The arguments in the fierce debate over Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum could easily be lifted from headlines in newspapers from the 1960s — when lessons about sex were first introduced in classrooms, an education historian says.

Assistant professor Theodore Christou, of Queen’s University, said there’s not much new in positions presented by proponents and opponents of the Liberal’s controversial changes to the sex-ed curriculum.

“The arguments are all old,” Christou said Tuesday. “The people saying them think they’re quite new.

“Educational reformers say the curriculum is obsolete, the times have changed, contemporary reality is not reflected in the curriculum.

“In the 60s, the people who fought against sex ed were concerned with losing the moral foundation, the grounding of society. Again, today, a lot of it is religiously oriented.”

Former Progressive Conservative premier Bill Davis was education minister when the Ontario government introduced sex education in schools for the first time 50 years ago, he said.

Christou added every attempt to change the sex-ed curriculum generates controversy.

“Just the idea of sex ed in schools is controversial for people,” he said. “There is a real sense that schools have no business teaching this stuff, even though it has been there since the ’60s.”

Christou said he’s not sure if there are lessons to be learned from past conflicts on the sex education file, but it’s clear that provincial consultation came too late this time around.

“If, even in advance of this, there had been a sense that there was a greater public involvement of what goes into the curriculum, (it would have helped) because schools are a reflection of society,” he insisted. “A large part of society that doesn’t think that curriculum reflects their values, and that’s a challenge.”

Associate professor Jennifer Gilbert, of York University’s education faculty, said she thinks the controversy is a good thing.

“Sex ed deals with these life and death issues,” she said. “Sexuality, family, religion, all these things that are so important to how we understand ourselves in the world. It’s important there is that conversation even when that conversation feels controversial.”

Gilbert said the education ministry failed to do enough to hear from parents protesting the curriculum. Updating the curriculum, which hasn’t changed since 1998, is urgent but involving parents more closely in the operation of schools is also vital, she said.

shawn.jeffords@sunmedia.ca