The schoolteacher who rejected wokeness—and paid for it
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Summary
In this episode of the Full Comment Podcast, we speak with Chanel Fall, a woman who used to teach in the public school system and is currently not teaching. She shares her story of how she became a teacher, how she got into the profession, and how she ended it all.
Transcript
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There's an old song by the Canadian band Spirit of the West called Political, and I've been thinking about it as I prepared to speak to our next guest.
00:02:17.760
My name is Brian Lilly, your host, and our next guest is going to delve into the issue of politics in schools.
00:02:25.320
And the reason that song, Political, by Spirit of the West was in my head is because it's a song about a breakup.
00:02:33.620
A breakup because everything was so political that the couple just couldn't handle it anymore.
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And that's kind of what happened to Chanel Fall, a woman who used to teach in the public school system and is currently not teaching.
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Before I bring on Chanel, though, I do want to remind you, you can subscribe.
00:02:53.760
Please do subscribe to the Full Comment Podcast.
00:02:56.800
Hit the subscribe button on whatever device you're listening on.
00:02:59.680
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00:03:11.020
So a couple of years back, Chanel Fall was teaching, minding her own business at school, but getting a little bothered by some of the politics.
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And then she posted something on Facebook that led to a complaint being filed and then a suspension because her Facebook post was not politically correct.
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Chanel Fall joins me now from Ottawa this morning.
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I think this is a really important topic to discuss today.
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Let's give me the elevator pitch version of what happened to you, you know, because I want to get into how you got into teaching and where things changed for you.
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You you made a post that somebody didn't like and and that started problems for you in the teaching profession?
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I had recently kind of woken up to everything that was going on before that.
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I like it was, I'd say, in the summer of 2020 that I kind of started to see things differently.
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But I started speaking out against it very carefully.
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I knew what kind of environment I was, you know, getting getting into.
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And what I said was essentially that we shouldn't indoctrinate kids with critical race theory.
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We should teach them how to think and not what to think.
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And anyway, some a teacher I had never spoken with before.
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She she saw that she thought it was harmful and offensive.
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The next day at school, I got a letter informing me that I was under investigation.
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And as you said, that ended up landing me with a suspension.
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It ended up landing me with another investigation.
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Anyway, it's been ongoing ever since I'm still being investigated today.
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How would you describe yourself when you got into teaching?
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Because people often go in for a specific reason, often an idealistic reason.
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Um, what was it for you that drew you to teaching?
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Well, I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was probably in grade 10.
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Um, I don't know exactly what it was, but I know I grew up in a big family.
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So I was always naturally the one who would organize activities for us to do when we got together.
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And, um, and then I guess I got to high school, I really, really liked my biology classes.
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And I thought it would be just the best path for me to dive into that deeper and then to
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I, I, I would say probably the best word to describe myself at the time in university and
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in my first years of teaching would be sheltered because I wasn't ideologically driven per
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se, but I was not really aware of the political landscape that much.
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I didn't really do, do too much of my own thinking, if that makes sense.
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So then I, I guess if there were politics at play when you first started teaching that
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you wouldn't necessarily have noticed or cared or been bothered, would you say that's
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I think the, this ideology does a really good job at kind of hiding in the shadows.
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It, it is covered up with really pretty language of being inclusive and not being racist and
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all that, which obviously most people would agree with.
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Um, so it's, it's, it's kind of, it's easy to let it kind of slide by and you just think
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you're being a good person and you, you agree to it to a certain point.
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But if you really, really get to thinking about it, um, it starts to raise a couple red flags
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and you start to realize that anybody who objects to the ideology in any way is, uh, you know,
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an outcast and has to be shamed and, um, that kind of thing.
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Um, so I would say one of the moments that shifted my thinking the most was the summer
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of 2020 when, um, one of my old professors got canceled and, uh, I respected that man a
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And all he said was that all lives mattered and people just came at him.
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So, um, I stood up for him at that time and I remember being deleted by a handful of people
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on Facebook and I thought, what is going on here?
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So that was one of the moments that really shifted me.
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So it was after the George Floyd, uh, murder, uh, he put out a tweet.
