Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No67

Newsletter Themes: the confusion created in children’s minds by overexposure to inappropriate ideas, and disaster education - part 3

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK by donating to SUE. Click on the link to donate or subscribe, or ‘buy us a coffee’. All our work is based on donations from supporters.

---

Kate Deeming has usefully categorised aspects of what happens in schools today as ‘disaster education’. It seems odd, as she notes, that at a time when parents are encouraged to overprotect their children and to limit their exposure to many experiences that older generations would consider normal, at the same time, children are also being overexposed to things that should play no part in a child’s life. Why is this happening?

One of the initial issues that SUE was made aware of when forming was the inappropriate sexualised education in schools, especially primary schools. We have also become increasingly concerned about the promotion of transgender ideology in schools, again, especially in primary schools. The recent reports about very young kids becoming LGBT champions in schools is one example of this, and hats off to Sam Cowie, who has helped to expose a number of these issues.

We see the strange development of drag queens reading to children, where a once very adult type of entertainment is suddenly seen as appropriate for children, and ‘progressive’ There is even a somewhat bizarre YouTube clip doing the rounds of a drag queen in the US helping very young children to sing a Free Palestine song!

This last example is informative because it gives the game away a little in terms of why we are witnessing the inappropriate exposure of certain things to children, because here we can see quite clearly that it is an adult agenda, specifically a political agenda, that is at play.

It would appear that the issue of values is key – in particular, the values of a certain section of society, the new elites, that lies at the heart of the overexposure conundrum.

Despite the clumsiness of the term the new elites, it is a useful one because there is a growing literature about this group and their nature. Sometimes called the professional managerial class, this is a relatively new group in society who dominate our institutions – a group whose members are often most clearly observed within the cultural world but have come to dominate the political class, especially in places like Scotland (but also Canada and New Zealand).

Discussed by David Goodhart, they are classified as the Anywheres, a group of people who are more free-floating, cut off from past traditions or any sense of loyalty or duty to a community or a country. More introspective and aloof, this group can be considered disconnected from the society that they govern. Humza Yousaf is a perfect personification of this section of society.

Being aloof, disconnected, largely self-interested but also deeply ‘progressive’, they look down on the mass of people whom they presume to be a ‘basket of deplorables’ (in Hillary Clinton’s words) whose culture needs to be changed.

One result is that the new elites want to change the values in schools, to ‘break down barriers’. Casting parents as deplorables, or at least as barriers to the new ‘correct’ values, these elites see their job as getting in early, and freeing children from the limits being imposed on them by past generations.

The Named Person project, through which every child was to have a state guardian (a professional) overseeing his or her interests, is an example of this development. (You can watch a video of those who campaigned against the Named Person here.) And just to show that this idea of getting kids to sing ‘correct thinking’ songs is not confined to the US, here is a video of the SHANARRI song, in which children are encouraged to sing the new correct ‘wellbeing indicators’ as prescribed by the professional class.

The idea of this section of society being disconnected is important because it helps to explain why they have no common sense. Ideas of a sexualised child, or being born in the wrong body, or the misanthropic idea that Scotland is a white place that only cares about white people (as Humza Yousaf implied in his much-ridiculed 2020 speech in which he rants about positions of power being held by ‘WHITE!’ people in a population that was, at the time, 98% white), only makes sense if you are cut off from ordinary people, ordinary communities, and their reality.

The professional gaze has also increasingly come to alter the way we all think about our lives and our experiences and difficulties, and so we find psychological and clinical categories increasingly coming from the mouths of babes who understand their occasional feelings of unhappiness as ‘stress’, ‘trauma’ and ‘depression’, while more and more are given psychological labels such as ADHD to describe what was often understood to be the normal behaviour of young children – and young boys in particular.

A culmination of being disconnected from people and society and the common-sense values that have been developed over generations helps to explain the loss of basic principles about what is appropriate for adults and what is appropriate for children. This overlaps with a certain disdain for parents and grandparents and the development of a new type of elitism and a desperate attempt to turn education into a form of social justice activism.

