[This letter to the editor was published in The Lethbridge Herald for June 10, 2009]

      Alberta Bill 44 provides that parents (or guardians) of students must be notified “where courses of study, educational programs or instructional materials . . . include subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.” Safe teachers will interpret “explicitly” as “to address in ANY WAY matters regarding religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.” That is one big problem. Another is that our Legislative Assembly wrongly thinks that religion and sexuality and sexual orientation are discreet subjects that can be segregated, even surgically divided from other subjects. Their understanding of “knowledge acquisition” (to use an ugly but revealing business term for education) is narrow, laughable, and ludicrous. Most real knowledge is integrated, and “religion” and “sex” are among those that overlap, intersect and merge with other subjects in all sorts of ways.     “Religion,” especially, is a subject so broad and so intimately involved with the basic elements of being human, that it touches upon almost every other subject involving human beings. Being religious (or not) has to do with how we view our world; how we react to our world; how we make sense of our world. To place it under special status (totalitarian regimes over the last century have eagerly placed issues of import under this status) is to eliminate much of what we call philosophy, history, and the study of society (to say nothing of art).

    “Sexuality” and “sexual orientation” are as problematical. While we KNOW what the legislature thinks it means by “sexual orientation,” they are babes-in-the-woods in regard to the broad subject-matter of “sexuality,” subject-matter intimately associated with many critical aspects of human development. The message is clear for any teacher, however:  stay away from anything that has to do with processes of biological reproduction in any form and, for good measure, anything dealing with human affection and intimacy. Who knows how fast those subjects might suddenly veer into the forbidden realm of human sexuality.

     If we lived in a province where “reasonable expectations” prevailed, good teachers with options would leave, and faculties of education would howl in protest. But we live in Alberta, an alternate-reality universe. Aside from a few courageous students and teachers, we will see little more than tighter lips, and young people poorly prepared for the world in which they live.