ZWAAGSTRA: Academics, not activism, should be the priority in school

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“Resistance to colonialism is not terrorism.”

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This quote was shown to more than 5,000 Winnipeg School Division (WSD) staff last week at a professional development session that Dr. Chris Emdin from Teachers College, Columbia University, delivered. Many teachers found the quote offensive, prompting over a dozen to walk out, which is hardly surprising.

Whatever one’s political views may be, there is no context in which terrorism, or intentionally murdering innocent civilians, is acceptable.

Even more distasteful was the fact that this presentation was delivered only two days after the first anniversary of Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered that day, with many others wounded or taken hostage.

Considering how often Hamas apologists justify their antisemitism by reframing it as “resistance” to colonialism, it’s predicable that a quote minimizing the evils of terrorism wouldn’t go over well with many teachers, particularly Jewish educators.

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WSD Superintendent Matt Henderson was quick to engage in damage control. Henderson apologized for the quote in a letter to staff and explained that “the speaker’s view does not reflect the views of the WSD in this context.”

Henderson shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily, however. No competent superintendent would organize a division-wide professional development event without carefully vetting a keynote speaker, reviewing the PowerPoint slides, and knowing exactly which message would be delivered to the staff.

By inviting a well-known political activist to be the keynote speaker at this WSD event, Superintendent Henderson signalled his desire to take WSD schools in a more progressive direction, where teachers focus more on activism than on traditional academics. This won’t surprise anyone who has read any of Henderson’s many articles over the last decade or so. His left-wing political views are hardly a secret.

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The fundamental issue here is how this incident exposes two different perceptions of the public education system: The traditional view of education which emphasizes the importance of knowledge acquisition and skill development in school, and the progressive view, where teachers engage in social justice activism and seek to liberate students from colonialism and oppression.

This is not a new debate. In Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform, a book written in 2000 by education historian Diane Ravitch, the long struggle between traditionalists and progressives for control of Teachers College is chronicled.

In the end, the progressives won the power struggle and took effective control of Teachers College, the most influential training institution in North America where Emdin currently teaches.

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Many parents are uncomfortable with this approach. They send their children to school because they want them to learn basic facts and master essential skills — not to be indoctrinated into an ideology that conflicts with what they are taught at home.

A far better approach would be for all schools to focus on the fundamentals of teaching and learning. To help students become knowledgeable and skilful and leave political activism out of the classroom.

If teachers want to be political, they should do it on their own time. A school division’s focus should be on academics, not on political activism.

— Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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