I wonder how the argument that makes out the British Empire to be a good thing goes?
Ironically there is a clear biased reasoning for this “guidance”.
The reporting of the Wellbeck primary school is very misleading, the children were asked to give their opinions not necessarily be critical (just they were). Children can have (and should have) biases.
I hope issues like the climate crisis will not be considered a biased topic. Otherwise teachers will have to act like there’s significant plausible deniability.
“For the first half of the physics lesson we will look at if the earth is a globe or flat and consider both sides of the story”. Some arguments should not be given equal weighting just because they’re the ‘opposite’ of what’s right.
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Funny because there’s nothing the right can do about teachers being more left-wing because 1) they’re in the job for a social good and 2) they’re educated.
Let’s be honest the right have a problem with kids being being taught critical thinking and objectivity. They’ll call anything bias that isn’t full on capitalist propaganda.
I’d love to see right-wing bias political lessons just for the pure comedy. Lesson 1 – Political Correctness gone mad innit. Lesson 2- Immigration is genocide. Lesson 3 – Socialists want to steal your toothbrush.
I’m not surprised this has been brought in. Just look at how biased French teachers have been successful in indoctrinating millions of schoolchildren into being Francophiles.
It’s just a PR stunt which is gong to backfire as no teacher is going to be able to prevent a political slant.
Everything has a political dimension how do you teach “British Values” without some political assumptions. How can you discuss racism without being able to imply the BNP or race riots as bad. It won’t take much for some smart Alec to try and catch out a teacher with “was Ken Livingstone right to say…” or “is it acceptable to refer to Muslim women as letterboxes”.
Even back in my school days (90s) teachers kept quiet about political allegiances or religious beliefs. It’s bloody difficult to teach anything with a political dimension (Economics, politics, History…) without an indicaton, kids are smart and can make an educated guess.
I knew which of my Uni professors were far left not because they were in my face about it but because they were the ones with a book about a Marxist slant.
The most blatantly biased professor I had was actually on the right who would make comments like “as proved by….” as if the Chicago school of economics had turned Monetarist doctrine from theory into fact. I agree with quite a bit of it but it’s still theoretical and largely ignores that neoliberalism focuses on productive efficiency to the detriment of allocative efficiency. Obviously something we should no longer teach students.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? We had 5 minutes of thanking teachers during covid and now we’re back to demonising them.
8 comments
I wonder how the argument that makes out the British Empire to be a good thing goes?
Ironically there is a clear biased reasoning for this “guidance”.
The reporting of the Wellbeck primary school is very misleading, the children were asked to give their opinions not necessarily be critical (just they were). Children can have (and should have) biases.
I hope issues like the climate crisis will not be considered a biased topic. Otherwise teachers will have to act like there’s significant plausible deniability.
“For the first half of the physics lesson we will look at if the earth is a globe or flat and consider both sides of the story”. Some arguments should not be given equal weighting just because they’re the ‘opposite’ of what’s right.
[deleted]
Funny because there’s nothing the right can do about teachers being more left-wing because 1) they’re in the job for a social good and 2) they’re educated.
Let’s be honest the right have a problem with kids being being taught critical thinking and objectivity. They’ll call anything bias that isn’t full on capitalist propaganda.
I’d love to see right-wing bias political lessons just for the pure comedy. Lesson 1 – Political Correctness gone mad innit. Lesson 2- Immigration is genocide. Lesson 3 – Socialists want to steal your toothbrush.
I’m not surprised this has been brought in. Just look at how biased French teachers have been successful in indoctrinating millions of schoolchildren into being Francophiles.
It’s just a PR stunt which is gong to backfire as no teacher is going to be able to prevent a political slant.
Everything has a political dimension how do you teach “British Values” without some political assumptions. How can you discuss racism without being able to imply the BNP or race riots as bad. It won’t take much for some smart Alec to try and catch out a teacher with “was Ken Livingstone right to say…” or “is it acceptable to refer to Muslim women as letterboxes”.
Even back in my school days (90s) teachers kept quiet about political allegiances or religious beliefs. It’s bloody difficult to teach anything with a political dimension (Economics, politics, History…) without an indicaton, kids are smart and can make an educated guess.
I knew which of my Uni professors were far left not because they were in my face about it but because they were the ones with a book about a Marxist slant.
The most blatantly biased professor I had was actually on the right who would make comments like “as proved by….” as if the Chicago school of economics had turned Monetarist doctrine from theory into fact. I agree with quite a bit of it but it’s still theoretical and largely ignores that neoliberalism focuses on productive efficiency to the detriment of allocative efficiency. Obviously something we should no longer teach students.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? We had 5 minutes of thanking teachers during covid and now we’re back to demonising them.