Teacher claims Catholic school in Toronto asked 6th grade students to destroy books

An anonymous person claiming to be a Canadian teacher claims that a Toronto elementary school has asked students to throw out popular children’s books.

On June 30 edition of the Woke Watch Canada newsletter, “N. Invictus,” who identified himself as “an anonymous Canadian teacher,” wrote an essay stating that the incident took place at a kindergarten-sixth grade French Catholic school in Toronto, where library staff asked a few sixth grade students to help them in the school library.

“Of course the book lovers – those who have a passion for reading – jumped at this opportunity and volunteered to help. However, they were given the deplorable task of throwing books away instead!” wrote the writer, who said many of the selected books were “my own children’s favorites.”

The children would have been given a pile of books that were about to be thrown away. Some of them were children’s favorite stories and even classics such as Caillou, Franklin the Turtle, Scooby-Doo, Geronimo Stilton, Magic Schoolbus, Magic Treehouse and Clifford the Red Dog.

“The idea of ​​taking them home or sharing them with family and friends appealed, so they asked if they could keep the books instead of throwing them away. They wanted to save the books, preserve them and thereby protect their newly established heritage,” the essay reads.

However, “The answer they got was a resounding ‘NO’.”

According to the anonymous teacher, the children were told that the books contained “inappropriate content and false information”.

Tear off book covers

The children should tear the covers off the books.

“The students, who were avid readers, who loved libraries, and who grew up with books while being raised to respect them, who cherished each of their favorite childhood classics, sat there and took a book from the pile, a bee sometimes reluctantly pulling the covers off feeling as if their heart was being ripped out in the process,” the teacher wrote.

When one of the children picked up a book that appeared to be the Bible, the child refused to tear off the cover. According to the teacher, the next child also refused.

“The book was then passed on to another child, and each of them cringed at the sight of the book they considered sacred and refused to tear the cover off. They’ve had enough,” the teacher said.

One child apparently went home and informed his or her parents, who, according to the teacher, “became furious at the thought of a Catholic school ordering its students to tear off the cover of the Bible.”

The parent went to the school and personally confronted the school principal.

The administrator reportedly showed the parent the book and said it was not the Bible, but rather a commentary on the Bible, and said the school was following an order from the Ontario school board and Ministry of Education to a list’ with no specific year of publication and books published before 1985.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the Toronto Catholic District School Board for comment, but did not comment to the press.

The Ontario Ministry of Education was also contacted to inquire about a “list” or instructions regarding the disposal of books, but it also failed to reply in time for the press.

No ‘isolated incident’

According to the anonymous teacher, the school principal apologized to the parent and admitted asking the children to destroy books was a mistake. The administrator also allegedly said at the time that there was no “list”, but rather a set of “criteria” used by a “board librarian” to determine which books to donate and which to “recycle”.

The teacher continued that this is not an isolated incident.

“The banning and later reformulation of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, the challenge of the book ‘Little House on the Prairie’, the accusation that ‘Dr. Seuss books are hurtful, and the attack on ‘Tintin’ books are just a few examples,” the teacher wrote.

The teacher claims that in January 2021, during our staff meeting, an administrator told teachers that we need to monitor which books and materials students should or should not read.

“To be clear, this administrator was not concerned about the age-appropriateness of the books for high school students, but the emphasis was implicitly on top-down political and ideological topics,” the teacher wrote.

“We have fallen so low that even our Catholic schools consider a book of commentaries on the Bible inappropriate! In any case, no reason can justify the children doing the dirty work of tearing books and censoring in our schools and in our libraries,” the teacher added.

‘War against our values’

The teacher called on parents to form coalitions, write to the Ministry of Education, “bombard” the minister’s office with letters, write tweets and attend school board meetings to voice their concerns.

“The war against our values ​​and freedom is open and open. The adversary knows no mercy; they target children and that alone should tell you something!” wrote the anonymous teacher.

“Filling the libraries with sexually explicit books that resemble pornography, promote self-loathing and support all kinds of so-called family-friendly narratives, while propagating historical self-loathing, mediocrity and learned helplessness, draining the essence of childhood.”