Parents rights around education is an old concept that has recently returned to the spotlight around Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum in B.C. public schools.
This has manifested itself in many ways over time, from parents angry about evolution being taught in biology classes because it contradicts religious texts to parents opposed to the sex, violence and suicide depicted in Romeo and Juliet.
The argument from parents is straightforward and, at first blush, perfectly reasonable. As a parent, I should be allowed to protect my child from the parts of the curriculum that contradict my family’s values.
The problem is it is impossible to create a curriculum that all parents can agree on. The very act of choosing what gets taught means deciding what doesn’t get taught.
The bigger problem are the parents who want ALL of the children, not just their own, protected from aspects of the curriculum, be it SOGI or Shakespeare.
Other parents pull their children out of public school and send them to private school. The problem with that is private schools in B.C., including the religious ones, are still required to teach the B.C. curriculum, of which SOGI is a part.
Home schooling? The B.C. curriculum remains mandatory for those parents, too.
The home-schooling parents will have a different conversation with their children about SOGI, of course.
So why can’t the parents opposed to SOGI do the same thing?
Parents are not helpless. They remain free to provide any additional education to their children as they see fit, as they already do with everything from extracurricular activities to teaching them how to cook, clean and do their own laundry.
Children are not helpless, either. They are not robots easily programmed, whether by “woke indoctrination” or “outdated ideologies.” As every parent and teacher knows, children are hardwired to challenge authority and what they are being told.
Regardless of their worldview, every parent teaches their children the same thing when it comes to knowing the difference between right and wrong, standing up for their beliefs and making up their own mind with the facts at hand.
That’s a lifelong learning process, which starts for each of us during our childhood, in and out of school, and continues into adulthood and becoming parents ourselves.
No one teacher, no one curriculum, no one parent and no one person has a monopoly on our education.
And that’s a good thing.
Neil Godbout is editor of the Prince George Citizen.