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So he said something along the lines of, um, you know, like racism is stupid.
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We are all evolved from single celled organisms.
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We all have to treat each other like human beings and get along and, and not be racist,
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Um, and, um, I guess he, he didn't understand the subtlety of, of what that all lives matter
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And yet knowing that you still made a post that led to you not being fully canceled, but
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You're not supposed to go off side of, of what is allowed.
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I did get the memo and I did know that there was risk involved.
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And I guess the, the reason that I did it anyway, is that I got more afraid of the alternative.
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Um, at a certain point, I started to think about, um, what happens when, you know, societies
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devolve into this authoritarian kind of totalitarianism where everybody's lying and everybody has to think
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the same thing and we cannot have opposing views anymore.
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And that got to be even scarier than me just losing my job.
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You know, what do you mean by losing your whole society?
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It was about our institutions and, and the basic principles that we were destroying in the
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Um, I, I really felt that, you know, in 10 years or 20 years, our society look nothing
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If everybody just, um, decides that they're going to shut off their brain and just go along
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with whatever the activists say, even when, um, it leads to situations like, um, canceling
00:10:39.960
Um, that's just not a good way to, um, for society to go forward.
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What was it that in critical race theory that, that was bothering you?
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What specifically, you know, because look, this has been hotly debated and I've had people
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Um, we know that's not true because teachers like yourself come forward and say, Hey, wait
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So beyond teaching kids that racism is wrong, which I don't know.
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Well, actually I do hear from some crazy people via email now and again, who are racists, but
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most people in civil society, regardless of politics, religion background, they don't subscribe
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So, you know, it is the overwhelmingly popular position that racism is bad.
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So what are, what is it that CRT was, uh, or you were being asked to teach in critical
00:11:49.020
Well, I think what it is, is the word racist is, is now, uh, now means something different
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So most people, when they say that they support these anti-racism, uh, initiatives, what they're
00:12:02.760
saying is they want to treat everyone the same regardless of their skin color.
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We all have the same opportunities, which is fine.
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Um, but you get the activists who now have redefined racism and they've, they've, now it means
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something like, um, this ever present, um, societal, like force that's always lingering in
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the background somewhere that every single situation has racism in it.
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Um, and it's not necessarily individual behavior even.
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So you, you might not even know that you're participating in the racism, but it is just
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And now if you ask them to substantiate their claims and you say, you know, what's an example
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of racism or how, how do you know that our society is racist?
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All they can ever point to is differential group outcomes.
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So if you look at the, um, anti-racism professional advisory that the Ontario College of Teachers
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put out, uh, in September, 2020, I believe, they have examples in there to, uh, well, to,
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to, uh, justify kind of their, their position on this and what they've put forward is, okay,
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We have black kids are being suspended at a higher rate than white kids or black kids aren't
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succeeding as well than, uh, as white students, um, things like that.
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And, you know, any respectable academic will look at that statistic and say, okay, what
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They can do a multivariate analysis and determine, okay, what is, what is contributing to this?
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What does, what does the family, the average family of a black student versus a white student
00:14:13.660
How, um, you know, what, what's playing into this?
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Let's figure it out so that we can actually, um, solve it.
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But, uh, the critical race theorists believe that it's all due to racism.
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And the solution is to put in more anti-discrimination, anti-bias training.
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And then, uh, somehow these, uh, you know, group outcome differences are going to all even
00:14:43.400
Well, well, what if it's socioeconomic factors?
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You know, I'm thinking of, um, some neighborhoods in Toronto, uh, with large black populations that
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are economically, they're at the bottom and that leads to a lot of outcomes.
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You know, if you read, follow the social science on it, if you just completely discount the
00:15:07.880
socioeconomic and say, well, no, it's just racism, then you're not going to address the socioeconomic
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And these socioeconomic factors would affect people of all races, right?
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So a lot of people are, you know, really disadvantaged, uh, white folks who have no money whatsoever.
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They, they can hardly, you know, sustain themselves.
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And then they're being told that school, you know, when maybe they might not even have a
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lunch that day, they're being told that they have all the power and privilege in society.
