Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No30
Newsletter Themes: free speech, ‘inclusion’, therapy culture, and SUE’s transgender ideology pamphlet
This week the Edinburgh Festival and the Fringe have been at the centre of the culture war. The Royal Lyceum’s David Greig committed the cardinal sin of liking two tweets that were deemed to be ‘transphobic’, and Father Ted creator Graham Linehan was cancelled by Leith Arches for similar reasons, provoking a major debate about free speech.
One of the tweets liked by Greig was: ‘If you are a 16-year-old autistic girl who says someone looks like a lesbian you will be arrested and held in custody, but if you are a 26-year-old man who punches a woman twice at a women’s rights rally, you will just be cautioned.’ Greig may be saved because he issued a public apology and a promise to undergo awareness training. Meanwhile Linehan was forced to perform in front of the Scottish Parliament after a second venue pulled out of hosting the Comedy Unleashed event in which he was included. Thankfully Linehan’s cancellation has been widely reported in the media, and you can read more in his Substack.
Media pundits said it was ironic that Edinburgh, centre of the Scottish Enlightenment and supposedly home to freedom of thought, should be so intolerant. While we can be rightly proud of Scotland’s eighteenth century intellectual and democratic traditions, the coverage also exposed the fact that although the Enlightenment (1705–1815) appears on the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s history curriculum, it’s not being taught to most children.
What was really encouraging about this week’s public drama was the level of support for Linehan and Greig. The Herald reported that in its public poll on Linehan’s right to speak and perform, a massive 92% (of 5330 respondents) supported the comic. It seems that the gap between those who run our cultural venues and educational institutions (who like to cancel) and the public is growing wider by the day!
This week’s Substack focuses on the idea of therapeutic education. Stuart Waiton, Chairperson of SUE, looks at the idea of ‘inclusion’ and how it provides the basis for the development of education policies that discourage a broad range of ideas and discussion; Rachael Hobbs, a parent who works in the education sector, has carried out some research on the source of therapeutic education; Dr Jenny Cunningham reports back on responses to her pamphlet on transgender ideology in schools; and Kate Deeming, SUE’s Parents and Support Group organiser, has some questions for you about the use of phones in schools.
Weasel words: ‘inclusion’
Stuart Waiton, Chairperson of SUE
One of the difficulties parents face when dealing with the indoctrination taking place in schools is the sleekit nature of the language used by the authorities. The word ‘inclusion’ (or ‘inclusive’) is one of these new terms, a weasel word that puts you on the defensive as soon as you hear it thrown in your direction. The usefulness of the term ‘inclusive’ is that it plays on our best instincts; indeed, ironically, it plays on the best instincts that have been developed by liberal democracies. Who, for example, wants to exclude a child from education? More particularly, who wants to exclude a child because of their race or sex or sexuality? Glasgow City Council, in their Vision and Values statement about education, note that education must be inclusive for all: ‘All is a small word’, this statement explains, ‘but carries a big load – all learners matter regardless of their race, gender, disability, or family circumstance’.
One of the things that is interesting about this statement is that I can’t think of anyone who would disagree with it, and yet it is stated with such vigour and purpose. It reminds me a little of the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ – a seemingly profound statement that, again, nobody disagrees with, but which spread across the world as if some new moral meaning had just been discovered. Additionally, the term ‘inclusion’ carries within it a form of morality regarding how we behave. As a result, it is often accompanied by the idea of ‘respect’, and so we get a type of politeness developed that includes a need to learn a correct new ‘inclusive’ language that is ‘central to equality and anti-discriminatory practice’ (as stated in the Scottish government’s Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools guidance, p. 49).
What’s odd about this is that while much of this sounds reasonable and indeed good, it doesn’t appear to have much, if anything, to do with education. In fact, what’s disturbing about the idea of ‘inclusive education’ is that it replaces what most people think of as education, with politics. My children, for example, received lessons in so-called ‘anti-racism’ from the age of five. My children weren’t racist. Nor am I. But nevertheless, our teachers had this on the curriculum. Not only was this not what I was expecting from a primary school, but there was an unpleasant presumption that the five-year-olds, and their parents, were in need of this re-education.
