Faithful Espouse Segregation
People are easily offended with the most harmless comments these days. Politicians often find themselves walking on egg shells in an attempt to soothe the most fragile egos. They find themselves unable to speak their minds without someone crying foul.
Consider this statement from Premier Dalton McGuinty on the subject of faith-based school funding:
If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory. If they think it’s important that we continue to bring our kids together, so that they grow together and learn from one another, then you should vote for me.
He is advocating that the public system doesn’t discriminate and brings students of different faiths and cultures together for a common purpose: to learn in an academic environment that prizes knowledge and achievement over petty differences. The system has students put those differences aside to work together towards a common goal of achieving academic/practical knowledge. In the process, they even learn something about another religion or culture they might not have known if they were in a school that was for a single faith.
So, what’s the problem?
According to the United Jewish Appeal and the Canadian Jewish Congress the comments were ‘hurtful’ and ‘offensive’ because the faith-based schools teach about tolerance and acceptance. But how can we have tolerance and acceptance when we are segregated along religious lines?
This doesn’t fit into the modern frame of secular Canadian society in which we need to spend more time coming together to learn that our differences should be celebrated. Religion is a divisive subject and as a nation we don’t need anything else to divide us up. We have plenty to keep up divided and feuding.
There is nothing offensive about what Premier McGuinty has says. It’s brutally honest and some people cannot take that level of honesty and prefer to live in their rose-coloured glass world; in their protective bubble.
But the religious groups expressing offence have demanded an apology and have offered flimsey excuses.
UJA Federation of Greater Toronto chair David Engel has come out saying:
The remark is deeply offensive to our community and all faith communities. We just want him to take back the comment that was offensive to our schools. Our schools teach respect for all members of Ontario society – not the opposite – and we encourage our students to strengthen the society around us through their volunteer work and their careers.
You can teach respect just as you can lead a horse to water. You cannot force someone to respect anyone else just as you cannot force a horse to drink. People learn respect when they are around others who are different.
You can give students the skills they need to do their jobs but you cannot teach respect; you cannot force anyone to learn respect; they learn it through personal experience.
Apologize, Jewish groups tell McGuinty
Stumble It!
September 6th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I went to a Jewish private school for over 10 years. They didn’t really go out of their way to teach tolerance. Really, the only multicultural schooling I get was French language class and geography.
When I moved to Toronto it felt very strange not getting Jewish holidays off and being wished “Merry Xmas”. It didn’t take me long to adapt but initially I felt maladjusted, not just awkward.
Then again, I think I got a very good primary education at my private school – especially in English. Maybe that’s the result of me trying harder at a subject I enjoyed, but excellent teachers are the other half of that equation.
I’m not against private schooling but I don’t want to pay for someone else’s kid to be given a religious education. Send your kid to public school for free or pay to educate them elsewhere.
September 6th, 2007 at 8:32 am
We don’t get taught tolerance in public school because tolerance and acceptance are a given. You have no choice; you simply learn that this is the way life and you have to be able to work with people of different backgrounds.
The only thing we learn in the way of tolerance is just how different religions and cultures exist. We had the option to take a world religions class in high school. That was one of few classes that had its sole focus on culture and religion.
Even if my teachers were detached in primary school, I think public school is a good way for students to get adjusted and be prepared for the real world. I remember not being treated “fairly” but life doesn’t treat you fairly so in a way, it did serve to desensitise me to the nastiness that is reality.
We didn’t get a lot of “Merry Xmas”; we did Christmas stuff in school but strangely they always said “happy holidays” and “Seasons greetings” even though we would sing Christmas carols in the front lobby in the school before the start of class. Strange really.