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Um, I mean, what does this do for a child's mental health?
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What does it do for their, um, you know, they're just their sense of identity in the world and
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Did you see it create division among students in, in class?
00:16:03.220
I think, um, like I haven't been in a classroom now for a year and a half, so it's hard to really
00:16:10.460
know exactly how it is today, but I will say that from the time I started teaching to the
00:16:15.580
time I stopped, which is four years, um, I found that students were more reluctant to
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share their, their opinions by the end of it than when I started.
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Um, I think there's this self-censorship going on, which is, um, just really impacting how
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students can, can learn to think, you know, in a classroom, like it's, they just have to
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hold it back unless it's, unless their opinion is consistent with the ideology, they are too
00:16:49.360
We saw that recently with the story, um, in the Ottawa Valley, um, student in small town
00:16:56.180
of Renfrew, uh, no, no insult to Renfrew, but, um, you know, compared to big cities, it's,
00:17:01.920
it's fairly small, uh, small community and a student there at a Catholic high school was
00:17:08.280
suspended for saying there are only two genders.
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And then when he decided to come back to class, cause he wanted to go to school again, uh, but
00:17:17.380
he hadn't apologized and met all the other criteria.
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Um, that student is being denied an education because he has a different point of view.
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Uh, he says that there are other students that are self-censoring and that's what you
00:17:40.460
And I mean, I get secondhand accounts from a lot of people too.
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Like I'm just saying what I've seen, um, from my own personal experience, but I hear from
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And I get parents telling me that, uh, for example, their six year old, uh, white kid now
00:17:57.220
is being told by, by other kids at the school that they can't play with them because they're
00:18:06.020
But this, I mean, being super, super hyper aware of your race when you're six or seven
00:18:17.880
And I don't think we're thinking through the effects of, of this teaching at all.
00:18:22.460
Um, what's been the response from your fellow teachers?
00:18:26.380
Um, you know, I, I'm, I'm sure many of them have views on you.
00:18:33.980
Um, the positive ones I'm sure can't say things in public, but what's been the feedback
00:18:41.980
The ones that support me have not done so in a, in a public manner, um, really.
00:18:46.820
But, uh, yeah, the teachers that I know in real life, um, I would say that I, well, I've
00:18:53.980
been deleted and blocked by a lot of them, um, which was hard at first when I didn't really
00:19:00.940
have like a, you know, a circle, a group that was supporting me.
00:19:07.100
Now I finally am at a place where I feel more comfortable with my views.
00:19:11.000
But at first it was really, um, difficult to see that, um, I do have a lot of teachers
00:19:16.920
who have reached out and they support me, but as you said, they can't say so publicly.
00:19:22.700
And a lot of them who, um, are a mystery to me, to be honest, they're still on my Facebook
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page and they have not reached out to me at all, even though they know what's happening.
00:19:32.140
So, um, I'm curious myself to know what they're thinking.
00:19:40.040
Um, I don't know if that's something that's going to happen for me just because, um, you
00:19:46.660
know how it is, um, you know, if they Google my name, they're going to find all this, all
00:19:51.680
kinds of stuff about my political views and it doesn't align with their, their school values
00:19:57.100
So I, I'm not going to put my hopes up too much, uh, but I do really hope that one day
00:20:04.080
I will get hired again and I'll be able to provide, uh, my students with, you know, balanced
00:20:09.700
opposing views on, on issues and not just push one way of thinking.
00:20:15.000
Uh, Chanel, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to ask you about
00:20:18.360
your decision to run for, uh, trustee and what your advice would be for people who are
00:20:25.180
concerned about the direction of the education system.
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You stopped teaching a little while ago, but you decided last fall to run for a school trustee
00:20:55.700
Was it the direction you saw the school system going in the issues that we were talking about
00:20:59.860
that made you uncomfortable on the teaching side and, and you felt you could make a difference
00:21:06.200
What prompted it was probably a lot of peer pressure.
00:21:09.480
No, um, I had a lot of people telling me I should do it.
00:21:16.660
I just thought, okay, I've never done this before.
00:21:18.640
I have no idea what I'm doing, but I was in the school system.
