Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No13
Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No13
Newsletter Themes: Education is not therapy, the harm of trans ideology, stop focusing on social mobility
This week Stuart Waiton discusses the need to move away from the moralistic model of safeguarding in schools. Retired educational psychologist Carolyn Brown argues that trans ideology is a problem for child development. And Kevin Rooney explains why education for social mobility risks sucking the life out of learning.
Last week we had another great meeting, this time in Aberdeen, and were generously supported by those who attended. We aim to have meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh soon, and if you want us to come to your town to discuss what to do about the indoctrination developing in our schools, let us know: info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk
Schools should be places of learning not therapeutic safeguarding centres
Stuart Waiton is an academic and Chairperson of SUE
The tide appears to be turning on the debate about transgender school children in England. A new proposed guidance for schools, down south, allows single-sex schools to reject transgender pupils, prevents boys from taking part in some girls’ sports activities, prevents opposite sex children from sharing shower facilities, and suggests that teachers may be able to ignore the forced use of preferred pronouns. It will be interesting to see if these proposals in England encourage the Scottish government and education authority to take a look at their own approach.
Noting the proposed changes in England, Transgender Trend have argued that they are an improvement but fail to really deal with the issue. They argue for example, that ‘it is not the school’s job to provide validation’ for children who think they are transgender. As they note, validation in schools is political and schools need to, ‘take the politics out of schools and focus on the issue as one of safeguarding’.
The idea that schools that promote a transgender ideology are not safeguarding children has a certain reality. But we also need to be careful with the way the idea and language of safeguarding has come to dominate much of the discourse around children.
The very idea of child safety has grown arms and legs in the last few decades. For example, it wasn’t that long ago that we had things called play parks. Today, just about every place that children play has been re-branded as a ‘Safe Play’ area. More recently, this focus on safety has moved into the realms of ‘mental wellbeing’ and it is here that we start to see the new type of safety etiquette being developed around the transgender child.
The transgender ideology that is being developed in schools is not presented to parents as an ideology, nor is it put forward as a form of political activism, rather, it is seen as simply one of a variety of ‘caring’ policies that are all about understanding and ‘inclusion’: If we aren’t caring and inclusive towards transgender children, the argument goes, we will harm them.
As such, the safeguarding message is one of the key clubs that activists use to beat opponents over the head, in particular with claims that trans kids will become suicidal if schools, teachers, parents and other children do not recognise them for who they are. Through this safety argument, we are all instructed to change our language, indeed our reality, and to call girls by boy’s names, to understand that there are 73 or 100 ‘genders’, and to use meaningless pronouns like they/them.
In particular, the safeguarding approach towards trans identifying children argues that if we do not validate and recognise a child’s chosen gender, they will become suicidal. This is their trump card.
But as Dr Jenny Cunningham explains in a forthcoming SUE pamphlet, the research used in the Transgender Guidance document to justify these claims of suicidal thoughts is seriously flawed and is wholly unscientific.
Usefully, some genuine research was published this month, in a peer reviewed journal that challenges the idea that children will become suicidal if they do not have their trans identity affirmed. The paper entitled, Is Social Gender Transition Associated with Mental Health Status in Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria? concludes that overall, from their sample, there was, ‘no significant effect of social transition or name change on mental health status’. What the authors of this research mean, is that adopting an approach that validates a young person’s gender identity does not improve their mental wellbeing compared to a ‘wait and see’ approach where adults do not encourage children to transition.
Encouraging children to self-identify does nothing for their mental wellbeing. In fact, when schools create an environment that encourages children to turn into themselves, to obsess over their identity, the likely outcome is to create more rather than fewer mental health problems in the future.
At the same time, this educational obsession with safeguarding and identity is likely to limit the nature of education itself, to limit the ability of teachers to put pressure on children, to draw them out of themselves.
Perhaps it is therefore no surprise to now read that 16-year-olds in Scotland have the average reading age of a 13-year-old.
Transgender Trend are right to suggest that transgender ideology in schools is not good for children. But at the same time, we need to be careful when promoting the safeguarding message in schools because this is the very framework used by trans activists to defend their position. Keeping children safe has always been a common-sense aspects of a teacher’s role, but when ‘safeguarding’ and a therapeutic and inward focused obsession with identity takes over it undermines education - the very thing that can help children to grow into mature adults.
