Juno News - How Woke are our schools？

00:00:00.240 Schools should teach our kids how to think, not what to think.

00:00:03.840 But woke leftist activists think the opposite and unfortunately they're winning.

00:00:09.120 I'm Jasmine Moulton and it's time for a reality check.

00:00:18.960 Municipal elections are taking place across the country right now.

00:00:22.160 British Columbia just had one.

00:00:23.840 Ontario has one coming up, so does Manitoba and Prince Edward Island.

00:00:27.520 But a lot of Canadians don't care about their municipal elections.

00:00:31.520 You should.

00:00:32.000 Although a lot of media scrutiny focuses on the federal level of government,

00:00:36.000 technically you're much closer to the effects of decisions made by municipal politicians.

00:00:41.520 So you really should pay attention to who you're electing.

00:00:44.320 And this is especially true when it comes to school board trustees,

00:00:48.240 who are elected at the same time, often during municipal elections.

00:00:52.320 City News even reported that one in five voters in municipal elections

00:00:56.400 didn't even fill out the section about their school board trustees.

00:00:59.920 Don't be that person.

00:01:01.200 Here's why.

00:01:01.920 School boards have a ton of power.

00:01:04.800 If you consider the Toronto District School Board, for example,

00:01:07.360 the TDSB has a budget of over $3.5 billion to spend every single year.

00:01:13.440 And that's about three times the size of the budget of the City of London, Ontario, for example.

00:01:18.080 So we're talking lots of money, lots of tax dollars at their fingertips.

00:01:22.160 But beyond just the spending decisions, trustees make the final call on every single policy and

00:01:27.840 procedure that comes out of the school board.

00:01:30.320 So it's really important that we pay attention to who we're electing to these positions.

00:01:35.360 Increasingly, we're hearing news stories that school board trustees are going woke.

00:01:39.840 Now, what does woke even mean?

00:01:41.920 Woke typically is defined by those who claim to be woke as being alert to injustice,

00:01:48.480 especially where racism is involved.

00:01:50.720 And as you know well by now, this show is about debunking things leftists say.

00:01:55.920 So this week we're going to take on wokeism, specifically wokeism in our schools.

00:02:00.800 And when it comes to wokeism in our schools, leftists will often say that it's no big deal.

00:02:05.600 It's just about ending discrimination.

00:02:07.280 It's a good thing.

00:02:08.400 So we're going to take that argument on.

00:02:10.400 And also they'll say that it's not even in Canada.

00:02:13.600 Critical race theory, that sort of thing, that's an American issue.

00:02:16.800 That's not even here.

00:02:18.080 Why are you talking about it?

00:02:19.600 A lot of gaslighting going on.

00:02:20.880 And we're going to tackle that too.

00:02:22.560 And really the best way to debunk these arguments is just to list what's going

00:02:26.240 on in Canadian schools.

00:02:27.760 There's a long list of woke news stories coming out of Canadian schools,

00:02:31.680 and some of them you won't believe.

00:02:33.520 Let's get started.

00:02:34.240 So for their first argument that wokeism is about ending discrimination.

00:02:38.720 Well, that sounds great.

00:02:40.080 And if that was the case, then everybody would be behind it.

00:02:43.600 Obviously nobody wants discrimination in our schools.

00:02:46.560 And this is probably how a lot of woke policies have managed to escape parents' notice.

00:02:52.080 They sound great on paper.

00:02:53.920 But while leftists say that wokeism is about ending discrimination,

00:02:57.760 nothing could be further from the truth.

00:02:59.280 Take a listen to how Elon Musk describes the woke ideology.

00:03:02.560 At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful.

00:03:11.920 It basically gives mean people a reason,

00:03:18.160 it gives them a shield to be mean and cruel,

00:03:23.680 armored in false virtue.

00:03:24.960 And of course, Musk is exactly right when he says that this is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful.

00:03:30.640 In fact, being woke is the very opposite of diversity and inclusion.

