Permission slips raise parental concerns

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This article was published 02/10/2023 (709 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Permission slips asking parents whether they want to police their child’s reading choices have sparked backlash among families concerned about growing calls to censor LGBTTQ+ books.

Last month, a group of middle years teachers in St. Boniface sent home papers requesting the parents of Grade 7 and 8 students to check a box indicating if their child is allowed to independently select any book they wish to read in class.

The alternative option is to receive emails with book titles throughout the 2023-24 school year in order to approve or deny them before a child flips through their pages.

The template letter, which has been in circulation in local schools for decades, acknowledges classrooms in question have a large collection of novels, ranging in genres, themes, authors, levels of difficulty and maturity level.

“I make every attempt to match the material with the interest and ability of the student, however I also respect the different family values that may come into play with some books,” states an excerpt of the form that one mother recently posted to Facebook with the caption, “Seriously?!”

“That’s what triggered me — the ‘family values.’ I was really upset,” said Corinne, another mother in the Louis Riel School Division who, considering the current political climate, was shocked when her oldest brought home the slip. In order to protect her children’s privacy, she requested her last name not be printed.

“With what’s happening in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, where they are not protecting the rights of a child… it’s a very scary time for kids.”

Those provinces have sought to update school gender-identity policies and require teachers to obtain guardian approval before calling a student under 16 by a new name or pronoun.

In Manitoba, the Progressive Conservatives have been campaigning for re-election on a vague pledge to enhance “parental rights” — a popular term used by U.S. movements to ban books with LGBTTQ+ content.

Against that backdrop, about 1,500 protesters attended a “Hands Off Our Kids” rally outside the Manitoba legislature on Sept. 20. Attendees promoted false and outrageous claims about teachers being “groomers” and “predators” who are pushing an agenda to indoctrinate children with LGBTTQ+ lessons and stocking pornographic books.

(Several days later, thousands rallied on the grounds in solidarity with transgender students, vocalizing their support for ongoing efforts to make schools inclusive spaces with Pride flags on display and library collections including books about LGBTTQ+ families.)

Superintendent Christian Michalik said contrary to recent fear-mongering about schools withholding information from parents, reading permission forms are just one example of the numerous ways teachers communicate with families about what’s going on in their classrooms.

Michalik said he’s aware of just one form that was returned by a parent requesting to approve their child’s book choices this year.

Career educator Syd Korsunsky drafted the permission slip 30 years ago to keep families in the loop about his then non-traditional approach to reading instruction.

Teachers often assign a single book to their entire class, or group children into literature circles based on reading levels.

Korsunsky, who taught grades 7 to 12 throughout his career, is in another camp of educators who strongly believe in the benefits of encouraging students to pick whatever book they like, and deliver universal lessons accordingly.

“Even though I was a progressive liberal thinker, I did want parents to know I respect parents’ input. I didn’t want to be the sole adjudicator of what was right for the kid,” said the literacy coach, who at age 75 continues to mentor teachers in Winnipeg schools.

He said his practice changed in 1988, after reading In the Middle by Nancy Atwell, an American educator and author who won the first Global Teacher Prize, a $1 million award known as the “Nobel Prize for Teaching.”

Atwell was a groundbreaking thinker who proposed allowing students to pick their own reading material would improve the quality of their learning, he said. “I had books in my classroom beforehand, but that was a quantum leap for us.”

At the same time, Korsunsky said he wanted to build trust with parents who were unfamiliar with the newfound independence for children in his classrooms.

His template has since been shared with teachers across the province, including in LRSD. It was a support document distributed with the former English Language Arts curriculum.

“It’s an indication that teachers have been consulting with parents all along,” said Brandi Bartok of the Manitoba School Library Association.

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While noting she respects all of her colleagues’ professional judgment, Bartok cautioned about the precedent using a form like this could set. It is an immense amount of work to closely police a child’s reading and communicate everything they pick up to guardians throughout any given year, the teacher-librarian said.

Parents should be encouraged to talk to their students about reading choices, but no one has the right to censor what their child’s peers are reading, Bartok said, adding allowing parents to simply decline a title via email may be a lost opportunity to engage in nuanced discussion about a novel and its themes.

For Corinne, a mother of three in LRSD, the point of public school is to expose all children to diverse viewpoints and experiences, and teach them respect and empathy despite differences.

“I want to be aware of what’s going on at a school, but Grade 7, 8 is where they start to figure out the world. They need their independence,” said the mother, whose oldest just began the seventh grade. “(Self-discovery) has got to be on their time, not on a parent’s time.”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.