Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Calls to liberalize sex ed in Ontario amid sex controversies within system

Former deputy minister of education Benjamin Levin, federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Ontario
Premier Kathleen Wynne, and former federal Liberal interim leader Bob Rae at Toronto’s gay pride
festivities in June. Levin, a member of Wynne;s transition team who now faces child pornography
charges, was the top bureaucrat at the Ministry of Education when an offensive sex education
curriculum was developed.
As sex scandals break within Ontario’s teaching establishment, there are calls to reintroduce the province’s controversial elementary sex education curriculum that was shelved in 2010 after public outcry.

Wade Vroom, an “occasional” teacher at the Toronto District School Board and independent filmmaker, was put on home assignment on May 3 after sexually explicit posters were found in his Grades 7 and 8 classroom at Delta Senior Alternative School. One of the posters, titled “Use Your Head When Giving It: Blow Job Tips,” portrayed an act of oral sex from behind while giving tips on “safe” sex for gay men. Published by the AIDS Committee of Toronto, the brochure is meant to be posted in Toronto’s gay bars and bathhouses. The TDSB claimed that the principal of the school knew nothing about the posters, but two members of the parent council admitted that they approved of the material. Vroom was reinstated at the end of May. After an investigation, Toronto police announced that it would not lay charges.

On June 3, the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association, on behalf of 50 health and education “experts,” including Sick Kids Hospital, the University of Toronto, the Ontario Lung Association, and Planned Parenthood Toronto, held a press conference calling for a timeline to reintroduce a new sex education curriculum. Education Minister Liz Sandals responded that parents are still being consulted about the updates, while OPHEA Executive Director Chris Markham claimed that “thousands” of parents, teachers, professionals, and students already had a voice in the 2010 version.  (more...)

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