Two fascinating paragraphs from the ruling of Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, 2002
[concerning] the attempt of a kindergarten teacher to use picture books depicting families with same-sex parents. The books were part of a list compiled by the provincial association of gay and lesbian educators concerning resources to promote tolerance and counter homophobia in schools. The school board denied the teacher’s specific request and prevented those resources from being used in the district altogether.”
Feitosa de Britto, T. (2018). Neither Hired Mouth nor Class Monarchs: The Scope of Schoolteachers’ Freedom of Expression in Canada. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue Canadienne De l’éducation, 41(3), 783-807.
65. The number of different family models in the community means that some children will inevitably come from families of which certain parents disapprove. Giving these children an opportunity to discuss their family models may expose other children to some cognitive dissonance. But such dissonance is neither avoidable nor noxious. Children encounter it every day in the public school system as members of a diverse student body. They see their classmates, and perhaps also their teachers, eating foods at lunch that they themselves are not permitted to eat, whether because of their parents’ religious strictures or because of other moral beliefs. They see their classmates wearing clothing with features or brand labels which their parents have forbidden them to wear. And they see their classmates engaging in behaviour on the playground that their parents have told them not to engage in. The cognitive dissonance that results from such encounters is simply a part of living in a diverse society. It is also a part of growing up. Through such experiences, children come to realize that not all of their values are shared by others.
66. Exposure to some cognitive dissonance is arguably necessary if children are to be taught what tolerance itself involves. As my colleague points out, the demand for tolerance cannot be interpreted as the demand to approve of another person’s beliefs or practices. When we ask people to be tolerant of others, we do not ask them to abandon their personal convictions. We merely ask them to respect the rights, values and ways of being of those who may not share those convictions. The belief that others are entitled to equal respect depends, not on the belief that their values are right, but on the belief that they have a claim to equal respect regardless of whether they are right. Learning about tolerance is therefore learning that other people’s entitlement to respect from us does not depend on whether their views accord with our own. Children cannot learn this unless they are exposed to views that differ from those they are taught at home.
69. It is suggested that, while the message of the books may be unobjectionable, the books will lead children to ask questions of their parents that may be inappropriate for the K-1 level and difficult for parents to answer. Yet on the record before us, it is hard to see how the materials will raise questions which would not in any event be raised by the acknowledged existence of same-sex parented families in the K-1 parent population, or in the broader world in which these children live. The only additional message of the materials appears to be the message of tolerance. Tolerance is always age-appropriate.
“Tolerance is always age-appropriate.” That is just beautiful.