00:21:22.780
Um, I think I have good ideas in terms of what school boards should be, should be focusing
00:21:27.120
on and what kind of identity, identity politics we should get rid of.
00:21:31.940
And I just thought, well, I'll put my name forward and see what happens.
00:21:35.920
And, uh, yeah, I mean, it, it was a fun experience.
00:21:39.900
I, I really hope that more people will, I mean, well, fun in terms of, you know, I, I did get
00:21:46.240
smeared in media a lot and it was up, up and down and all of that, but, you know, you, you live
00:21:51.940
and learn and, and you, now that's something that I've done.
00:21:58.840
But, um, I, I really hope that people will get more involved in the local school boards,
00:22:04.480
um, cause they're making a lot of really harmful decisions at this point.
00:22:09.060
Well, when you were in teaching, where did you see this push for, uh, politicization with,
00:22:16.140
you know, regardless of what type it is, not just critical race theory, but there's all
00:22:19.760
kinds of politicization in the classroom that I see.
00:22:23.300
Um, I'm not sure that if my kids were little again, that I would put them in the public school
00:22:29.200
system in Ontario or anywhere else, because it just seems like a constant battle, a constant
00:22:36.100
You just want your kids to, to get a good education.
00:22:39.180
And there's a constant ongoing whack-a-mole type, um, feature to the, uh, the, the politics
00:22:53.840
You know, my experience, um, both as a, uh, a parent, when my kids were in school as a,
00:23:00.200
you know, short time school council member, and from knowing a lot of teachers is that
00:23:05.200
often it was the, the teachers unions and the, the consultants within the boards, uh, you
00:23:12.500
know, they hire these consultants for everything under the sun.
00:23:16.360
And you wonder why at the education budget goes up and there's no more spending in the
00:23:24.700
Um, that was my experience, both the unions and these educrat consultants.
00:23:30.660
Was that your experience as well as a teacher that you were being pushed from both the board
00:23:36.280
and from your union to adopt different political views or, or push different political agendas?
00:23:49.240
Like, oh, we've got a black history month here and this transphobia week here and all of
00:23:57.660
And all of this stuff is used to usher in the ideology, um, at all, all the time.
00:24:04.140
I mean, um, at the OCSB, the Ottawa Catholic board, they're doing standing against racism week
00:24:10.820
this week after just ending their, their whole month of anti-racism in February for black history
00:24:21.500
It's coming also from individual teachers who, um, you know, if they're active on social
00:24:26.340
media and they're following the latest world trends, they will want to bring that into their
00:24:32.380
And the consultants, as you said, there's so many of them and they are making a ton of money.
00:24:37.940
Um, some of them charge from a thousand to $2,000 just for one workshop and that's out
00:24:47.120
Um, and, uh, but I will say though, like as much as there is a lot of pressure, there
00:24:52.160
is still an opportunity for teachers in the system to not push this stuff in their own
00:25:02.680
Um, I, I know a lot of good teachers who are still in the system and they're doing their
00:25:09.160
It's just that I guess the problem is when you have the activist teachers who, who want
00:25:16.300
In fact, they probably don't even know what the other side is saying.
00:25:20.140
Um, they have to go ahead and they're encouraged to, to do that.
00:25:24.360
So is it just a sign if a teacher is quiet and not political, that they're necessarily
00:25:31.960
Um, because it, you know, obviously a lot of this comes from the progressive woke left.
00:25:36.440
Um, if you're not participating in it, are you giving yourself away as a non-conformist,
00:25:42.220
as a centrist, as a conservative or something other than the, the, the view of the day?
00:25:50.480
Actually, that's a good question because more and more what I've noticed is
00:25:54.140
um, before it used to be more of an opt-in method where, um, you got to be, you got to
00:26:02.700
like step up and do more activism if you wanted to.
00:26:05.860
But now it's almost like, um, everyone's expected to do the activism.
00:26:10.800
And if you don't want to do it, you need to opt out in some cases.
