I'm a product of the Roman Catholic Separate School System. Both of my parents worked as teachers in that same system (although neither of them actually taught me, although my father did supply teach in a few of my high school classes.)
I spent my high school years in the closet. They were horrible years, as you can likely imagine. However, I can't honestly say that my high school experience was any worse than most students.
I would describe most of my Catholic teachers as very progressive. Not once do I recall any teachers standing in front of class to proclaim that 'homosexuality was a sin.' In fact, I recall the opposite. One family studies teacher once specifically encouraged a class to respect gays and lesbians. Homophobia was no worse in my school than any public school, from what I have gathered.
Another phys-ed teacher in my Catholic high school once warned students that women have the right to choose whether or not to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Incidentally that phys-ed teacher was one of the few teachers in our school who wasn't actually Roman Catholic.
Obviously, Catholic education was far more enlightened, at least at my high school, then you might imagine.
Most of my teachers adhered to the principle that they are there to enlighten and educate, not indoctrinate. In fact, the only times I remember being told what to believe were on visits from the Bishop or during one of the more unpopular school masses. And even then few students listened. Theology classes in high school became places to question one's faith.
Roman Catholic immersion was much stronger, at least in my memory, in the primary grades where First Confession and First Communion were integrated into the class curriculum. Even Confirmation in Grade Eight was emphasized. But in high school, there was little evidence that our Catholic schools were in fact much different from public system schools, except for maybe the uniforms.
In fact, my high school had a reputation of being a drug haven, although I confess I never experimented with narcotics until university. In high school, I had known some Protestants who went to other schools, but I rarely associated with them.
Once I left the Catholic system and enrolled in secular University of Guelph, it was then that I understood what I had been denied in the Catholic system.
I remember sitting at a library computer in first year when the young man next to me started chatting with the girl next to him. The subject of religion came up and he mentioned that he was "Jewish." That was the first time I had actually found myself this close to someone Jewish - age 19.
I'm sure this might sound absolutely astonishing to people who went through the public education system. Sure I was taught by both my parents and all my Catholic teachers that anti-Semitism was wrong. But that lesson had always remained theoretical. I had never known anyone who was actually Jewish. The same goes for anyone Muslim. I have since made many Jewish and Muslim friends, I'm proud to say.
The true diversity of Ontario had been denied to me. Instead, I came to look at my primary and secondary education as quite sheltered.
I have since made up for this, of course, in my adult life. But I've always felt that there was something inherently wrong with this type of segregrationist approach to teaching young people.
The constitutional right held by Catholics to their own "Separate School System" is a throwback to a bygone era. It reflects an approach to education that is inherently flawed.
Sure it is unfair to provide public funding to Catholic schools, and not to other religious schools.
But the solution is clear: end funding for Catholic schools, not make the problem even worse by further institutionalizing segregation. Ontario needs to follow in the foot steps of other provinces and publically fund one education system for all.
Parents who choose to shelter their children and hide them from the world in segregationist systems can do so, but not on my buck.
Until the province does the right thing and integrates our public education systems, we have to live with the status quo of two public education systems in Ontario, one for Catholics and one for everybody else.
Faith is a personal matter best left to the home and to places of worship. Not the classroom.
With his plan to further segregate public education in Ontario, John Tory is very, very wrong. This is probably the best reason to keep John Tory in opposition, in my humble opinion. Dalton McGuinty's policy on this issue is to be commended. While he may not agree with me (at the moment) that we need to have one public system for all, at least Dalton is not willing to make the problem even worse.
