COQUITLAM:
DON'T LOOK AT FOREIGN STRANGERS
EDITORIAL
A dust-up at a B.C. school over the issue of protecting children from contact with adult English
as a Second Language students makes one stop and wonder about what is going on with our
collective psyche.
The rules, introduced after a picket by parents, include a request that the adults not allow
themselves to be seen smoking in front of the children, that a staff washroom be designated for
the adults, and that there are separate entrances for the adults to minimize contact.
The parents were worried that their children might be abused by strangers, and the separate
washroom provision is arguably just common sense.
But there is something going on here that is not common sense at all -- that is paranoid, and sad.
Do parents really believe they can prevent their children from smoking by "sparing" them the sight
of adults with cigarettes? Do they really need to protect their children from the sight of strange
foreigners entering and exiting the school?
One can only guess at the reaction of some of the adults whose initial experiences of Canada
will include attendance at these ESL classes -- perhaps a South America woman who has long
been accustomed to sharing childcare duties in a large family or extended community. She might
well wonder why Canadians feel it is so important to isolate their children from the sight of
the likes of her, even in the supervised setting of a school.
Recently, a teenaged girl I know told me a sad story. She was walking down a Vancouver street
after shopping, and passed by a woman with a couple of small children. One of the children broke
ranks and ran heedlessly past the teen, nearly running into her. To prevent a collision, the teen
lifted her shopping bag and smiled indulgently at the child, who ran under her arm and past her.
The mother rushed to the child, grabbed it, and glared at the teen with open hostility.
"She acted as if I were about to kidnap her child," the girl recalled.
We can go further in "protecting our children" from this dangerous world. We can censor the
internet and print publications rigorously. We can make it an offense for a child to be in the
company of any fewer than three adults at one time, with one of the adults to be a legal custodian.
We can create legislation to limit the public movement of youngsters under, say, sixteen, in order
to keep them safe. We can raise the drinking age, and inspect homes to ensure all alcohol and cigarettes are kept
in locked cabinets if there are children in the house.
But perhaps at a time when elementary school teachers feel constrained from giving a distressed
youngster the type of comforting parental hug that was once considered a kind and
responsible adult act, we have already done enough.
- Marlene Gauthier
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