XVI.  The mask of moral neutrality

XVI.2 Despite what it suggested to students, CAPP was judgemental, as it demonstrated when it judged premarital sex to be morally acceptable¹ and violence morally unacceptable.² This fundamental contradiction was never addressed in the curriculum. Instead, the curriculum and lesson plans were structured to create a learning environment designed (once more borrowing Professor Budziszewski’s words) to “[advance] a moral view by pretending to have no moral view.”³

XVI.3 Manipulative teaching polices and strategies employed for this purpose included teacher control of classroom expression,⁴ vague terminology facilitating arbitrary evaluation,⁵ lessons using tendentious statistical interpretation⁶ or offering inaccurate or incomplete information,⁷ forced choice tests and exercises,⁸ biased case studies,⁹ role plays with implicit moral messages,¹⁰ and organized peer pressure in the form of group work and “pair and share.”¹¹ The latter techniques were useful because they could help “to unfreeze a child’s existing value system so that new attitudes and values may be adopted.”¹²

XVI.4 Not without reason did Professor Budziszewski describe such an approach to education as “bad-faith authoritarianism.” Nonetheless, CAPP’s breathless blethering about constantly changing values and the importance of non-judgementalism left the programme on an insecure footing because it could not, working from its own principles, openly demand that students accept the Ministry’s morality or abandon their own. Granted that the design was authoritarian, it was “authoritarianism lite.”

XVII.  Taking off the mask

XVII.1 One might speculate, following the logic of Making Space, Giving Voice and its interest in fostering “pluralistic ideals in a classroom setting,” that students will be taught an ethic of diversity: that they should “honour” and “celebrate” ethical diversity: that they should be “open” and “accepting” of all ethical views, that classrooms should be “safe” for the expression of all ethical opinions: that everyone will benefit if ethical differences “are acknowledged and utilized in a positive way.”¹³

XVII.2 Quite the reverse. Making Space, Giving Voice warns that “teaching to enhance recognition of diversity and support for social justice. . . does not involve a validation of any or all opinions.”

Self-expression that is ignorant or hurtful or that can be readily construed as a perpetuation of oppression or injustice should not be a part of classroom discourse and will need to be addressed if it arises.¹⁴

XVII.3 In other words, Making Space, Giving Voice is really not meant to make space for all, nor to give voice to all. For all the cant about welcoming “diversity,”¹⁵ and the importance of “inclusiveness,”¹⁶ some voices are not welcome, and some views are to be excluded. Nothing comparable to this forthright admission existed in CAPP. It illustrates the ‘progress’ that has been made over the last fifteen years. The insecurity underlying CAPP’s thin authoritarianism has been replaced by the certitude needed for the real thing. The mask of neutrality is coming off.

XVII.4 Making Space, Giving Voice explicitly authorizes teachers to discriminate against the expression of certain views in the classroom. They are not to honour, respect and accept all ethical differences. Instead, they are instructed to use “anticipatory” and “responsive” strategies to control classroom discussion and prevent or suppress the expression of what they consider to be “ignorant” or “hurtful” views.¹⁷

XVII.5 How might this play out in a diversity-sensitive biology class if, following the recommendation of Making Space, Giving Voice, students discuss the ethics of artificial reproduction?

XVII.6 Well, a student who asserts the Catholic belief that in vitro fertilization is gravely wrong¹⁸ may find his remarks ‘named’ by the teacher¹⁹ as ignorant of the emotional distress of infertile couples, hurtful to classmates thus conceived, disrespectful of their parents’ choices, and oppressive of disadvantaged persons or groups.²⁰

XVII.7 Or perhaps not. It all depends on the teacher’s ethical point of view. In fact, everything depends on the teacher’s ethical point of view: not just freedom of expression, but students’ marks and progress. For one could hardly appeal against ‘naming’ the student’s remarks to the document that explicitly authorizes it. Nor could the student complain if the teacher were to penalize him by reducing his “class participation” mark, since that would be supported by the BC Performance Standards: Social Responsibility (2001).²¹

XVII.8 Making Space, Giving Voice and the related documents thus provide substantial support for teachers who mean to impose a particular ethical view upon students, and who wish to suppress the expression of contrary beliefs. The ethic to be imposed and beliefs to be suppressed will depend upon the individual teacher’s notion of what constitutes social responsibility and social justice, since the former is undefined,²² and the Ministry’s description of social justice is broad enough to encompass radically different views of the human person, human rights, morality and ethics.²³

