The little Puddlecotes have already learned ... the climate change mantra off by heart (and ad nauseam); about Nelson Mandela and the evil white person in South Africa, reactionary lefty poets and the marvels of India; the perils of being a Muslim in 1947 Pakistan; essential skills such as bag-packing and nail beauty; and the political might of the Green Party.
Today, the girl proudly informed me - as I was jostling for position with a couple of grannies for the marked down goods in Tesco - that she is being taught all about triangular trade.
While involved in a tug-o-war over a rather nice tray of pork medallions, I asked how it worked.
"Well", she replied, "England sells guns and ammunition to Africa, and that buys slaves. They are sold to America and England gets sugar, coffee and tobacco.". As the tenacious oxygen-robber finally admitted defeat and removed her fingernails from the cellophane, I made sure that the little P was aware this was a historical trade. Fortunately, she nodded and confirmed that she knew this. "Yes, we're learning all about slaves and racial integration. That's why we're going to watch Hairspray later in the week.".
So that's all right then.
Do you know what? I reckon she is already full to the brim with right-on guardianista ideology at the age of 10. Don't it make ya proud? Almost fully primed for transition into secondary school where these raw ideas can be carefully honed to produce a fully-formed righteous offence-taker.
So much better than in my day at that age, when we learned useless stuff like times tables, spelling, grammar, the Battle of Hastings and world capital cities.
Now, if you'll just excuse me, I'm off to place my face in a pillow and scream.
16 comments:
Dick,
thank God my "kids" are in their mid twenties! It sounds like you have a full time job undoing the damage our education system is doing.
Good Luck.
Find a group of like-minded parents, speak nicely to the splendid Mr Gove and create a proper school to compete with St Stalins.
And people ask why I don't have kids. Simples. I'll never be tempted to find out if I can divorce them. Hairspray ffs! Oh, and I bet it's the remake instead of the original you linked. I can't imagine they'd pass up the chance to point out John Travolta in drag so they can be 'inclusive' on the LGBT+trannie front as well because in these hard up times they probably don't have the budget to rent Priscilla: Queen of the Desert next week.
Apparently my daughter's secondary school have been raising eyebrows at some of the rum ideas she's managed to get herself about politics and politicians.
I dare say telling the teacher that she thought socialism was an 'evil' doctrine got those eyebrows a twitching.
Dick
You have all my sympathies... my elder one is 15 and some of the stories I hear horrify me.
I'm thinking of giving her my copy of 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' in as a counter to Al Gore's pile of shite - that should raise a few eyebrows ;-)
Dick,
All is not lost. My son was schooled similarly but I did a bit of counter-indoctrination. Gave him David Gemmell & Kipling to read, took him along with me to boxing club, taught him to fence, ride a horse, light a fire, climb cliffs and so forth.
Now in his 30s, he is politically a tad to the right of Genghis Khan and thinks that all lefties should be rendered down and used for roadside lighting.
I may have overdone it...
Patience DP.
Somewhere along the line young people realise they have been told fairy tales. They become reactionary.
Sit back and smile.
(Just to be sure, teach critical thinking)
----
Mr Puddlecoat,
You are a responsible father I see, so I suggest you file a complaint against that schools racist curriculum. What, other than racism, can it be that prompts teachers to give all the credit to the British for the slave trade on which modern European prosperity is built.
The Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French and Italians also played important parts. And of course if Africans hadn't brought captive from rival tribes to the coast to sell there wouldn't have been a trade.
Anon: Not that hard, to be fair. Once I start laughing they tend to work out that they're being taught crap. Little P (the girl) read the first 5 comments here too (she knows I post their educational fuck ups) so gets the message herself. ;-)
John R: I get plenty of time to unravel this shite. Or, more correctly, to place it into context with the real world.
AE: I reckon it will be the remake too, but she insisted it was the original so I went with that link.
Shug: One word. Superb! :-)
Dominic: As above.
Pale Ale & 5 Weights: Again, as above.
