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Thursday, September 06, 2007
Evolution: Dalton McGuinty Doesn't Understand His Own Government's Curriculum
Maybe Education Minister Kathleen Wynne should brief Dalton McGuinty on what the Ontario government's high school curriculum actually says.
According to the CBC's John McGrath (transcript posted by Warren Kinsella):
"Mr. McGuinty today called it [evolution] today, science and that it's part of the Ontario curriculum and it has to be taught."
Evolution has to be taught? Well, no, actually. Evolution is part of an optional course in the Ministry of Education curriculum.
Evolution is taught in Strand 4 of Grade 12 Biology. See curriculum, pp. 10, 33, 40-41.
Grade 12 Biology is not a mandatory course. See Diploma Requirements, pp. 8-9.
Mr. McGuinty's own government has been updating and revising the science curriculum, but evolution will still be taught as part of an optional course, not a compulsory course.
Which leads to these questions:
Why would Dalton McGuinty (according to John McGrath) say that evolution "has to be taught" when in fact evolution is part of a course that is optional for students to take?
If Dalton McGuinty plans to change the curriculum to make it mandatory for all high school students to be taught evolution, then why did he wait four years to say so?
Posted by Guy Giorno on September 6, 2007 in Canadian Provincial Politics | Permalink
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Comments
Dalton McGuinty is nothing but a sock puppet for the Liberal party of Ontario. He has absolutely no clue as to how to govern and has never had an original thought in his life. He takes his cues from his thugs, like Smitherman et al.
When the Leftoids made sufficient noise to get rid of one of Ontario's best Premiers, Harris, the dark side voted willy-nilly for Dalton.
He has no business being in a position of authority in Ontario and he will be summarily dismissed on October 10.
Posted by: atric | 2007-09-06 3:58:50 PM
atric ~
From your keyboard to God's ears - or eyes.
Posted by: obc | 2007-09-06 4:24:30 PM
Remember Dan Quayle and the tomatoe? :)
Well done, Ontario - look at what you've done to yourselves!
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-09-06 4:58:29 PM
Are you really this stupid? Don't answer that, because I fear the answer is "duhhhhhhh, huh?" Just in case your question is for real, let me answer it.
To say that evolution "has to be taught" is just to say that teaching it is required by the curriculum for Grade 12 Biology. This does not mean that Grade 12 Biology is a required course. If THAT were the case then one should say evolution "has to be learned". But that is not what he said. There is a big difference.
The requirements for the curriculum for a course are one thing, whether or not anyone has to take the course is another. To say evolution "has to be taught" is just to say Biology teachers have no choice in the matter - they must teach it in the course.
Now stop being an idiot. Please.
Posted by: P.G. | 2007-09-06 5:01:57 PM
You say tomato - I say potato. Let's call the whole thing off.
Reminds me of the time I visited Vancouver Island where a bunch of Lefty hippies were operating a "cool" restaurant. The sidewalk sign had a chalk-written menu. Soup of the day: Potatoe.
You just know these ninnies were laughing at Dan Quayle the previous decade.
BTW, potatoe is an alternate spelling that has fallen into disuse - except in the plural: Potatoes.
Posted by: obc | 2007-09-06 5:08:34 PM
...i guess anything after "Pot" is fair game with spelling no?
Posted by: tomax7 | 2007-09-06 5:24:12 PM
Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne is John Tory's opponent in the Don Valley West riding. She's an open lesbian and rumoured to be an extremist. And not exactly easy on the eyes.
Despite her multitude of faults, she stands a good chance of beating Tory and retaining the seat. Don Valley West has some of the richest neighbourhoods in Canada combined with crime-ridden public housing projects. But John Tory is MISTER Toronto-liberal-establishment, and with connections galore. He'll probably squeak by.
Posted by: JP | 2007-09-06 6:04:35 PM
Holy splitting hairs Batman!
P.G. is, of course, technically correct. Dulton, however, did not try to make that rather fine distinction in any way at all. His comment was that it had to be taught, full stop.
I am inclined to believe that Dulton was not aware of this distinction, that evolution is a part of a voluntary course; an easy enough mistake to make, after all, how many people who have children in the Ontario education machine know all of the details of the curriculum?