On top of this, we have learned over the past few years that the term ‘inclusive’ is often exclusive, as Graham Linehan discovered to his cost at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year. And we have seen how schoolchildren are treated and literally excluded from class if their opinions about biological reality clash with the ‘inclusive education’ that turns out to be a dogma, or a forced form of values. In the end then, ‘inclusive education’, something that appeals to our sense of fairness and decency, turns out to start from a degraded view of children and their supposedly bigoted parents. It turns education into a form of politics, something that clashes with the most basic pedagogical understanding of what children’s education should be about. And it ultimately turns out to be a dogma that leads to the exclusion of ideas and the punishment of children who do not take the knee to the ‘truths’ proscribed by the authorities.
The problem with therapeutic education
Rachael Hobbs is a parent who works in education.
Safe space. When you hear those words you know an inane, softly spoken statement about ‘mental health’ is approaching. No one asks, ‘What is it exactly, that we need to be safe from?’ Although it sounds like a kindly invitation to a cosy cottage (think Hansel and Gretel), it is often called on when there is something extreme someone wants to whisper in the ears of the young. This is why these supposedly safe spaces are deemed, of all places, to be online and with strangers, i.e. among anonymous mental health ‘advisers’.
When not online, safe spaces can be found in schools, set up well-meaningly by teachers often under hypnosis in the TQ+ drive. These spaces are a kind of sacred bubble of culturally induced identity neurosis, not to be burst by the support of peers or parents. They form just one aspect of a wider problem within schools. In recent years we have witnessed a major transformation of learning values. There has been a cultural turn towards the therapeutic – towards introspection reinforced by the validation and exaltation of the self.
Trailing not far behind the excruciating ‘safe space’ is the overused mantra and policy of ‘wellbeing’, which has lost all meaning and is fast diluting real education. Rooted in ‘child-centred’ pedagogy, which has won favour over the past few decades, is the exponential growth in ‘therapeutic education’, drawing heavily on, and uprooting, mental health support once reserved for those in an interim state of suffering.
Children are carrying the burden for our failures as adults. They are being inducted into a therapeutic miasma permeating all experiences and thought, supported by a never-ending narrative about self-help, self-esteem, self-love and the authentic self. In its early days, therapeutic teaching was about recognising individual students’ needs and interests and creating a more ‘personalised’ (another one of those words) learning environment with the teacher acting more as ‘facilitator’. It signalled the beginning of the end of the teacher as an authority, but at the time it looked like a good attempt to stop struggling pupils from falling through the net.
Unfortunately, at some point this idea of a personalised education crossed over into something else, a non-expert interpretation of the role of the teacher, which basically meant encouraging children to mentally fold in on themselves, with a continual emphasis on the need for them to express their feelings. This shift has seriously undermined conventional ideas on the purpose of education, placing in peril the basic function of a school: the acquisition of knowledge.
After ‘wellbeing’, we extended the idea to ‘emotional wellbeing’, a term that has been extended into vast areas of the curriculum. Now we arrive at the point where ‘emotional wellbeing’, the vaguest of terms, is the foundation on which educational aims are now pinned. The approach has heralded in teaching materials and concepts such as ‘emotional literacy’ in early years, primaries and secondary schools. Within teaching circles, the idea of ‘social–emotional learning’ is based on the underlying assumptions that children cannot cope or learn without being encouraged to first enter a world of self-awareness and mastery of their own psychology.
This reductionist view of education sees children being children (innocent, unselfconscious, and unburdened by the complexities of adult responsibility) as an impediment in itself to learning. Children are encouraged to work on their emotional wellbeing in quiet corners and through peer mediation, restorative practice, self-esteem activities, mindfulness library books, brain breaks, positive affirmations, and feelings songs and circles; and self-disclosure is encouraged in all areas of school life. Ultimately, this approach has an impact on educational standards: they are diminished. Emotional and social learning is a far softer academic arena than traditional knowledge-based topics.
‘Self-regulation’ is another big buzzword; there are now ‘zones of regulation’. These special spaces and ideas have been introduced across many schools and to parents as a way of teaching about self-management of feelings. Children are all to learn self-awareness at a young age and become little self-healers. So children are expected to engage in a personal therapeutic project which is beyond most adults.
There is a lot of talk about ‘therapeutic education’ but very little clarity about its meaning. The lack of clarity has allowed a steady influx of opportunistic educational consultancies into the system – third-party suppliers and self-appointed experts in emotional learning. This in turn has helped bring about a further narrowing of academic learning. The outcome is a weaker curriculum and a greater emphasis on the ‘inclusion’ agenda. The ‘inclusion’ elements of the curriculum now include reductionist ‘social justice’ theory, ‘white privilege’, climate Armageddon, and transgenderism – all being dragged into schools by a voracious market of funding-hungry activist educational charities.