XVIII.  The principles of “Newspeak”

XVIII.1 All of this is glossed over with a note that there is “a tension between the teacher’s responsibility to create a safe learning environment for all students and to engage students in learning and critical conversations about important social issues.” (Emphasis added)²⁴

XVIII.2 Making Space, Giving Voice indicates that such tension is to be resolved in favour of “safety,” a term it strategically fails to define. Instead, it implies that “safety” is equivalent to or inextricably connected with “inclusiveness,” “respect” and “welcome.”²⁵ CAPP was, at least, somewhat more direct, asserting that it was important “to create an environment where it is safe for students to express opinions without being judged by others.”²⁶

XVIII.3 This kind of thinking extends the concept of safety well beyond the obvious need to be secure against bullying, intimidation, threats, violence, vandalism and theft. It is doubtful that creating judgement-free bubble zones around schools is a good way to prepare students for the rough and tumble of democratic discourse.

XVIII.4 In any case, Making Space, Giving Voice makes it quite clear that students will be judged - by teachers. Teachers are to suppress “self-expression that is ignorant or hurtful”and model “consistent use of language.”²⁷ They are to recognize “hurtful and unfair language,”²⁸ and identify “exclusionary language” as a form of oppression.²⁹ They are warned against “discussions that exclude certain groups of students,”³⁰ “exclusionary language, behaviour or policy”³¹ and “assumptions that exclude or marginalise.”³² According to homosexual activists, hurtful, ignorant, exclusionary and unfair language now include words like “father” and “mother”³³ or “husband” and “wife.”³⁴

XVIII.5 One of the assumptions that is said to “exclude or marginalise” is formally defined by the glossary: “heterosexism: the assumption that heterosexual orientation is better than other sexual orientations and therefore deserving of public acceptance and legal privilege.”³⁵ Thus, an assertion that the truth and meaning of human sexuality can be found only in a male-female relationship is equated by Making Space, Giving Voice with racism,³⁶ an association that is reinforced repeatedly throughout the document.³⁷ Similarly, opponents of so-called same-sex ‘marriage’ would, simply by virtue of their opposition, be guilty of attempting to perpetuate social injustice.³⁸

XVIII.6 Cross-referenced to “heterosexism” is “homophobia,” defined as “a fear, dislike or hatred of homosexuality or homosexuals.”

Homophobia manifests itself as prejudice, discrimination, harassment, and/or acts of violence brought on by fear and hatred. Homophobia can exists at personal, institutional, and societal levels. Also transphobia: fear, dislike or hatred of transgendered or transsexual people. See also heterosexism.³⁹

XVIII.7 Thus, moral or philosophical objections to same sex ‘marriage’ or homosexual conduct or lifestyles (or any other form of gender identity or “orientation”) would also be classed as “homophobic” or “heterosexist” - again, in the view of Making Space, Giving Voice, “hurtful behaviour” that is morally equivalent to racism and intimidation.⁴⁰

XVIII.8 This brings one to consider the position of those who do not share the Correns’ enthusiasm for “non-heterosexual realities.” They run the risk of being “named” as bigots who are “not accepting people for who they are.”⁴¹ Students and teachers who object to homo/bi/trans/genderqueer sexual conduct or lifestyles for reasons of conscience or religion cannot articulate their views in state schools if the very concepts, arguments and even the words and expressions that they would have to use are forbidden.

XVIII.9 One is reminded of the principles of “Newspeak,” articulated by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty Four. Words like “heterosexist” and “homophobic”reflect a vocabulary specially crafted “not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits” that activists think proper, “but to make all other modes of thought impossible.”⁴² Within the context of Making Space, Giving Voice, words like “safety,” “exclusionary,” “inclusiveness,” “diversity”and “discrimination” are co-opted for the same purpose.

