XX.  The curriculum that is not curriculum

XX.1 Making Space, Giving Voice is an instruction manual for teachers and administrators who share the Corren agenda. It suggests how teachers can design lessons so that, under the rubric of “social justice,” the topic of homosexuality, sexual “diversity” and related issues can be introduced in every subject, at every grade level, thus transforming the curriculum into a framework for ideological instruction.

XX.2 Opportunities for social justice instruction are identified in English, literature, dance, drama, music, visual arts, health and career education, physical education, social studies, mathematics, science, business education, home economics, and technology education. The opportunities are frequently associated, explicitly or implicitly, with a pro-homosexual agenda. ¹

XX.3 English can be a particularly valuable vehicle for ideological instruction, since it is a required subject from Kindergarten to Grade 12. Further, as Making Space, Giving Voice notes, “choice of content and text is largely up to the teacher,” ² and “teachers can use virtually any text to teach a method of textual analysis.” ³ Even the complete absence of any reference to homosexuality or related issues can become an excuse to introduce the subject, ⁴ students being asked to “construct their own meanings” from what has been included or left out of the material being studied. ⁵

XX.4 It is also suggested that students can be asked to consider how any story or film might differ if one of the characters had a different “sexual orientation.” ⁶ In short, Making Space, Giving Voice would justify the use of Little Red Riding Hood to introduce the subject of transvestism to elementary school children, ⁷ without the need to change a single learning outcome in the official curriculum.

XXI.  “Silences in the text”

XXI.1 Since the anonymous authors of Making Space, Giving Voice advise teachers to have students “brainstorm reasons for omissions in textbooks or other resources” ⁸ and “look for ways in which the “silences” in the texts . . . reflect assumptions or biases,” ⁹ the Ministry will not object if critics apply their advice to the response draft.

XXI.2 Significant omissions are found in the list of “Selected Web Sites.” Granted that the offering is said to be “‘a starter set’ of potentially useful sites” rather than an exhaustive list, it is remarkable that the only websites associated to religious believers are the Canadian Jewish Congress and The Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education. ¹⁰ The two most obvious omissions of Catholic sites are the League’s own website  and that of Development and Peace. Adopting the vocabulary of Making Space, Giving Voice, what biases are reflected in selection of some and the omission of others? Why do the anonymous authors ‘privilege’ Buddhism and Judaism?

XXI.3 Included among the websites selected by Making Space, Giving Voice are those of The Centre (LGBT Community Centre) and Gay and Lesbian Educators of BC (GALE BC), both homosexualist activist groups. Among those that did not make the list were Courage, the Catholic organization that helps people experiencing same-sex attractions, and its non-Catholic counterpart, Exodus Global Alliance.

XXI.4 The Glossary in Making Space, Giving Voice includes an entry for “gender identity,” ¹¹ but it does not mention Gender Identity Disorder (GID), ¹² a condition described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Nor does it refer to the fact that activists want it removed from the Manual, because they do not believe that an ‘identity’ can be disordered, and some claim that the successful treatment of children diagnosed with the condition is a form of homosexual genocide. ¹³

XXI.5 Making Space, Giving Voice is also silent about the health risks associated with homosexual lifestyles. Compared to people in opposite-sex relationships, persons living homosexual lifestyles more frequently suffer from depression or mental illness, ¹⁴ have higher rates of substance abuse ¹⁵ and sexually transmitted infections, ¹⁶ and incur a greater risk of cancer. ¹⁷ Some reports indicate that men who have sex with men have a notably shorter life expectancy than the general population, though this seems related to HIV/AIDS. ¹⁸ High levels of promiscuity contribute to adverse health consequences, particularly among homosexually or bisexually active men, ¹⁹ as do unhealthy sexual activities reported to be more frequent in same-sex relationships. ²⁰

XXI.6 The “silences in the text” seem consistent with its origin. When the Ministry of Education called a meeting to discuss the proposed grade 12 ‘social justice’ elective, invitations went only to the Correns and others deemed worthy of consultation, like the BCTF and the SPCA. ²¹ Religious representatives were not invited; groups opposed to the Corren Agreement and concerned about curriculum revisions were deliberately excluded. The President of the BC Civil Liberties Association sniffed that such groups “should not be contributing to any dialogue on education reform." ²²

XXI.7 All of which illustrates one of the valid points made by Making Space, Giving Voice. “[B]ureaucracies,” caution the anonymous authors, “may operate based on assumptions that exclude or marginalise.” ²³

XXII. Conforming to the Corren Creed

XXII.1 Immediately following the bungled description of the case of Maher Arar is a lesson plan for an English class on the short story, Paul’s Case. The plan includes a research project.

