EDITORIAL

Teachers Teaching Hatred

In 1985, Toronto parents were celebrating the defeat of Toronto Board of Education New Democratic Party (NDP) caucus trustees at municipal polls.

Victorious parents, who had turned out in record numbers for usually dreary school board elections, had had enough. In bumperstickers of the day, they wanted their children taught how to think not what to think.

With the exception of the crusading Toronto Sun, the mainline media showed little interest in the organized parental drive to rid the local school board of partisan NDP trustees. The NDP, afterall had a chokehold on the local school board for as long as anyone could remember.

That election night, Trustee Doug Little, serving Ward 1 was the first to go. The writer of this editorial, then Sun education columnist and an enterprising young reporter by the name of Danielle Crittenden cheered.

The NDP was out for only one term. So-called 'non-aligned' trustees, led by Ann Vanstone, abandoned their ad hoc alliance with parents and the status quo was returned to the board in the very next election.

Decades later, and more significantly in the aftermath of September 11, the editorial board of the Toronto branch of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, representing teachers in public high schools, printed an article, Why America is Hated, in its December newsletter. The newsletter was distributed to 6,500 teachers, as a 'resource' to stimulate discussion in the classroom.

The newsletter--which conveniently operates at arm's length from the union's executive, according to board members--was derided by the Canadian Jewish Congress as historically inaccurate and slanted against the United States and Israel.

The union is not printing a retraction and will continue to support the editorial board--headed by none other than Doug Little of long ago NDP election defeat. Trustee Little is now a history teacher at Rosedale Heights High School.

Imagine Ed Morgan, chairman of the Ontario division of the Canadian Jewish Congress having to tell the union he wants teachers told not to use the chronology as a teaching resource because of the 'historical misinformation'.

For example, the chronology states that, in 1972, the United States blocked Anwar Sadat's efforts at reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

'We know that the bin Laden network has incorporated the Egyptian organization that killed Sadat for reaching the peace agreement with Israel. So how could they be mad at the Americans for preventing Sadat from reaching a peace deal? That in itself is false, but itÌs especially weird when presented as a reason for today's anger in the Islamic world against the Americans,' Morgan told the National Post.

In an email to the Canadian Jewish Congress, Little stated it was the editorial board's intention in selecting the story that it was to be one-sided. 'We make no pretense of being 'objective'. We do not have a 'balanced' view of the Mike Harris regime' We side with the oppressed and against the oppressor. We view America, and Israel as its agent, as the prime oppressor in this case in the Middle East.'

The truth, accuracy in history and a liberal arts education for school children do not matter to left-wing activists who happen to be educators.

If they hate America and Israel, the children under their charge will be taught to hate them too.