Westcoast: Re: critical thinking. On the button, it's exactly my approach. The 'placing into context' I referred to above. These are all useful things to learn, but 9 & 10 year olds take them as vitally important and non-debatable if taught by their primary teacher. It's quite scary that what we used to call indoctrination is now termed 'national curriculum'. I could understand such things being taught at secondary school, but the constant barrage at primary is disturbing and, I venture to suggest, not unintentional.
Ian: The complaint would certainly be ignored, so I do the latter, by filling in the gaps that the teachers gloss over.
and I used to think Latin was useless when I was at school. I used to complain that we were never taught polotics or economics, yet were expected to vote within a couple of years of leaving.
Now I fail to see the educational value in most things taught at school.
No wonder the big companies are throwing 25% of job applications in the bin on receipt.
Dick, it's plain that gullible teachers aren't the whole story - the recent "Low Carbon Day" that GOT has been digging around stinks and then there's these people are so opaque about their funding and their message is so loaded that there has to be a stinky back story for sure.... who's paying their bills? Expensive professionally produced web site, turning up willy nilly at meetings and "consultations", being referred to as a "stakeholder" (clue?) really - who the f... has their hand up inside this bunch of secretive halfwit sock puppets?
The UK Youth Climate Change Coalition don't seem to want anybody looking at how they're funded - no siree.....
@Gordon
The Taking It Global bunch are not that secretive, just coy.
They give their history here.
Essentially, some internet entrepreneurs got lucky early on and with the money tried to think of another way to do something interesting.
2000 * Don Tapscott shares TakingITGlobal's action plan with Microsoft, who then hires Mike and Jen on a 6 month consulting project in Redmond to study the Net Generation.
* Media coverage is released discussing both the Microsoft consulting and concept for TakingITGlobal (including a 14 page spread in Fast Company Magazine).
* Version 1 of the takingitglobal.org website launches at the end of August 2000; features include member profiles, discussion boards, events and organization databases. Many early members join after reading the Fast Company article.
* Incorporated as a non-profit organization (September 15, 2000).
Essentially, Bill Gates was looking for applications with which to identify Microsoft. This one looked as it it had potential, but then it was decided that it would be a nice social support network but woudn't necessarily be a sell-able one, like a share of Facebook.
The outfit is a registered US charity which also has a Canadian office (I guess since the founders were Canadian) and their annual accounts for 2008 are online.
It looks like they get about $2m from various grants, with the suggestion that those are US donors.
"I may have overdone it..."
No, think you've pitched it just about right... ;)
Turing word: mentl
"Somewhere along the line young people realise they have been told fairy tales. They become reactionary."
Perhaps that's the very reason for that Winston Churchill quote about changing one's political attitudes through life..?
"Somewhere along the line young people realise they have been told fairy tales. They become reactionary."
Perhaps that's the very reason for that Winston Churchill quote about changing one's political attitudes through life..?
@ Woman on a Raft
Yep, thanks - OK - I see... and honestly had not bothered to look. I took "The UK Youth Climate Change Coalition" as they choose to present themselves as a spontaneous UK "grass roots" bunch of caring youths volunteering their time freely to improve the world. The title style adopted infers they represent a majority UK youth view or that they are a gubmental outfit. Coy? well that's one (generous)way of desrcibing a bunch of superannuated astroturfers.
I get the "marketing eye twitch" when I hear terms like stakeholder, champion, grass roots, "creating positive change" etc., etc.
And the strap line "We facilitate global understanding and grow leadership among youth to
enhance their participation in social movements for a better world." well, shame they can't be a bit more transparent about it eh?
All unpaid and under 25? All I will say is he who pays the piper generally calls the tune...
Global government Money looking for some useful idiots with tme on their hands ?? A trendy Silicon Valley / Micro$oft philanthropic tax deductible loot sink hole hijacked by AGW ecoloons ?
I do like the windmill missing a blade on their home page. I do have to ask WTF Amnesty are doing getting into bed with this lot? That's where I found them....
Post a Comment