Have students research the correlation between adolescent suicide and homosexuality. What are the possible reasons for this statistic? (Note to teachers: ensure students understand that homosexuality does not “cause” depression or suicide.) ²⁴

XXII.2 One wonders if the “note to teachers,” so consistent with the Corren Creed, is the product of the privileged input allowed the Correns in reviewing the curriculum materials. ²⁵ Activists deny that suicidal ideation and depression are caused by homosexuality itself. Instead, they claim that persons experiencing same-sex attractions are driven to suicide by disrespect, bullying and loss of self-esteem that are rooted in what they call “homophobia” and “heterosexism.” ²⁶ They claim that those who openly disapprove of homosexual conduct are directly responsible for the higher rate of suicidal ideation among those living a homosexual lifestyle, going so far as to characterize them as genocidal murderers. ²⁷ Ultimately, they argue that the best way for society to reduce suicidal ideation among people who identify themselves as homosexual is to formally affirm that homosexuality is morally and socially acceptable, while silencing those who do not agree.

XXII.3 The Corren Agreement is intended to make state schools organs for the propagation of such views, even though research on the topic does not admit of such simplistic conclusions. ²⁸

XXII.4 A prominent alternative view is that homosexual inclinations and conduct are intrinsically disordered: that is, they are fundamentally opposed to the true good of the human person. This is not (or, at any rate, need not be) a religious statement, though it is by no means opposed to religious beliefs. It is a philosophical statement with an ancient lineage ²⁹ based on reasonable premises that man has a specific nature, and that man must live in accordance with his nature if he is to develop his full human potential.

XXII.5 It follows that those who act in ways inconsistent with the nature of man will, at least, fail to fully develop their human potential, while more radical departures from the natural order will have proportionately more harmful consequences for themselves and others, a prediction that is borne out by the well-documented adverse health outcomes associated with homosexual lifestyles, including depression and suicidal thoughts. ³⁰ This does not exclude the possibility - even the probability - that bullying or harassment may also contribute to depression and suicidal ideation. ³¹

XXII.6 In principle, depression and suicidal ideation can be accounted for by either thesis: either solely as a consequence of social stigma or bullying, or because homosexual urges and conduct are contrary to human nature, with harassment or bullying acknowledged as contributing or aggravating factors. Additional explanations for research findings include the possibility that people prone to psychiatric disorders are more likely to experience same-sex attraction, or that those experiencing same-sex attractions make lifestyle choices that “place them at greater risks of adverse life events, stresses and similar factors that may increase risks of mental health problems.” ³²

XXII.7 As noted previously, getting the facts right is a necessary first step in making progress towards social justice, and this is especially important in complex issues when facts are disputed and can be interpreted in different ways. The “note to teachers” is a further indication that one cannot trust the Ministry’s anonymous experts to deal adequately with complexity, or, more charitably, that it is difficult to do so when educational outcomes are dictated by private agreements with special interest groups.

XXIII.  The straitjacket of ideology

XXIII.1 “Some things lead beyond words,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Lecture in Literature.

Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual existence. Through art we are sometimes visited - dimly, briefly - by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.

Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales; look into it, and you will see - not yourself - but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man can fly. And only the soul gives a groan . . . ³³

XXIII.2 It is doubtful that such reflections can be rendered in Ministryspeak. Certainly, nothing of the sort is found in Making Space, Giving Voice. Instead, its treatment of English literature illustrates Arendt’s point that ideology is incapable of comprehending realities or experience outside its narrow field of view.

XXIII.3 Consider, for example, its recommendations for a lesson about Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. No reference to poetic beauty, mystery, and longing here, but the myopic view of the ideologue: “gender roles, people who are different, being unable to ‘come out’ into the world, sexual power.” ³⁴

XXIII.4 A similarly dismal approach is taken to The Scream, a short story by Diana J. Wieler. ³⁵ Making Space, Giving Voice suggests that it can be used to introduce Grade 7 students to the concept of oppression:

Ms. Draginda is in a position of power in this story. Does what she does and say make it easier for students in the class to be bullies? Is she herself a “bully”? Does she abuse her power? How? What other ways to [sic] people in authority abuse their power? ³⁶

.XXIII.5 Ms. Draginda is a drama teacher with a commanding presence, a curt, confrontational manner and an authoritarian approach to classroom management. Within the course of a few paragraphs she expels a clownish bully, brings a Ms. Popularity down to earth, and wordlessly communicates, heart-to-heart, with the main character. Brief though it is, the story has much to say because its characters have depth and history and a future, and much of what is most important is left unsaid. The Scream operates at levels unapproachable by the route suggested by Making Space, Giving Voice. If there is a lesson about oppression here, it is that the anonymous authors are advocating the literary equivalent of Chinese foot-binding.