00:26:14.740
Like, um, for example, if they have a day where everyone needs to wear black, which happened
00:26:21.740
at the Ottawa Catholic board, um, not too long ago, maybe last month, it was united in black
00:26:30.960
Now you need to wear a black shirt because otherwise you're going to, uh, you know, be,
00:26:37.020
it's going to be very clear where you stand on this stuff.
00:26:39.880
And it's not that you're for racism, of course, I should specify it's, it's just that maybe
00:26:45.480
you don't believe that that particular method of addressing racism is the best one.
00:26:50.940
You are getting sent a lot of information and on your social media, you are now, uh, posting
00:26:59.980
Is it teachers who are, I'm not asking you to expose anyone, but, um, but you know, is it
00:27:11.200
Uh, most of the stuff that I post is just me, um, finding it.
00:27:18.540
You don't need to be, you don't need to have any kind of blogging codes.
00:27:24.340
I'll tell you how to find it because honestly I could work at this, um, from 24 hours a day
00:27:32.000
And I would still have way too much material that I wouldn't be able to post.
00:27:36.040
Every rabbit hole that I find brings me to another rabbit hole of more wokeism in our
00:27:43.600
So, um, I do get sent maybe 25% of what I post.
00:27:49.000
Um, that comes from, I would say probably 50, 50 teachers and parents.
00:27:54.880
Um, but the rest is just stuff I'm finding on my own.
00:27:58.640
Every time I write on these sorts of things, you know, for example, uh, um, a report that
00:28:04.940
was issued by the head of Ontario's public service, declaring that the entire Ontario public
00:28:11.020
service is based on white supremacists, uh, foundations, um, that, that was a statement
00:28:22.260
And, and, and it became the, the focus of the, um, the actual report.
00:28:27.900
Every time I write on these sorts of things, it's a steady stream of people saying, thank
00:28:36.620
And there does seem to be an industry of consultants.
00:28:39.260
And in my view, it, they're, they're brought in to run these courses, but oftentimes they're
00:28:47.700
There is, there are racism continues to exist in this country and it's a problem that should
00:28:56.260
Uh, but if you are constantly giving children or adults in a workplace, American examples, well,
00:29:05.620
that doesn't match the Canadian lived experience, does it?
00:29:11.700
A lot of it is brought in, um, from the States.
00:29:14.400
Their examples are just all based on the same kind of thinking.
00:29:17.900
Um, yeah, I mean, I could name you offhand, like, uh, consultant after consultant, they do
00:29:26.740
They go in there and they convince kids that, um, you know, the race is a really important
00:29:33.380
They need to, um, acknowledge other people's race and treat them differently on that basis.
00:29:40.500
Um, it's really, really terrible, dangerous stuff.
00:29:43.780
What's the, the worst thing that you, you saw as, as a teacher that, that came forward?
00:29:49.440
What, um, what was the part that, that made you most concerned for what students were going
00:29:57.500
Um, well, when I was working as a teacher that last year, um, I was still sort of waking
00:30:08.900
I'll say most of what I've found has come after I was, I had left that system.
00:30:16.880
You know, it can be after you've left, but I mean, sometimes I look at, at what is there
00:30:22.980
and, and I'm dumbfounded finding out that Thanksgiving is, is racist.
00:30:28.140
And then you find out, well, what's that based on?
00:30:30.900
Well, it's based on a schoolhouse rock cartoon version of the American Thanksgiving with the
00:30:35.700
pilgrims and the pioneers meeting in Massachusetts.
00:30:38.260
That's not Canada, but it shows up in Canadian, um, materials on anti-racism training.
00:30:44.600
Well, I'll say probably the most striking thing for me has been to see it come into math
00:30:50.400
Um, I mean, you would think that math and science would be, um, you know, somewhat protected
00:31:02.820
Um, a lot of math, math teachers are actually some of the biggest advocate, um, activists
00:31:11.040
They, they want, they think that math is racist because for example, um, in the past when grade
00:31:17.780
nine math was divided into applied and academic courses, we would see, uh, an over representation
00:31:26.580
So they figured that was racist and that math in order to make math better or more equitable
00:31:33.240
and all of that, we needed to make it culturally relevant.
00:31:37.600
They call it culturally relevant and responsive.