00:03:34.320 Along the same lines, even our founder, Candace Malcolm, an editor-in-chief here at TNC,

00:03:39.360 wrote an article in the Toronto Sun saying this,

00:03:42.240 What to call someone who says we should judge people based on their skin color,

00:03:45.840 and that we should devise laws and rules that treat people differently based on their race.

00:03:50.240 We used to call these people racists, but today they call themselves anti-racists.

00:03:55.680 And if you disagree with them, then they call you a racist.

00:03:59.040 But don't take their word for it.

00:04:00.480 I'm about to list off examples of this wokeism in our schools,

00:04:04.160 and you can judge for yourself whether you think that it's about being alert to injustice,

00:04:08.960 or if it's really just about perpetuating and in fact exacerbating discrimination.

00:04:15.120 Example number one, white privilege lesson plans from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario.

00:04:22.160 So the ETFO has developed these lesson plans for primary, junior, and intermediate.

00:04:27.680 But what's important to note here is that they start as young as kindergarten.

00:04:31.840 So kindergarten in Ontario starts as young potentially as age four,

00:04:38.080 meaning that while kids are still struggling to figure out how to tie their shoes,

00:04:42.880 the ETFO thinks that they're ready for racism training.

00:04:46.000 They of course call this program Learn, Disrupt, Rebuild.

00:04:50.320 And as part of the program, they demand that teachers, quote,

00:04:53.520 bring race into the conversation and teach students that racism is a defining part of our society.

00:05:00.560 Again, they're starting to teach children this as young as the age of four.

00:05:05.200 Sue Ann Levy, of course, has done some excellent reporting on this story.

00:05:09.440 And she points out that a Hamilton school board is just one of the latest

00:05:12.960 to push these sorts of policies on its students.

00:05:15.920 Here's some of her reporting.

00:05:17.280 The final module for the primary grades is intended to teach K to grade three students

00:05:22.160 how to identify black racism.

00:05:24.480 The anti-racism module says CRT, critical race theory,

00:05:29.120 includes assumptions that racism is the normal way society does business

00:05:33.760 and that it serves the interests of white people in power materially.

00:05:38.160 All right.

00:05:38.400 So moving beyond white privilege lesson plans,

00:05:40.960 we'll get to our second example, which is as follows.

00:05:43.760 The Halton region of the larger Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, OSSTF,

00:05:48.880 which is a teachers union here in Ontario,

00:05:51.760 quote, implemented a controversial weighted voting system

00:05:55.760 to ensure that Indigenous, black and racialized teachers always represent 50% of the votes,

00:06:01.920 even if they might only represent 5% of the voices at the given meeting.

00:06:05.840 So essentially what they're doing here is saying that your vote counts for more

00:06:10.160 or less depending on the color of your skin, which sounds incredibly racist.

00:06:14.880 And of course sets a very questionable lesson in place for the children that they're teaching.

00:06:20.240 But beyond that, it's incredibly racist to assume that the groups that they identified here

00:06:25.840 all think the same way.

00:06:27.520 To say that two black teachers would have the same opinions is pretty racist in itself.

00:06:32.960 People are individuals.

00:06:34.000 They have different perspectives.

00:06:35.680 Just because you have the same skin color doesn't mean you think the same way.

00:06:39.120 But of course the impact of critical race theory in our schools in Canada doesn't stop there.

00:06:44.480 In Ontario, we recently saw de-streaming.

00:06:47.520 So for those of you outside the province,

00:06:49.360 because it's my understanding that streaming only took place in Ontario,

00:06:53.520 streaming was when you'd go into grade nine.

00:06:55.920 So when you transfer into high school, usually at the grade nine level,

00:07:00.160 you'd have the option to sign up for either academic streamed classes

00:07:04.480 or applied for your maths, your English, your core curriculum courses.

00:07:08.880 You're choosing between either academic or applied when you're going from grade eight to grade nine.

00:07:14.320 Ontario Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, who also happens to be a progressive conservative,

00:07:19.600 made the decision to de-stream math classes back in 2021.

00:07:23.920 And in 2022, the plan, of course, was to de-stream all courses offered at the grade nine level.