XIX.  Divide and conquer

XIX.1 The draft Social Justice 12 IRP, also a product of the Corren Agreement, “recognizes the family as the primary educator in the development of children’s attitudes, standards, and values” and describes the school as playing “a supportive role” through the Social Justice curriculum, about which parents and guardians should be informed.⁴³ This is reminiscent of CAPP’s claims “to develop students’ understanding of the role of the family” and its purported emphasis on “the family’s role in teaching moral and behavioural standards.”⁴⁴

XIX.2 Such passages may lead parents to believe that their authority in the education of their children is supported by Ministry of Education, but this is not the case. Unlike the Catholic Church, when the Ministry of Education refers to the family as “the primary educator” it means only that the family is first in order of time and first in order of importance or impact.⁴⁵ The whole point of the Corren Agreement is to use state schools to inculcate acceptance of homosexual conduct and lifestyles without the consent of parents, and even contrary to their wishes. Thus, the Ministry of Education has re-written its Alternative Delivery policy to prevent parents from removing their children from classes delivering "queer-positive" curriculum.⁴⁶

XIX.3 It is not unprecedented for dominant interests to use compulsory education to impose their social vision on children, even against the will of their parents. A practitioner of this art once explained the value of such a policy:

When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” . . . I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.⁴⁷

XIX.4 Six years later, the remaining 30% of German children who had not joined Hitler Youth were conscripted into the organization, and parents who resisted “were warned that their children would be taken away from them and put into orphanages or other homes unless they enrolled.”⁴⁸

XIX.5 The suggestion that there are similarities between Nazi educational philosophy and that of the BC Ministry of Education is made at the risk of inviting condemnation for indulging in inflammatory rhetoric. On the other hand, once the state, its judges, officials, ‘experts’ and activist contractors decide that they ought to force their views upon children over the objections of their parents, one cannot be confident that the excesses of the past will not become the public policy of the future. It is not inappropriate here to note that, in August, 2007, 15 Mennonite families were planning to leave Quebec. For religious and moral reasons (including opposition to Corren-style advocacy of “alternative lifestyles”), they had refused to send their children to state-approved schools, and had begun to fear that provincial authorities would seize their children if they remained in the province.⁴⁹

XIX.6 However, the enforcement of a policy of compulsory cultural, moral and religious assimilation does not require a resurrected residential school system or even the apprehension of children. Approved Ministry of Education resources indicate how children can be estranged from their parents and religious, ethnic and cultural communities using the state school system, abetted by the judiciary, key professional groups and social elites.

Parents as adversaries
XIX.7 In Career and Personal Planning, for example, conflicts with authority were always portrayed as occurring between students and parents, never between students and teachers. Student independence and autonomy were set in opposition to their parents,⁵⁰ never in opposition to school authorities or the state. Students were to be invited to “discuss the activities their families do that makes [sic] them either happy or stressful.”⁵¹ No such critical reflection was suggested about class activities, despite CAPP’s repeated reminders that some class activities may cause acute emotional reactions in students.⁵² Nor was there any suggestion that parents should be notified or consulted, either before or after lessons involving such risks.

XIX.8 Similarly, the offenders in CAPP role plays or scenarios about sexual exploitation were family members, employers or fathers of friends,⁵³ but never teachers. Teachers, counsellors and school authorities were always the ‘good guys’ in CAPP,⁵⁴ while parents were cast in the role of the ‘bad guys’ - ignorant, uncaring, prejudiced against homosexuals, etc. CAPP implied that the worst of the parental lot are those backward types who resisted “curriculum dealing with social issues,” parents who wanted to keep sex education in the home and abstinence education at school.⁵⁵

XIX.9 Typecasting teachers as champions of enlightenment against narrow-minded parents also occurs in Making Space, Giving Voice:

Sometimes, adults (e.g., parents) may fear that raising social justice topics, particularly with early primary students, may only worry and not inform children. But children do not live in isolation from the world, and here, teachers play an important role in providing appropriate context to enhance children’s understanding.⁵⁶

XIX.10 In the tradition of CAPP, Making Space, Giving Voice suggests that students should critique “unflinching observance of tradition” and asks them to consider “what old ways of thinking or behaving are still slavishly adhered to.”⁵⁷ One is left with the distinct impression that the “problematic assumptions”students are to question⁵⁸ are those of their parents, not those of the Correns, the anonymous authors of Making Space, Giving Voice, or the Ministry of Education. Certainly, it is nowhere suggested that students should critique the unflinching observance of the current establishment’s norms or consider what new ways of thinking or behaving are slavishly adhered to.