Who is responsible for the rise of therapeutic education? It was born out of a major policy push in the 1990s, under Blair’s Every Child Matters framework. It was originally intended to provide more tangible and concrete child-based protections and assessment. In Blair’s ‘education, education, education’ mantra, wellbeing became an overarching principle attached to a ‘children’s rights’ framework that started to permeate educational philosophy as well as children’s services.
In Scotland, this culminated in the GIRFEC (Getting It Right for Every Child) 2004 framework. GIRFEC arose from the Children’s Hearings System as well as the Kilbrandon Report (1995), which informed the government’s For Scotland’s Children report of 2001. The aim was to ensure more cohesive family support at earlier stages in the process of safeguarding; that meant intervention in early years rather than when a threshold was reached. Critically, the Scottish government forgot that these moves were designed for ‘at-risk’ or ‘vulnerable’ children (often those already known to social care services). Quite quickly this approach and the associated classifications were used as general descriptions for all children.
During Blair’s New Labour years, a desire to overhaul education was combined with the Scottish administration’s desire to encroach more directly into more mainstream family life. The influence of professional, psychological institutions on the UK government’s approach to education grew rapidly. These professional bodies were key to a shift in education departments’ focus to issues of self-esteem and emotional competence.
Today, therapeutic frameworks dominate education. The educationalists only offer an emotional determinism in their assessment of children’s capabilities. Emotional narratives are, by their very nature, open to interpretation, and so government policy and the ‘children’s rights’ frameworks have become increasingly difficult to understand and increasingly ambiguous in their application. ‘Wellbeing’ policy is the flakiest of all. For Scotland, it has turned into a nightmarish design on children’s lives, using children’s rights–based policy, and led to the Named Person saga. The idea of a Named Person for every child was stopped by a campaign and a legal challenge, but some schools still include it in their literature, and families can opt in. This demonstrated that the SNP shared Labour’s enthusiasm for intrusion into family life, and ‘wellbeing’ assessment became the new measure of achievement, replacing an emphasis on academic outcomes.
These changes in education have not simply led to a shift in policy emphasis; they have changed the way we think about the role of the state. Government’s primary expertise is now seen as being in the raising of children via education. Wellbeing policy doesn’t draw a line as offering emotional literacy to pupils in protection or in need, but extends to all children unduly influenced by us philistine elders – their parents. By increasing the number of ideological topics in the curriculum, we seem to be embarking on social engineering by instructing children on the ‘correct’ way to be a good citizen.
It is hard to see how school culture can withdraw from the therapeutic mantra. There is growing insistence that the curriculum needs to become more ‘relevant’ (another one of those words). This pulls in eager teacher crowds who are not fans of examinations, and students who were never supposed to love them, and so policy is shaped by popularity polls, perhaps as a justification for the abandonment of exams altogether. Educators are now hesitant about testing their students; the idea of attainment and achievement as the overall aim of schooling it itself, is diminished.
On the surface, it is difficult to argue against the politics of ‘wellbeing’, as it sounds like such a nice thing. However, on closer assessment we can see that it offers only an emotional determinism of potential, based on feelings, which in turn departs fundamentally from the attainment of knowledge at the heart of schooling. Its ethos is upending normal educational subject matter, with a greater emphasis placed on student ‘happiness’ than on educational attainment. In the process, it undermines academic achievement and, ironically, children’s wellbeing, via the anxiety induced by focusing on feelings. There is nothing wrong with supporting pupils with emotional difficulties; teachers have done this for a long time.
Under therapeutic education, the basics of strong leadership, and an environment of high teaching standards and pupil expectations, are ignored as the very things that create the best learners. There is not much challenging the therapeutic approach, but we know that a robust teaching environment in itself, with academic rigour, passion for learning, and excellence in school culture, is crucial to mould and sustain the success of all. These are the real things that raise the bar for all pupils and keep them on track with their peers to academic achievement.
Arguments on Transgender ideology in Scottish Schools: What’s wrong with government guidance?