00:07:29.680 The rationale, of course, was that streaming is, quote, discriminatory because students

00:07:34.960 from racialized communities, low income households, and other marginalized groups

00:07:39.440 are more likely to be steered away from academic courses.

00:07:42.960 At least that's according to reporting from the CDC.

00:07:46.240 Now, right off the bat, as a former student from an Ontario high school,

00:07:49.440 I can tell you this is false on its face because students choose their stream.

00:07:55.040 Nobody is pushing you into one stream or another.

00:07:58.080 And if that's the case that you had some horrible person that was streaming children,

00:08:05.040 telling children what they had to choose based on the color of their skin,

00:08:09.760 of course, that would be horrible and discriminatory.

00:08:12.080 And that person should be dealt with appropriately.

00:08:14.240 But in Ontario, students choose whether they want to take an academic or an applied course.

00:08:19.360 So right off the bat, the idea that this is sort of discriminatory grooming is false.

00:08:24.720 And in fact, there's a blog post from an Ontario teacher who wrote

00:08:28.560 anonymously out of fear of repercussions for his or her job.

00:08:32.560 But this teacher writes against de-streaming, citing issues of illiteracy and innumeracy

00:08:37.680 that are being covered up by woke band-aid solutions of de-streaming.

00:08:41.440 Take a listen.

00:08:42.400 This teacher says, and I quote,

00:08:44.160 No news articles about de-streaming mention literacy because they're too preoccupied

00:08:49.520 with persecuting the education system's supposed inequities.

00:08:53.360 But the issue at hand isn't marginalization, racism, or classism,

00:08:58.080 as the applied students have significantly lower literacy skills than their academic counterparts,

00:09:03.920 as demonstrated by the fact that nearly all academic students pass the Ontario

00:09:08.480 secondary school literacy test, and most applied students don't.

00:09:12.960 So apparently what we're hearing from the Ontario government is that it's

00:09:16.640 racist or discriminatory to let students chart their own course through high school,

00:09:21.920 choosing their own classes, whether academic or applied.

00:09:25.280 And instead, it's best to just put all of those students with differing needs

00:09:28.560 and differing preferences into the same class and hope for the best.

00:09:32.160 But of course, this teacher is exactly right in pointing out that this, again,

00:09:35.840 is just a band-aid solution. And like Elon Musk alluded to,

00:09:39.760 the fact that wokeism is just about making yourself appear virtuous,

00:09:43.440 it makes the Minister of Education seem virtuous that he cares about discrimination,

00:09:47.840 but he's of course doing nothing to address the root causes.

00:09:50.560 He's just eliminating streaming, which is a benefit to no student,

00:09:54.720 but of course he seems woke and progressive.

00:09:56.960 Our fourth example of wokeism in Canadian schools sticks perfectly with this theme of CRT,

00:10:02.800 critical race theory, that everything is now racist.

00:10:05.840 Consider some of the latest examples of racism that have been decried by

00:10:10.960 public school boards in this country.

00:10:13.120 Math, crazy hair day, Halloween costumes, and singing O Canada.

00:10:18.320 Let me explain. So starting with math,

00:10:20.640 according to the Toronto District School Board's mathematics and numeracy department,

00:10:25.280 examples of covert white supremacy in mathematics education include 2 plus 2 equals 4,

00:10:33.520 standardized testing, assuming mathematics is neutral, and the list goes on.

00:10:39.280 You can see if you're watching the YouTube version of this show,

00:10:42.960 you can see a chart that was used in, I believe, some training within the TDSB.

00:10:47.280 This is some crazy, crazy stuff when math teachers are considered racist for suggesting that 2 plus 2

00:10:55.920 does indeed equal 4. Moving on, the next was crazy hair day.

00:11:01.120 So according to Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, 0.65

00:11:04.640 crazy hair day is now racist because many of the hairstyles selected are cultural styles for black 0.93

00:11:11.440 people. And I'm quoting here, in deeming those styles crazy, we deem there's something wrong with them.

00:11:19.200 Moving on to Halloween costumes, how are those culturally insensitive?