Posted by: Hoser | 2007-09-06 6:50:12 PM
From the Mcgrath report it would be hard to make the case that McGuinty did not know the distinction. At any rate, he is right to say that it must be taught. As far as I know that is pretty standard in most provinces just as teaching Einstein's Theory of Relativity is standard in a physics course. We are talking science so it is appropriate. There are other things that you can go after McGuinty for. Why waste ammunition on an unimportant issue and one where he can easily dodge the bullet?
Posted by: DML | 2007-09-06 7:45:45 PM
DML asks "why waste time"? Because McGuinty's minister Wynne had the nerve to attack
Tory over his comments on the teaching of evolution. When you attack someone, maybe make sure you know your facts first! In Ontario only Catholic schools are funded and account for one-third of our public school students. John Tory's proposal of Inclusive Public Education, should he be elected, would bring all non-Catholic faiths into the public education system if they follow the general curriculum, hire qualified teachers and participate in standardized tests. Yesterday, Tory was asked if he would allow creationism to be taught in the public system and he answered that as long as the general curriculum with the theory of evolution is taught they can teach other theories (and later clarified "in the religion courses"). McGuinty and Wynne went on the offensive and completely ignored the teaching of Creationism in our public Catholic schools. Since McGuinty, his dad, siblings, kids all went to publicly funded Catholic school (where his wife is a teacher), you'd think he would know that when they teach bible stories in the Catholic schools that includes "creationism"!
Posted by: gila | 2007-09-06 8:48:32 PM
I am well aware of the taught/learned distinction and I chose my words with care.
Given the context, it is not easy enough to say that Mr. McGuinty was making the taught/learned distinction. The context, of course, is a proposal to fund independent religious schools and to bring them under the provincial curriculum.
Given that some of these schools are small (I think one figure that was mentioned was that all of them, in total, number just 35,000 students across the province) it does not follow that each of these schools would offer ALL courses on the provincial curriculum, or even MOST courses on the provincial curriculum. They could not reasonably offer that breadth of curriculum.
Their situation is different than that of most high schools in the current public system (in any of its four streams). I daresay that most publicly-funded high schools currently offer Grade 12 Biology and, if any do not, then some other school(s) within the same district board would offer the course.
Does it follow (under the public funding policy currently being debated) that every religious high school would offer Grade 12 Biology? Especially if the school is very small? No. At least, no more so than any religious school would be required to offer any other non-mandatory course on the provincial curriculum, it would seem.
(It is certainly possible for university-bound students to graduate without taking biology. Indeed, speaking from personal experience, I recall that my own Grade 13 (as it then was!) course load was extremely heavy, and science-based, consisting of 7 credits (all three maths, chemistry, physics, English and French) but despite its rigour and science-focus it did not include biology.)
Sorry, PG, I don't interpret the Premier's comment as you do. I agree that his comment did not necessarily mean that each individual student must study evolution. Not necessarily, though this may have been his meaning and, in my opinion, it probably was. Leaving that aside, however, the best or the most favourable interpretation that one could give to the Premier's words is that he meant that a school or school board must teach Evolution -- i.e., must include evolution among the material that is taught by a school (or board) and made available for students to take.
I do not think it is a fair construction to claim that McGuinty meant merely that "those schools that teach the course that includes evolution must teach evolution." That would be a tautology. Further, were that the Premier's intention, then it would mean that a school could easily avoid teaching evolution just by failing to offer Grade 12 Biology ... and I don't think anyone believes or suggests that Mr. McGuinty thinks schools should be permitted to avoid teaching evolution simply by failing to offer Grade 12 Biology!
... Yet if religious schools were to be brought under the curriculum then they would not be forced to offer Grade 12 Biology, unless the current curriculum rules were changed. That is the point. If a religious school comes under the curriculum then it can avoid evolution by avoiding the teaching of Grade 12 Biology ... something that the Premier suggested would be impossible when, in fact, it clearly would be possible.
The bottom line is that the Premier referred to the teaching of evolution as mandatory and that, no matter what meaning or shade of mandatory-ness could reasonably be imputed to his words, the comment was inaccurate.
Posted by: Guy Giorno | 2007-09-06 9:02:39 PM
Dolton McLiar knows enough about math to raise taxes. The people of Ontario will enjoy opening their wallets and giving him a few hundred more in 'health' taxes.
Posted by: philanthropist | 2007-09-06 11:42:12 PM
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