I think most children are sensitive and would not eat meat, visit circuses, etc. etc. if they understood that it hurt animals. When I did my teacher training 10 years ago, the group went to the Vancouver Aquarium on a field trip so that they could see where they could take their students when they started teaching. I announced that there was no way I would be attending as keeping whales in captivity was horrendously abusive and I would not teach my students it was okay to do such a thing. You could have heard a pin drop in the room when I announced this. All the other student teachers watched me in amazement....this was before discussions had been brought up about zoos, etc.

Anyway, I refused to go (and still got my teaching license!), and afterwards one of the instructors told me that just recently her grade four daughter had to make up some kind of community as one of their class projects. They decided no zoos, no aquariums as it was cruel to animals. If grade four students can figure this out...how come the rest of population can't?

Lori Cumiskey
Vancouver