Thankfully, we still live in a democracy, which means that at least on occasion, the disconnect between the new elite and the people comes to the surface. It is at times like this that parents, teachers, grandparents and communities have a window of opportunity to demand that schools once again become places of education not indoctrination.

Stuart Waiton, Chair of SUE

---

---

What is risk?

Kate Deeming is the SUE Parent and Supporters Coordinator. She is a long-time advocate for childhood and children, who for 30 years developed and delivered dance and performance projects in educational and community settings globally (https://www.deemingdreaming.com/) . You can follow her Substack here:

.

In their book The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt outline our failures societally wherein we over protect our children from ‘danger’ in order create a culture of safety. He argues that this leads to unhealthy children who are unable to meet the adult challenges of the world.

Ironically, while children are often ‘under-exposed’ to certain aspects of childhood, they are also being overexposed to aspects of the adult world. Artists appear to believe that ‘taking a risk’ or being ‘experimental’ means producing government funded work that boasts of creating a ‘secret sex cave party’. But this is not all together surprising coming from a director who previously staged a performance where a 16-year-old used sex toys in a Youth Theatre performance. 

Pushing the boundaries of art for children used to mean stretching and developing them physically, emotionally and intellectually. Today our ‘creatives’ often appear to think this simply means pushing them sexually or by ‘breaking down barriers’ and challenging their and their parent’s ‘values’. One has to wonder where the arts are going.

Just at the time when kids are being exposed to this ‘risk taking’ in art, we also find that actual art, teaching of the often-difficult skills and techniques that can help children to develop themselves and their creativity, is difficult to find. I was recently shown some examples of Picasso’s early work (from when he was 14 years old!); they were magnificent. We don’t expect all kids to be art geniuses, of course, but ‘artwork look like Dogman’, as one teacher called it, suggests that our cultural expectations for children have diminished considerably.

Where art and beauty (and hard work) can elevate children, we continue to find that schools are more inclined to find the base and the grotesque: enter Disaster Education, Part 3.

In previous articles, I explained how our educational system seems obsessed with traumatising our children with the horrors of the world. From lessons delivered by Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on puppies being buried alive for 9-year-olds, to 7-year-olds learning about brain aneurysms and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) – something that children lack the physical capacity to deliver – to heartwarming posters made about death counts from the Pakistan floods, no potentially horrific subject is off limits to our educational authorities.

When I complained to the quality assurance officer of my son’s former school that I didn’t want my son ‘made into an activist’ or exposed to such content, she informed me that Scottish government education’s purpose is to develop our children into ‘global citizens’. In my opinion, this is the moral equivalent of sitting a child down to watch snuff films every day ad infinitum. One has to wonder if they even like children.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that Edinburgh Council has a venue, and programme, called the Risk Factory. Now hold your excitement lest you think this is a wonderful escape room–styled experience in the home of the Edinburgh Fringe, led by Fringe First winner the Grid Iron Theatre Company. It is not.

When a mum messaged me with the details, and I shared it among other parents, their responses included the following:

My son wet himself on that programme.

That programme made my child cry.

My daughter and her friends still talk about how awful that was.

So, what is it?

Well, from the looks of it, it appears that rather than a trained actor delivering a quality script in an immersive theatre experience that’s fun, exciting and imaginative – it’s Dougie from accounting in his hi-vis educating ‘wee Myrtle’ through environments set up to replicate ‘danger zones’, explaining how she might accidentally kill herself while making toast!

In the words of Selma (who was one of the attendees of said programme):

I really loved being put in real life situations and dialing 999!

Because nothing says FUN like calling 999!

I have been told these programmes have been going on for years. In all my days in American education, not once was I subjected to anything like this. And yet, here I am – alive! Must be magic.

Yet for all the time dedicated to these pursuits, I can think of a hundred and one other things I’d rather school would be doing with my child’s time. And back to Picasso. Reflecting on his work (as a 14-year-old), I wonder how many of our children will actually have been given the opportunity to develop artistic skills? How many will be given the time to develop craft? How much of our children’s time is spent on these ‘anti-risk’ programmes at the expense of something they would actually benefit from and potentially become excellent at?