Since SUE published its first pamphlet on transgender ideology in schools, we have had many requests for copies of the document. Jenny Cunningham, its author, responds to some of the feedback she has received.
I have met with several quite different responses to the pamphlet since its publication. One very useful, but critical, response came from a former secondary school deputy headteacher who has moved into an education management role. This teacher clearly articulated the wider concerns SUE members have met while promoting the pamphlet. The teacher says the pamphlet showed a certain lack of awareness of what happens in school; she argues that the issues raised are not as ‘black and white’ as I had implied.
In the teacher’s estimation, schools are not following the government’s guidance on transgender pupils to the letter but are choosing what they regard as appropriate for the whole school and for individual pupils. The same applies to the RSHP (Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood) curriculum. She argues that school life is based on close relationships between teachers and pupils. For example, teachers know well in advance whether pupils are struggling with their sexuality or gender identity.
This sense that the media (and our pamphlet) sensationalises stories on transgender ideology does seem to be widespread among teachers. It is undoubtedly true that these issues are complex and nuanced and that good teachers are making mature judgements every day, but this outlook needs to be set against the reports of parents, who say that their schools are following the guidance closely. These parents have written to SUE to highlight that there are transgender activist teachers who are implementing the guidance and teaching transgender ideology explicitly.
Teachers responding to the pamphlet thought that the term ‘transgender ideology’ used in the title was too strong. They argue that much of the RSHP curriculum is being used to talk about accepting non-conforming gender or sexual identities and educating pupils to be more accepting of non-conforming peers. Given that schools have been directed to be ‘inclusive’, they feel that it’s only right that teachers are using terminology associated with gender and sexual identity to illustrate differences between pupils and differences in family composition. Meanwhile, many parents feel that ‘non-conforming’ and transgender identities are being promoted and celebrated at the expense of presenting ordinary pupils and regular family structures.
At an anecdotal level, there seems to be a generation gap between older teachers who understand the responsibility of parents and teachers, and a younger generation who are much more dismissive of parents’ legal rights. The former deputy head notes that experienced teachers can be more measured in dealing with transgender-identifying pupils, compared with non-promoted classroom teachers, who are ‘terrified about saying the wrong thing to pupils or other teachers and are stressed by having to use correct names and pronouns’. This is not surprising, given that we have heard from Scottish teachers scared of expressing any doubts about the guidance or the RSHP curriculum for fear that it may jeopardise their jobs or promotion prospects.
Clearly, the experiences of parents and school staff are often at odds. Parents have cited evidence of cases in which pupils are being transitioned without parental knowledge or consent – in both state and independent schools. However, SUE supporters have spoken to experienced educationalists who are adamant that schools will not go behind parents’ backs if pupils are asking to socially transition. They ask us to understand and accept that some parents will be hostile to transitioning, so a pupil may be supported to ‘come out’ to their parents, with direct or indirect help from teachers or school counsellors. Others have highlighted the fact that in primary schools it is parents who are demanding that schools socially transition their children, not the other way around.
Many teachers and parents are aware of the huge increase in referrals of teenaged girls to gender identity services, and that this group have high levels of associated difficulties or challenges, such as poor mental health, autism, being in care, or experiencing abuse. There is widespread support for a ‘wait and see’ approach for pupils wanting to pursue gender transition. The former deputy head argues that if schools are judicious in implementing the government’s guidance, then its affirmative approach should not necessarily result in pupils being put on the pathway to harmful gender transition treatments.
As the author of the pamphlet, I remain sceptical. There is clearly a divergence between the perceptions and experiences of some teachers and some parents. But there is a problem for both parties: we just do not know the extent to which the guidance and RSHP curriculum are being implemented in schools nationally. No data has been collected, and no research is being carried out. What we do know is that the guidance was based on the advice of and a template provided by LGBT Youth Scotland. Since providing the advice, LGBT Youth Scotland has had an extraordinarily direct involvement in many Scottish schools through its charter scheme. Nearly 60% of Scotland’s secondary schools have adopted the LGBT Youth Scotland charter to support inclusivity for LGBTQ+ pupils and staff. The Herald reports that 212 of 357 secondary schools and 40% of primary schools have been awarded charter status or are working towards it. It takes 12–18 months to gain charter status, with schools ‘guided step-by-step by LGBT experts on training, policy, practice and monitoring’ [1].