Paul’s Case
XXIII.6 Willa Cather’s short story, Paul’s Case, first appeared in 1905. ³⁷ Making Space, Giving Voice offers the following synopsis:

Paul’s Case is about a boy who does not fit in. He is being pressured by his father to become what “all the other boys” become. Some young people feel that they do not fit in. Paul does not have any real friends. He is often bullied because other youngsters do not understand him. His teachers treat him cruelly because he makes them feel small and inferior. ³⁸

XXIII.7 Paul eventually commits suicide. Making Space, Giving Voice recommends that teachers “consider the idea of alienation or marginalization as a theme of the story.”

Attempt to have the students understand that Paul receives no help for his dilemma and thus turns to suicide as what he sees as his only option.  ³⁹

XXIII.8 The suggested questions ask students to explain why Paul feels alienated, and are increasingly directed toward the activist position that society is to blame for suicidal tendencies among “sexual minorities:”

In what other ways do people feel alienated from society?
What responsibility do the adults have in the story for Paul’s suicide?
What details from the story may lead the reader to believe that Paul is gay?
Are these stereotypes?
Comment on what the story is saying about growing up not being able to be who you really are?
Why might the author have been reluctant to be explicit about Paul’s sexual orientation? ⁴⁰

Looking into Paul’s Case
XX.III.9 The difference between the length of the lesson plan for Paul’s Case and the present response to it illustrates the proverb that a lie can get half-way ‘round the world before the truth can get its boots on.

XXIII.10 The reader learns that in Paul there has always been a “shadowed corner,” a “dark place into which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him.” The corner is associated with things that Paul had done “that were not pretty to watch.”

XXIII11 Paul’s contemplation of suicide begins with the onset of depression, exacerbated by a hangover:

Yet somehow he was not afraid of anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the dark corner at last and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there, but somehow not so bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything clearly now. He had a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of life he was meant to live . . .

XXIII.12 An argument can be made that the “dark corner” in Paul’s character is a veiled reference to homosexual inclinations, hinted at by his association with Charley Edwards, a young actor. It might also be suggested that Paul’s night out with a “wild San Francisco boy ” included a homosexual encounter. ⁴¹ Other points can be drawn from the story to support a thesis that “Paul is gay” and that Cather was “reluctant to be explicit” about it. In appearance and interests, for example, Paul might be considered a loose adolescent caricature of Oscar Wilde, but without his intelligence, charm, or talents.

Alternative readings
XXIII.13 Paul, however, demonstrates no sexual interest of any kind; he actually shows an aversion to physical contact with “men and women alike.” Alternative readings that take this into account can be suggested.

XXIII14 “Paul is a true sensualist,” writes one reviewer, “ rebelling against the ordinary, the drab, the everyday.” She concludes that he can’t be blamed “when he decides he would rather kill himself than go back to that soul-numbing world.” ⁴² Another considers the tale an exploration of “the dangers of art and the struggles of artists and artistically inclined youth in a commercial world,” the story of “a young man who lives for beauty and believes that money can transform his identity.” ⁴³

XXIII.15 Drawing on details from the story and from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology has offered a convincing argument that Paul’s Case is a brilliantly drawn illustration of a boy suffering from "narcissistic personality disorder.” He notes, however, that the reader is left to wonder “what exactly lived in Paul” that drove him to suicide. ⁴⁴ Particularly in this respect, the “diagnosis” is faithful to the story. The “dark corner” is only one aspect of Paul’s complex personality, one that is not recognized by other characters and with which, in the end, Paul seems to have made his peace.

XXIII.16 It is unremarkable that readers who bring different perspectives to a story will derive different meanings and associations from it. But Paul’s Case is not a shallow screed about homosexuality, suicide or victimhood, and the ideological treatment of the story recommended by Making Space, Giving Voice is deceptive. ⁴⁵

The false assertion of “pressure”
XXIII.17 “[W]hat all the other boys” is a phrase not found in Paul’s Case, despite the quotation marks placed around it by the anonymous authors of Making Space, Giving Voice. The phrase, quotation marks and all, is their work, employed in their accusation that Paul’s father pressures him to be like other boys. Upon reading the story, one finds that Paul’s father would like him to tell the truth, do well at school, learn the value of money through work experience, and ultimately find employment that will allow him to support a family. Most parents would consider this an unremarkable (though incomplete) description of basic parental hopes for their children. It is a telling comment on the ideology of the anonymous authors that they construe it as burdensome “pressure.”

The false assertion of bullying
XXIII.18 Making Space, Giving Voice correctly states that Paul has no true friends, and that “other youngsters do not understand him.” But it is not true that “he is often bullied.” It is his aggression towards his fellow ushers at the theatre that prompts them, having been “teased and plagued” by Paul beyond endurance, to sit on him and tell him that he is crazy. This is the only incident of the kind in the story, and the experience has no discernible effect on him. His social difficulties at school arise because he tries to make a name for himself by lying to his classmates, and, when the lies cease to command interest, invents even more extravagant lies. In the face of this, the other students grow “listless,” not violent or cruel.