Preventing harm from ideology in schools
Carolyn Brown is a recently retired educational psychologist who was Depute Principal Psychologist in a large local authority psychological service in Scotland.
We know from decades of research that children develop a gradual sense of themselves and their individual identity. This is based on a variety of factors impacting on and interacting with the individual. So, a child’s developing personality, their learning predispositions, their family environment, the impact of experiences, and their immediate community (including at school) all have a bearing on how a child develops. Psychological and emotional development for any child is a mixture of influential internal and external factors. A child’s positive health and wellbeing is dependent on him or her being subject to a balance of learning experiences in safe and supportive environments. This should be underpinned by feedback which supports the child to understand concepts and ideas about their world. These ongoing, long-term developments help children and teenagers to progress in their learning and in their attainment of a sense of themselves. In other words, their development of a mature identity. No child is born with an innate sense or feeling about who they are.
The brain of is not fully developed until early adulthood (approximately age 25). The teenage years and the process of puberty are essential to any teenager’s complete and mature psychological and emotional development. We now know from neuroscience that puberty is a critical period for brain development (Blakemore, 2009). The teenage brain, for example, has not fully developed its capacity for rational thought, and it is well documented that teenagers exhibit much higher risk-taking behaviors in various circumstances, for example when they have their peers for an audience. For the adults looking on, safeguarding children and teenagers has always been incumbent on the parents and trusted adults working with them. But the complexities of safeguarding have arguably increased significantly in the recent two decades due to shifting societal attitudes, social media and post-modern academic theories. We know from extensive research that children and teenagers are highly suggestible and easily influenced. It becomes a tricky balance for all parents to provide a supportive home environment which sets sensible boundaries to keep a child or teenager safe while they are supported to become increasingly independent and more self-reliant.
Schools should be focusing on the job of supporting and facilitating children’s resilience in learning and emotional wellbeing. This means: establishing effective learning routines; developing the skills of self-assessment and self-reflection; and providing and teaching factual materials in a safe and welcoming environment. These educational elements are essential rungs on the ladder of healthy emotional development and good mental health alongside the learning experiences themselves. Schools should be providing positive classroom environments where pupils can ask questions in a relaxed and reassuring context. Health and wellbeing for all pupils in Scotland is rightly a significant part of the Scottish curriculum. A focus on diversity and inclusion is rightly viewed by Education Scotland and various Scottish bodies as playing an important role in every pupil’s development. The inclusion of minority groups and their experiences in education should be part of the Scottish curriculum.
This brings us to the Scottish Government’s guidelines Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools and elements of the resource Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP). Both resources present the theory of gender ideology as fact. There is now abundant evidence to prove that gender ideology has no basis in reality. There is no evidence to prove that children are born ‘trans’. There is no clear definition of what ‘trans’ is. There is good evidence that the idea of the ‘trans child’ is a 21st century invention (Biggs, 2019). Both the RSHP and the Scottish Government’s Guidelines Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools use resources which make claims that children can be born in the wrong body; both claim that ‘sex is assigned at birth’; both talk about children being ‘trans’ as a real concept when there is no clear definition of this term. Children’s emotional wellbeing depends on schools avoiding the distribution of material or resources which state that children and teenagers can be something that is not physically or biologically possible. Have a look at some of the RSHP video links. Have a look also at some of the literature used by the activist organisations subsidised by the Scottish Government to work with schools. For example, why is it that LGBTQ youth groups present their materials using fairytale-like terms with colourful avatars and cartoons? Children are being sold a fantasy which infantalises and appeases. How is this facilitating the development of an informed and healthy mind?
Arguably, teachers’ wellbeing is also affected. If their school is using the guidance, Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools, they are actively, and perhaps unwittingly, promoting untruths. Lawyers for Women Scotland found the guidance to be in contravention of the law. The Children’s Commissioner’s lawyers examined this claim and could not contradict this finding. And, given that the guidance supports ‘trans’ affirmation and social transitioning amongst other potential harms, the same teachers may, in future, be held responsible for causing psychological harm to vulnerable pupils and physical harm if they follow the medicalization route.
Schools Preventing Emotional Harms (SPEH)
In the current Scottish context, I am putting forward a template for concerned parents and professionals to follow aimed at preventing the emotional harms that can be caused by gender ideology theory in schools. This is offered as a starter which parents and professionals could use in planning, discussion, professional development and evaluation with regard to what is happening in Scottish schools.