00:11:24.240 Well, according to the TDSB, quote, for many, Halloween is an exciting time of year.

00:11:30.160 For people whose cultures are caricatured and appropriated, it can be a difficult time.

00:11:35.600 As educators, we must prevent harm by engaging students in critical conversations

00:11:40.960 about cultural appropriation, stereotypes, and caricature versus culture.

00:11:46.480 With any luck, they will include the Prime Minister of Canada in those lectures.

00:11:50.720 And of course, moving on to the last example, O Canada, how is that inappropriate?

00:11:55.920 According to an Ottawa school board, quote, singing O Canada is distasteful and it should be replaced.

00:12:03.920 Now, moving on to our fifth example of wokeism in Canadian schools,

00:12:08.560 of course, the woke crowd would not rest easy if we neglected to include the trans community,

00:12:15.440 who they also claim face severe discrimination within our school system.

00:12:20.800 And of course, much of these issues came to light with the recent news story that made international

00:12:26.320 headlines, not just here in Canada, in Oakville, Ontario, where it happened, but of course around the

00:12:32.000 world. And that was of the Oakville shop teacher who wore large prosthetic breasts to class while 0.95

00:12:40.240 operating heavy machinery. Now that story received a lot of attention, so I'm not going to dwell on it

00:12:45.600 for too long. But an even bigger question around this whole story was what was the board's reaction?

00:12:52.080 What was the accountability here to a clear question around a dress code? So watch this clip of a 1.00

00:12:57.920 Halton school board rep defending the teacher. So we are, as a board, we are committed to human rights

00:13:04.480 and we're committed to supporting all our teachers and staff and students in an environment that upholds

00:13:11.280 their dignity, their gender identity and their gender expression, right? Issues around safety are

00:13:18.320 matters that we deal with on an ongoing basis. And we continue to deal with those issues,

00:13:24.160 not just with any best teacher, but with all teachers. So that is something that we're committed

00:13:30.480 to health and safety for all our students and staff. But I noticed, Mr. Innes, you can't display nipples 0.84

00:13:36.240 as part of the dress code of the Halton district school board. All of his outfits, he's displaying nipples. 0.97

00:13:44.000 In the shop, he's wearing long sleeves. Those massive prosthetic breasts are near cutting equipment. I would 0.98

00:13:50.800 argue if this was a student doing this, it would not be tolerated. So why does this person get such leeway?

00:13:58.880 You keep saying he. The first thing is, we are, you know, being respectful of all of our gender

00:14:05.840 identity and gender expression of all of our staff. And we are supportive of our staff and our students.

00:14:12.880 This dress code is for students and the dress code is not for staff. The dress code is for students.

00:14:19.520 Now, of course, this wasn't the first time that a trans-related issue within a Canadian public school

00:14:25.040 had made news headlines. Back in 2021, the Toronto Star reported, and it wasn't a critical piece,

00:14:31.920 it was really more upbeat and positive. They reported the following. An Oshawa school has become

00:14:38.000 the first in Durham to host Drag Queen Storytime as part of Pride Month. On June 22nd, back in 2021,

00:14:45.600 kindergarten to grade three students at Coronation Public School welcomed Durham Drag Queen Violet

00:14:51.200 Parks for a virtual event that included reading books with an inclusivity theme. And a quote in

00:14:57.280 that article from the Drag Queen stated, performing for kids is all about becoming a magical princess

00:15:03.840 or character for kids to feel connected to. In a kid's perspective, it's similar to meeting a Disney

00:15:10.080 character. Now, further on in the Toronto Star article, of course, they interviewed the principal

00:15:15.760 at the school at the time. And the principal had stated that it was good to bring in Drag Queen's 0.51

00:15:21.760 four-story hour because the lessons that it taught kids about values were overall good. So the kids

00:15:29.440 were learning a lot. But again, the trans-related news headlines in our schools don't stop there.

