Sex Education in the Ontario Curriculum
I chose to look into sex education for my critical summary and for this blog post I decided to summarize an article which looks into and discusses parent reactions to the implementation of the Ontario sex education curriculum in 2015 and 2019. The article explains that in response to the 2015 curriculum many parents were keeping their children home from school in protest. With the change of government in 2018, there was a temporary sex education curriculum put into place that resembled one from 1998. This lead to a negative response from the students including walk outs and human lawsuits against the province.
This clearly shows the differing values that students and parents have on sex education in Ontario, and led the conservative government to create an updated curriculum (2019) that was very similar to the one implemented in 2015, but with an option for parents to exempt their children from taking the class. Then there began a great debate in the comment section under a CBC post with this announcement, many parents felt the curriculum violated their values and their children should instead learn sex education at home. Some felt that the content in the curriculum was great but taught at too young an age, while the opposing view felt it was better too early than too late.
The article notes that an important voice had been left out in the comment section–students; who apparently have a differing view from the adults. This leads me to question who should be involved in determining what students learn in terms of sex education, their parents? or the students themselves? How do we determine at what age is appropriate to learn certain content in the sex education curriculum?
In furthering my knowledge for our first assignment, I may want to look at differences in various sex education curriculums and specifically how they have changed over time. I hope to find surveys that clearly show students’ opinions on sex education in Canada in hopes of finding answers to my questions.
Saarreharju, M., Uusiautti, S., & Maatta, K. (2019). “It goes beyond the fundamentals of sex and education.” Analysis on the online commenting on the curriculum reform in Ontario. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 609-623. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2019.1699839
One thought on “Sex Education in the Ontario Curriculum”
Hello Hailey,
I really enjoyed your post! The information you mentioned throughout was extremely well thought out and allows readers to critically analyze the topic. Incorporating an example of the comments mention throughout your post may allow readers a more insightful look to how parental opinions can influence curriculum and learning opportunities. The questions within your post were critical for my connection to this topic. I found myself pausing and asking myself for how I would respond if it were my child, if I was the student, or if I were the teacher. Overall your post allows critical thinking and opinion based learning into how to implement avoided topics into the classroom. Thank you for sharing!