Five years after the Liberal government abandoned a new physical and health education curriculum over criticism from religious and social conservatives, Education Minister Liz Sandals introduced the first thorough update to Ontario’s phys ed teaching since 1998.
With 17 years between updates, Ontario teachers haven’t had a lot of guidance from the government about what should be taught in schools, but according to Sandals that will change this September when the province plans to put the new curriculum in place. “We’ve already scheduled the professional development,” Sandals announced this morning. “We wanted to get the curriculum posted now in the winter so we can spend the spring working with the teachers.”
Here, five key takeaways from the new report:
1. Clinical names for body parts introduced in Grade 1
One of the lightning-rod issues in 2010 was teaching six-year-old children the clinical names for their own anatomy. Social conservative groups objected, and the government dropped the issue. But experts who deal with cases of child abuse say that teaching children about their bodies is an important part of protecting them.
The curriculum imagines children being able to at least speak with adults, even if they don’t understand they might be abused. The section comes immediately after one on making sure children know their own phone numbers, home addresses, and how to call 911.
2. Same-sex relationships introduced in Grade 3
The words “gay,” “lesbian,” or “homosexual” don‘t appear in the 1998 curriculum. Same-sex marriage was still illegal in Canada when that document became official policy. Today’s Grade 3 students will be friends with children of same-sex couples (or children of those couples themselves). The new curriculum puts same-sex parents in the same context as parents from other countries, saying that everybody’s family needs to be respected.
Sandals says the language in the curriculum is designed to mirror Ontario law, such as the Human Rights Code, and emphasize tolerance and diversity.
3. Consent
Another recent addition: not even the 2010 revised curriculum included substantial language about the importance of sexual consent, much less the 1998 edition. The 2015 curriculum is direct: “A clear ‘yes’ is a signal of consent. A response of ‘no,’ an uncertain response, or silence needs to be understood as no consent.” Premier Kathleen Wynne assured activists that consent would be part of the revised curriculum earlier this year, but Sandals emphasized that the new section wasn’t added last-minute.
“It’s important for our young people to understand that’s not what a healthy relationship looks like,” she told TVO. “With some of the high-profile things that were in the media recently – obviously, Bill Cosby and Jian Ghomeshi – it was clear that the adults don’t even have a good understanding of consent. We really need to deal with it quite explicitly.”
4. Sexting
Students in Grade 7 will start learning about the risks of sexting. (Children entering Grade 7 in 2015 were already five-years old when Apple introduced the iPhone.) The new curriculum warns students that images can be made public even if they’re only briefly available, and that images can also live forever on the Internet – affecting their future relationships, and even their jobs. The curriculum also warns about the legal penalties of sharing images of people without their consent.
5. Mental health, puberty, and good health habits
The focus on some of the headline-grabbing aspects of sexual health education can distract from what is actually a very broad document. The new curriculum puts an increased focus on mental health, moving discussions of stress and life balance into earlier grades. Puberty also gets moved earlier, on the theory that it’s useful for kids to know about changes to their bodies before they actually begin.
There are also the classics of what is still a physical education document, teaching kids to stay active, as well as some more contemporary concerns. For example, the government’s desire to encourage healthy eating comes with the expectation that kids will learn that local produce is better for them than junk food.
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