00:31:40.840
So this is the CRRP, um, thing that they're bringing in, which is, for example, giving more,
00:31:49.300
giving more, uh, reference points in the questions that, that might touch on, uh, different cultures
00:31:56.560
and, um, not so much emphasis on marks and on success and just not having exams, not having
00:32:08.760
Um, I guess all of this stuff is supposed to help, um, black students succeed or something.
00:32:15.040
I, uh, well, I remember writing on that in the Ontario curriculum, their grade nine math
00:32:19.880
curriculum that came out in 2021 at a time when, um, most students were not meeting the
00:32:27.480
provincial standard and the, the curriculum read mathematics is often positioned as an
00:32:36.740
However, the content and context in which it is taught, the mathematicians who are celebrated
00:32:41.620
in the importance that is placed upon mathematics by society or subjective mathematics has been
00:32:47.120
used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges
00:32:52.180
and a decolonial anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical
00:33:00.380
Um, if you understand math and the history of math and the fact that a lot of the, the theories,
00:33:07.960
you know, people will say, well, it started with the Greeks.
00:33:10.740
And then we also had Arabic mathematicians, Indian mathematicians, they invented the zero.
00:33:16.100
Uh, it, it has been a worldwide, uh, set of contributions that each culture is built
00:33:23.300
I, I don't know how that becomes white nationalist.
00:33:27.340
And I don't know about you, but when I took math in high school, I never remember being
00:33:31.580
told that someone was white or black or whatever.
00:33:33.960
We didn't care about the race of the, the mathematician we were talking about.
00:33:37.700
In fact, we didn't even hardly talk about the mathematicians.
00:33:45.400
Like I'll read you just, um, from the TDSB, they, they put out a, uh, file online and anyone
00:33:53.260
It's called pedagogical considerations for equitable and culturally relevant and responsive mathematics.
00:34:00.460
And, you know, there's a list of questions there.
00:34:04.040
Um, and it says like, for example, does the task or resource incorporate a social justice
00:34:11.160
perspective, um, consider how the resource explores current issues, uh, consider whether
00:34:18.040
the, the resource encourages students to use mathematics as a tool to, to address and challenge
00:34:28.760
Um, there's stuff like, have you considered how the information shows bias and all kinds
00:34:36.980
of, you know, social justice, typical language that, that you would, you would not expect
00:34:44.680
to find in a course like math, but here we are.
00:34:54.300
What's the status of the investigations you're facing?
00:34:59.080
They dropped one of my investigations, the one pertaining to the, uh, critical race theory
00:35:07.860
Uh, but they just started up a new investigation, um, last week.
00:35:13.000
Um, and that one, so the Ontario College of Teachers, so the licensing board for all teachers
00:35:20.140
in Ontario, uh, so they could strip me of my license.
00:35:26.080
So the problem now, um, is one tweet that I put out in October of this year when I was
00:35:39.440
And the tweet I put out was an email that had been sent to me by, uh, an OCDSB.
00:35:47.340
And what it said was that there was a school, uh, school board wide initiative where they
00:35:56.840
would be hosting after school virtual hangouts with, with the kids, but not just any kid.
00:36:10.300
And on Tuesday, Wednesday, it was for LGBT kids.
00:36:16.920
So I got that email and I posted it and they took issue with the fact that, well, they're
00:36:25.500
accusing me of having put links to the meetings in, like having shared links to the meetings
00:36:31.100
in that, um, email, even though there are no meeting links in it.
00:36:35.580
And they're telling me that, um, I put students at risk because some of the meeting codes were
00:36:43.380
in the email that I shared, even though anyway, it's a long story, but there was different
00:36:49.840
And from my perspective, I didn't, I didn't share anything that I couldn't, that I was told
00:36:56.920
So, um, yeah, now, so I guess I just wait for that and see where that goes.
00:37:02.520
It is, uh, it is a bizarre world for you, uh, Chanel.
00:37:06.400
Thanks for your time today and, um, keep in touch and let us know where things go from
00:37:18.180
This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:37:24.400
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00:37:30.140
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00:37:33.580
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