The SPEH Template
1. For Schools/Concerned Staff
Remove the SG guidance Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools
Refer to Transgender Trend/Sex Matters guidance for schools instead of SG guidance
If using RSHP, pick only the parts reflecting facts, avoid the fictions
Advise caution regarding accessing LGBTQ youth groups
Keep toilets & changing rooms single sex
Parental contact is essential where a pupils suggests he or she is gender questioning
Remember that affirming children as ‘trans’ is not a neutral act
Social transition is not a neutral act
2. For Parents/Carers/Families - SPEH Schools Checklist
See checklist below to use with schools. Ideally, concerned parents could use this checklist (download a pdf here) in collaboration with their local schools to develop a safeguarding plan aimed at preventing emotional harms potentially caused by unsafe gender ideologies.
QUESTION
Is there a LGBTQ youth group in school?
Is there a school management overview of the LGBTQ youth group?
Have the activities of the LGBTQ group been evaluated, and risk assessed?
If yes, by whom? Is there a report available?
Is the school aware of the Scottish Gov Guidance “Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools”?
Has the school implemented the above guidance?
Does school management know that implementation of the above guidance is not a legal requirement?
If a pupil tells staff they are ‘trans’, is there an agreed school protocol to deal with this?
If yes, please give details.
Is affirmation of self-identification of trans happening in school?
What training re trans/gender issues has been provided & by whom?
Does the school use alternative guidance instead of the Scottish Guidance?
If yes, please give details
Are school staff aware of described risks of self-id & social transitioning?
Does the school keep any data re pupils identifying as trans?
If yes, please give details
Regarding trans/gender issues: what does the school provide in the curriculum?
Do pupils at the school who identify as trans share friendship groups?
Is there a school policy to address/prevent social contagion in pupils?
Are there pupils at the school who identify as trans who have been influenced via social media?
Does the school have separate toilets for use by one biological sex only?
Does the school have separate changing rooms for use by one biological sex only?
References
1. M. Biggs in M. Moore & H. Brunskell-Evans (Eds) (2019) Inventing Transgender Children and Young People, Cambridge Scholars
2. S. Blakemore & U Frith (2009) The Learning Brain, Blackwell
3. M. Moore & H. Brunskell-Evans (Eds) (2019) Inventing Transgender Children and Young People, Cambridge Scholars
4. Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood https://rshp.scot
5. Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools https://education.gov.scot/media/xpgo5atb/supporting-transgender-pupils-schools-guidance-scottish-schools
Why schools shouldn’t prioritise social mobility over everything else
Kevin Rooney is an author and teacher in the South of England
For years now, educationalists and politicians of all hues have been telling us that the core goal of education is ‘social mobility’. This means reducing poverty and inequality, while promoting mobility up the social ladder, especially for poor working class and black pupils.
I wish I could share that rosy narrative. For me, the social mobility agenda is distorting and degrading education in a number of ways. Many schools have become boring, technocratic institutions where formulaic lessons, teaching to the test and high stakes accountability measures are now the norm. I fear this approach is sucking the life and joy out of teaching and learning.
In practice, social mobility means preparing pupils for the workplace and a successful career. There doesn’t seem to be much debate between left and right on this issue – the left might prefer to call it ‘social justice’ rather than social mobility, but they’re just as eager as the right to talk about the role of schools in securing jobs for their students.
Increasingly, schools are being judged not just on their exam results, or even the number and type of universities their pupils go on to attend, but also the type of jobs their ex-pupils take up. The rise of scripted lessons, knowledge organisers and even the use of cognitive load theory have all contributed to this factory model, where schools are essentially putting pupils onto conveyor belts to fill job vacancies and meet the wider needs of employers and UK PLC.
‘Can you stop now?’
Our students have become socialised into thinking that the only thing of value worth learning is that which will appear in the exam paper. I had a taste of this myself during a pre-lockdown Y10 history lesson, when answering a question about the Battle of the Somme. I went off on a tangent, contemplating whether WWI was an imperialist war in which Britain was equally culpable, or whether Britain was a progressive force in a war to defend democracy. While in full flow, one of the most conscientious and brightest girls in the lesson interrupted to say, ‘Sir, if the stuff you’re talking about isn’t in the exam, can you stop now and get back to the stuff we need to know for the exam?’ Deflated, but knowing full well that school leaders and parents would probably take her side, I went back to teaching my pre-prepared lesson plan.