I was thinking about my many visits to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the Burrell Collection here in Glasgow, and how I don’t recall seeing school groups at either. And then it occurred to me that my son (in P6) has never visited any Glasgow arts venue in all his years at school. My child would enjoy and benefit from arts instruction. I cannot afford to pay for private lessons. His old school did a lot of poster making (like about death, and hate). I suspect this ticked their ‘expressive arts’ box, but never are children given instruction on good poster design. They are not shown iconic posters. They are not taught about the use of font, colour or perspective. All this poster making does, as well as filling time, is to encourage mediocrity and reinforcing the idea of ‘being a good citizen’: Shouldn’t being a good citizen at least have something to do with doing something worthwhile?

Based on the results of an informal survey I carried out on Twitter/X, on Facebook, and in my private channels related to this, and it seems many parents experience the same. Mostly (as with all the Curriculum for Excellence), it is down to individual teachers and their interests and background. But leaving vital learning experiences to chance seems remiss for an educational programme.

Much time, energy and money appears to be going into elevating ideas about risk and safety, while at the same time, the opportunity to show children some of the wonders of art and culture, and perhaps even encouraging their own risk taking, is declining. We are denying them the very wonderful things that they actually enjoy and benefit from: art, music, sport, expressive arts, adventure clubs...

We need to recognise, preserve, protect and celebrate childhood. It is precious and it will not come again. Let us be the adults in this world and create the foundational experiences with which will build happy memories for a lifetime for our children.

---

---

News round-up

A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight

https://unherd.com/2024/04/the-liberal-lessons-of-the-cass-report/ Kathleen Stock, How a cult captured the NHS Society fails when it treats children like adults 12/04/24

https://archive.ph/4vl2i Ron Liddle, Why the Cass report won’t change a thing 27/04/24

https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-neurodiversity-movement-has-become-harmful Moheb Costandi, Against neurodiversity. The movement has good intentions, but it favours the high-functioning and overlooks those who struggle with severe autism.

https://archive.ph/MGN3m Daniel Sanderson, Scottish school pupils taught 40 pronouns and encouraged to wear badges. Fears of ideology being promoted in classrooms as teachers urged to celebrate ‘International Pronouns Day’ with lessons about ‘neo-pronouns’ 22/04/24

https://substack.com/home/post/p-144030957?source=queue Ayaan Hirisi Ali, DIE-ing Schools And Glimmers of Hope 26/04/24 

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-eroding-rights-parents-jenny-32654148 Douglas Dickie, SNP 'eroding rights of parents' as Jenny Gilruth refuses to review funding for controversial LGBT charity. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Meghan Gallacher pressed the education secretary on the role of LGBT Youth Scotland in schools after worrying reports over the past week 23/04/24

Suicide Rates Are Now Higher Among Young Adults Than the Middle-Aged

Jean M Twenge, Suicide Rates Are Now Higher Among Young Adults Than the Middle-Aged. It’s time to update common beliefs about age and suicide 24/04/24

https://archive.ph/UiJE0 Szu Ping Chan, One million children to claim disability benefits amid surge in autism and ADHD. Total bill for health and disability claims will hit £100bn in 2029, official figures show 23/04/24

https://www.transgendertrend.com/adult-gender-clinics-withhold-data-cass-review/ Transgender Trend, Why did adult gender clinics withhold data from the Cass Review? 21/04/24

https://archive.ph/ylpnH Anon, Our child socially transitioned at school – now, we’re too scared to challenge her. Teachers said an official name change would silence our teenager’s bullies, but now we feel trapped by the gender ideology cult. 21/04/24

---

---

Thanks for reading the SUE Newsletter.

---

Please visit our Substack

Please join the union and get in touch with our organisers.

Email us at info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk

Contact SUEs Parents and Supporters Group at PSG@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk

Follow SUE on X (FKA Twitter)

Please pass this newsletter on to your friends, family and workmates.