00:15:35.200 The National Post ran a piece titled, Reason-Phobic School Board Punishes Teacher Over Valid Questions

00:15:41.440 About Transgender Books. So the story was actually pretty basic. There was a teacher at one of the

00:15:46.800 schools in Waterloo who saw some books in the library that she just raised concerns about. She

00:15:53.280 was asking the question, are these appropriate? Is this good content for children to be consuming? And

00:15:59.680 of course, just for merely raising this question, the board took disciplinary action on the teacher. Now

00:16:05.600 here are the two books that she raised concerns about. And the National Post reports, one book titled

00:16:12.400 Rick tells the story of a child who, in the second chapter, identifies as asexual. The teacher felt that

00:16:19.280 the book might lead children to think that there's something wrong with them if they don't have sexual

00:16:24.400 feelings at a young age. Quote, maybe Rick doesn't have sexual feelings yet because he is a child,

00:16:30.800 she said. The second book, The Other Boy is what it's called, tells the story of Shane, a transgender

00:16:38.640 teen. In the book, a doctor tells Shane that there may be side effects to medical transition to which

00:16:44.320 Shane simply replies, it's cool. The teacher argued that the book trivializes the aforementioned side

00:16:50.160 effects, which include sterilization. Now, while I could go on and on about various other examples

00:16:56.000 I uncovered, here's the last one that I'll share on the show today. This is a poster. This is a tweet

00:17:00.880 I saw shared by Jonathan Kaye. And the poster was put up in a Forest Hill public school last year,

00:17:08.000 according again to Sue Ann Levy. And if you're just listening to the show, you're not watching it on

00:17:13.920 YouTube. The poster essentially has a series of drawings and a poem throughout that says,

00:17:21.040 women are women regardless of sex, and men are men in the same respects. You can be both or a mix of

00:17:27.360 the two, or you can be neither if that's what suits you. But people are people whatever their parts,

00:17:32.720 because what really matters is what's inside our hearts. Now, of course, one of those drawings shows

00:17:39.120 a female who has had her breasts removed, which of course raises questions of age appropriateness

00:17:45.280 amongst other things. So while I've listed a ton of examples in today's show of just how woke Canadian

00:17:50.880 schools have become, sadly, I couldn't even fit all of the examples into this show. There are so

00:17:57.040 many to choose from, and so many of them are really concerning. A really important thing to consider is

00:18:02.560 the backdrop of what all of this is happening against. So it's not like Canadian schools are thriving,

00:18:08.320 their scores are off the charts, that they just have a lot of extra time to talk about all of these

00:18:13.680 issues and delve into really controversial areas. No, what's actually happening in Canadian schools

00:18:19.360 is that despite historic highs in funding across the board, international test scores are declining.

00:18:25.920 Now we covered this extensively in another episode, so I'm not going to go too far into the details

00:18:30.640 there. You can check out that episode if you would like more information on why that's happening.

00:18:35.200 But the point is that we're not even getting the basics right, reading, math and arithmetic, at the

00:18:39.760 same time that we're focusing on all of these other really controversial topics. So here's a reality

00:18:46.160 check. It's obvious that our schools are now teaching our students what to think instead of how

00:18:50.720 to think, and what they're teaching them is very controversial to say the least. We need to pay a lot

00:18:57.120 closer attention to what's going on in our schools, and that's why it's so important that you pay attention

00:19:02.320 to this upcoming municipal election. If it's happening in your province, take a look at the

00:19:06.640 people running for the position of school board trustee and check out the policies that they are

00:19:11.440 proposing. But even if you're in a province that isn't having an upcoming municipal election,

00:19:15.280 there's still a lot that you can do to hold our schools to account. For example, in Alberta, I think

00:19:20.960 there was a municipal election last year, so the next one is in 2025. But between now and then,

00:19:26.400 you can also do something like write to your MLA, your member of your provincial parliament,

00:19:31.200 to express your concerns over some of these woke policies that are infecting Canadian schools.

00:19:36.320 That's our show this week. Thanks so much for listening. If you like our content and you think

00:19:40.480 it's important, then please consider making a donation at donate.tnc.news. I'm Jasmine Moulton,

00:19:46.880 and this is Reality Check.

Juno News - October 17, 2022

How Woke are our schools？

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