Later that day I asked my other exam classes, ‘Who thinks teachers should stick to talking about and teaching what’s likely to come up in the exam?” An overwhelming majority in each class raised their hands in support of sticking to teaching to the test. When I then asked these classes what they thought education was for, they looked bemused. ‘To get a well paid job, of course’, came the answer.
The pursuit of wisdom
We should remember that the act of preparing children for the jobs market is different to educating children, different in a number of important ways. The former is glorified job training. The latter is about the transmission of a body of knowledge and the tools to allow learning, linked to the cultivation of intellectual curiosity. This involves helping pupils acquire the habits of introspection, discernment, self-awareness and empathy. Across the arts, sciences and humanities, our young people should be engaged in the pursuit of wisdom. In my model of a school, the pursuit of knowledge and ideas has an intrinsic value.
When a student is unmotivated, the teacher will often increasingly resort to warning them about their future job prospects. Instead, teachers should start from the premise that the particular subject under discussion is worth knowing and recognise that our responsibility as good teachers is to convince the pupil intellectually why a subject is worth getting to grips with. The social mobility mindset is so deeply embedded that to challenge it is to risk being perceived as callous. But if you want to bring about social mobility, it would be better to get involved in politics and fight for policies that might reduce poverty and inequality.
Viewing schools as engines for social mobility degrades education and distorts the role of teachers. If we lose sight of the intrinsic value of education and allow a utilitarian model of education to take over, the teacher-pupil relationship will become a mere transactional one, as education itself becomes imbued with a set of instrumentalist goals.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get a fulfilling and well-paid job. I’m a great fan of careers advisers and of schools collaborating with local employers, but these things have historically been a by-product of what a good school does and have taken place outside of the classroom.
My wife is prone to telling people that I’m a useless husband and father but a great teacher. She’s kept every one of the cards I’ve received over many years from students leaving 6th form. Most of those students received excellent exam results and were heading off to good universities, but what they were thanking me for was something different. It was for inspiring them with a love of learning and a love of subject, and for triggering in them a wider intellectual curiosity. The slow degradation we’ve seen in the purpose of schools is sad for teachers, students and parents alike. We need to reclaim it.
News Round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/alarm-over-teaching-nursery-children-scotland-about-consent-1436251 The Newsroom, Alarm over teaching nursery children in Scotland about consent. The Scottish Government is to investigate how the concept of ‘consent’ is taught to nursery-aged children, according to a document outlining its strategy to prevent violence against women and girls. 25/11/17
https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/behind-rhetoric-untold-story-of-gender-affirming-clinics/ Carol Tavris, Behind the Rhetoric: The Untold Story of “Gender-Affirming” Clinics. 17/04/23
https://www.theepochtimes.com/majority-of-members-at-largest-teachers-union-are-unaware-of-far-left-motions-pushed-at-conferences_5186339.html Owen Evans, Majority of Members at Largest Teachers Union Are ‘Unaware’ of Far-Left Motions Pushed at Conferences. 21/04/23
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23469493.trans-children-facing-lengthy-waits-glasgow-treatment/ Caroline Wilson, Trans children facing lengthy waits for Glasgow treatment. 22/04/23
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-womens-institute-trans-rebels-have-had-enough-of-men-like-william-hague/ Brendan O’Neil, How dare William Hague lecture the Women’s Institute on trans rights. 19/04/23
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/head-teachers-urged-to-drop-trans-lesson-plan-2wkf2fb3k Marc Horne, Head teachers urged to drop trans lesson plan. 19/04/23
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/23/teachers-warn-new-gender-guidance-for-english-schools-could-put-children-at-risk Anna Fazackerley, Teachers warn new gender guidance for English schools could put children at risk: Government accused of creating ‘atmosphere of fear’ with plan to compel schools to inform parents if pupils question gender. 23/04/23
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/23474816.235k-year-equality-diversity-free-speech/ Mark Smith, £235k a year on equality and diversity. But what about free speech? 24/04/23
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/nearly-60-of-high-schools-sign-up-for-lgbt-youth-scotland-inclusivity-scheme Tara Fitzpatrick, Nearly 60% of high schools sign up for LGBT+ inclusivity scheme The scheme, which provides schools with training to challenge prejudice, has also been adopted by some primary schools, colleges and universities. (Retrieved 25/04/23)
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