as a possible topic — as well as information about sexually transmitted infections and delaying sexual activity, in the Grade 7 curriculum.
The new curriculum coming this fall will be an updated version of the 2010 document.
A review of the 2010 content was needed because it was actually created starting in 2007, said Education Minister Liz Sandals, noting that back then “sexting” wasn’t included and now needs to be — “I’m not sure it was a word that existed” at that time, she said.
Lack of parent consultation was a major part of the controversy in 2010 and the Province says it is trying to remedy that this time around.
In November, about 4,000 Ontario parents were given a chance to fill out an online survey about the curriculum.
It asked parents to indicate how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “I believe that the school should teach my child about both the risks of sexual activities and about ways to make safe and healthy choices regarding their sexual health,” and “It is important that my child(ren) learn about expected changes during puberty before their bodies begin to change.”
“In recognizing that parents have a strong interest in how this information is provided to their children, the Province committed to consult with parents before an updated curriculum is finalized,” Ms. Sandals said in a statement. “A parent in every elementary school across Ontario was provided with an opportunity to provide input. This means that we heard from parents with children in elementary schools across the province, and from all four of our publicly-funded boards.”
Ministry of Education spokesman Gary Wheeler says the finalized curriculum will be posted on the Ministry website “sometime this winter.”
Critics say surveying 4,000 parents isn’t enough.
Citizens for Good Education recently launched a petition calling for more transparency and consultation.
The group is a “grassroots network representing over 200 multi-faith, multi-ethnic community groups,” including Parents As First Educators, the Catholic Civil Rights League, Campaign Life Coalition and Public Education Advocates for Christian Equity (PEACE) Ontario.
Its members want to see the implementation date for the new curriculum bumped to September 2016 to allow time for the content to be posted online and provided in hard copy at every school -- and for feedback from all interested parents to be considered.
James Bountrogiannis, a Whitby father of two and spokesman for PEACE Durham, says schools should also be required to communicate with parents whenever “sensitive” issues are going to be taught.
“We don’t want to change the curriculum for everyone, we just want accommodation,” he says, noting families should have the chance to discuss information at home first or remove their children from class if there are concerns.
“The ultimate question is, who is raising the kids? The school or the parents? I want for my family to raise the kids, all I’m asking for is communication.”
Sex education proponents say, like it or not, teens are having sex and that rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among young people is proof that they’re not always doing it safely.
“We’re concerned about getting information to students because one of the things we can see when we look at public health data is that while the teen pregnancy rate has gone down, the teen sexually transmitted infection (STI) rate has gone up,” Ms. Sandals said. “Which tells us that kids have figured out how not to get pregnant, but if we have the STI rate amongst teens going up, it isn’t that sexual activity never takes place.”
In Durham, there are typically about 600 pregnancies per year in teen girls ages 15 to 19 -- the number could be slightly higher, as it doesn’t account for pregnancies in younger teens ages 13 or 14.
The teen pregnancy rate in both Durham and Ontario has been declining for years; the most recent data available from 2011 shows 24 pregnancies for every 1,000 females in Durham ages 15 to 19.
That rate varies hugely by municipality. In Brock it was 7 per 1,000, while Oshawa sits higher than the Ontario average with a rate of 43 per 1,000.
The Durham Region Health Department tracks the rate of six reportable STIs -- chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV/AIDS, syphilis, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Public health nurse Shannon Haskell says they see the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea in young adults.
“They are very preventable. If you use a condom 100 per cent of the time, you will protect yourself,” she says, noting condoms should be used for oral sex as well.
One concern is that chlamydia often doesn’t have symptoms, especially in females, which means people can spread it without knowing it.
Untreated chlamydia is common and can have serious long-term health consequences including pelvic inflammatory diseases and infertility.
“School-based sexual education plays such an important role, both in preventing negative sexual health outcomes...and to enhance sexual health, positive self-image and healthy relationship skills,” Ms. Haskell says.
Mark Hammann, program manager of education services for the AIDS Committee of Durham Region, says education about HIV/AIDS is also crucial, as many young people have major misconceptions about the virus.
“Twenty-five per cent of youth think there is a cure for HIV/AIDS,” he says, noting many young people still assume it’s something that only affects men who have sex with men.
In reality, about 33 per cent of new infections in those ages 15 to 29 occur in women.
Mr. Hammann hopes to see more content about HIV/AIDS in the new curriculum, and stresses that sex education overall is critically important,
“It’s great that parents take the lead, but not all parents are knowledgeable around all aspects of sexual health,” he says. “Youth are spending a lot of time online and getting sexual health information that is inaccurate and unreliable.”
Once the curriculum is finalized this winter, Mr. Wheeler says there will be online and face-to-face training provided to school boards to help prepare teachers for implementation in the fall.
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Xafiiska Shabakada Bulsha
UK- Leicester united kingdom
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