This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Share this Story : This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content The path to peace and co-existence is true inclusion and equality amongst all, and this starts with our educational system. The syllabus of hate must stop. The allowance of hateful rhetoric that calls for violence is in direct contradiction with our democratic society. The future of Canada depends on what we teach our children. Israel Ellis, Toronto I’m left asking why teachers would expose children to such distressing circumstances during an educational field trip, when multiculturalism is held as such a core value in our public school system. The situation that arose in this field trip reflected a breach of duty and trust by the TDSB teachers who supervised the children. At the point in which the field trip involved stigmatization and protest, it was the duty of all teachers present to intervene. Children can be informed about history and current events, even issues that pertain to the grittier aspects of human nature like war, slavery, colonization, but it should always be done in a way sensitive to their age and intellectual development. The focus that day should have been on inspiring children to seek knowledge and their own understanding about a complex issue (which was supposed to have been the Grassy Narrows First Nation’s long struggle with mercury contamination), in a complex world. It was a moral failure for the teachers involved to have allowed this event to turn into a protest that was divisive and upsetting to many of the students. Advertisement 5