The false assertion of cruelty
XXIII.19 Nor is cruelty characteristic of his teachers, Making Space, Giving Voice to the contrary. The principal and drawing master are sympathetic in considering his situation when he faces the faculty after a week’s suspension. His other teachers “[fall] upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack.” On the other hand, it is recalled that she had been hurt and embarrassed when he rejected her attempt to help him at the blackboard, an attempt hardly indicative of cruelty. Similarly, she later regrets the haughtiness she displayed upon meeting him in his role as usher at Carnegie Hall.

XXIII.20 His teachers’ vitriolic complaints against him result from real and unpleasant facts about his character and conduct, not because “he makes them feel small and inferior.” But what most undercuts Making Space, Giving Voice’s specious accusation of cruelty is that the teachers feel badly after the faculty meeting. They realize that they let their frustration and despair at Paul’s conduct get the better of them; some are remorseful. ⁴⁶ Weak and imperfect human beings they are, to be sure, but not cruel. Paul, on the other hand, continues in his duplicity and self-centredness.

The false assertion of identity
XXIII.21 Making Space, Giving Voice wonders “what the story is saying about growing up not being able to be who you really are,” implying that Paul is driven to suicide because he is prevented from living out his own true identity. But the very notion of “true identity” is problematic. Paul’s habitual lying is inconsistent with a real interest in the truth about himself, which he misrepresents at every opportunity. If Paul’s “true identity” is that of a self-centred liar, braggart, and thief, (characteristics readily found in the text), he is not prevented from living it out. In fact, he lives it fully, and most fully in his final days. His suicide occurs at the end of his New York extravaganza, after he realizes that the stolen money is almost gone and he cannot continue his masquerade.

XXIII.22 It is true that a boy with an artistic temperament and a love for classical music and art would probably feel out of place among the Calvinist burghers of Pittsburgh’s Cordelia Street. Cather’s subtitle, “a study in temperament,” suggests as much. But even if an undeveloped artistic temperament is said to be an important part of Paul’s identity, it is very much less than the whole of his identity as a human being, which involves relationships with his family, neighbours classmates and teachers, as well as moral obligations. His temperament does not excuse his lying, condescension and theft, nor does it make his suicide a kind of martyrdom in the cause of art - or the Corren Creed.

The false assertion of abandonment
XXIII.23 The assertion by Making Space, Giving Voice that Paul commits suicide because he receives no help is also false. His father consults the principal because of “his perplexity about his son,” and Paul is re-admitted to the school after a suspension, presumably because they are willing to work with him despite his attitude, an attitude that, ultimately, makes it impossible for them to help him. After it is discovered that he has stolen a thousand dollars ⁴⁷ from his employer, his father refunds the money and goes in search of the prodigal in New York. The employer does not go to the police, and Paul’s Calvinist minister and Sunday School teacher express the hope that they will be able to reclaim “the motherless lad.”

XXIII.24 Help aplenty there is for Paul, but he doesn’t want it, no more than he wanted help from his teachers. “What responsibility do the adults have in the story for Paul’s suicide?” asks Making Space, Giving Voice. Contrary to what the anonymous authors appear to expect, the answer, bluntly, is none. Paul has options and he knows what they are, but they don’t appeal to him. He dies as he lived, contemptuous of others, and in horror of the “same-old-same-old.”

XXIII.25 It could be said that Paul rejects the “help” offered by his father, teachers and minister because, in his view, what they offer is help to buckle himself into the confining straitjacket of life on Cordelia Street. One might wistfully speculate that, if only they had the insight into Paul’s character provided by the omniscient narrator, they might have found some way to connect with the boy. Equally, had Paul had been open to the goodness of ordinary life and its possibilities, he might sooner have realized “the vastness of what he had left undone,” rather than recalling it as he plunged to his death in front of the oncoming train. ⁴⁸

Impoverished thinking
XXIII.26 The tragic dimensions of Paul’s character and circumstances are revealed through detail, allusion and description woven into a convincing whole that reflects the meaningful complexity of human life. But, as Hannah Arendt observes, ideology is never interested “in the miracle of being.”⁴⁹ Hence, a fixed, ideologically driven determination to attribute Paul’s suicide to oppression and prejudice leads to spurious claims about pressure, bullying, cruelty, identity and abandonment, and the approach recommended by Making Space, Giving Voice strips away whatever does not help to demonstrate the merciless logic of this controlling idea. Such mendacity and impoverished thinking are not the hallmarks of a sound educational philosophy.