Another significant response to the pamphlet relates to the binary nature of sex. Both a teacher and a medical colleague felt that the first section of the pamphlet, which explains why people cannot change sex, was clear. However, they were left wondering how to challenge the argument by transgender activists (and some scientists) that sex is not binary but is on a spectrum or is multivaried. Activists often use this idea to justify the inclusion of transgender-identifying men in female-only spaces or sports. This has some relevance to the Scottish government’s new draft statutory guidance for RSHP education in schools, which is out for consultation (SUE supporters are urged to engage).
Sex is binary because in humans, sex is defined by two types of gametes (sex cells): sperm and ova (eggs). Our primary reproductive organs are organised to produce sperm in males and ova in females. There is no third gamete type, so there are only two sexes. The sex binary should not be confused with chromosomal sex determination. Certain genes on the chromosomes determine the development of males and females in the womb. The Y chromosome has a gene, SRY, which triggers male development. In most cases, men have one X and one Y chromosome, and women have two X chromosomes. In some conditions there may be an extra X chromosome (XXY, Klinefelter syndrome) or an absent X chromosome (XO, Turner syndrome), but the affected individuals are nevertheless male and female, respectively. Very rarely, the SRY gene can translocate onto an X chromosome, resulting in a male with a pair of X chromosomes [2].
What about ‘intersex’ conditions? Transgender activists argue that intersex conditions prove that sex exists on a spectrum. Intersex conditions, more accurately known as differences (or disorders) of sex development (DSD), include a range of very rare congenital variations in the complex pathways involved in the development of internal and external reproductive structures, involving genes and hormonal production or action. DSDs affect around 0.018% of all live births (so there is minimal chance of a baby’s sex not being easily recognised at birth). As biologist Colin Wright emphasises, the surge in nunbers of transgender-identifying individuals is due to those of ‘unambiguously one sex, claiming to identify as the opposite sex or neither sex’ – this is nothing to do with intersex [2].
Why this clarification is worthwhile is that in the Scottish government’s draft statutory guidance for RSHP education in schools, it has introduced a whole new section on DSDs or intersex [3]. In this section, it acknowledges that these rare conditions relate to biological sex and should not be confused with sexual orientation or gender identity. However, in the next paragraph it says that some people use a ‘broader definition of intersex’ which encompasses 1.7% of the population – not so rare. Where this figure comes from is not explained or referenced. In fact, this grossly exaggerated and false statistic was used by an American sexologist Anne Fausto-Sterling in her book Sexing the Body (2000). [4]. It has been reused regularly by transgender rights activists to argue that sex is on a spectrum – and is now used unquestioningly by the Scottish government in yet another of its poorly researched documents.
I’m very grateful for the feedback I have received to date regarding the pamphlet. If we can get to grips with the science and the politics of this issue, we should be able to create the conditions in which our children are less confused and parents are better able to make their own judgements about the issue. If there are any other issues or questions provoked by the pamphlet, please let me know.
References
1. Harrison, Jody. LGBT Schools: Majority sign up for Scottish inclusivity scheme. The Herald, 24 April 2023. https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/23475273.lgbt-schools-majority-sign-scottish-inclusivity-scheme/.
2. Wright, Colin. Understanding the Sex Binary. City Journal, 20 March 2023. https://www.city-journal.org/article/understanding-the-sex-binary.
3. Guidance on the Delivery of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) Education in Scottish Schools. Draft. https://drive.google.com/file/d/10B-WVI_R_e4VzVhk2cMuE82RuSuc7ujZ/view.
4. Wright, Colin. The Sex Binary versus Sexual Dimorphism. Reality’s Last Stand, 3 May 2023.
Survey for parents and SUE supporters
Over the next two weeks, we would like parents and their friends to respond to the following questionnaire about smartphones (or any phones) in schools.
UNESCO has called for a global ban on smartphones in schools. What are your thoughts?
1. Does your school have a mobile phone policy?
a. If yes, what is it?
b. If not, do you wish the school did?
2. What do see as the benefits of smartphone use/access in schools?
3. What do you see as the disadvantages of smartphone use/access in schools?
4. Do you have any personal stories you’d like to share related to your child and his or her smartphone use in school?
5. Do you support schools that remove mobile phones from children during the school day?
Please send your responses to Kate Deeming, Parents and Support Group organiser, at PSG@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk.
News Round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23732811.alister-jack-not-act-irrationally-blocking-gender-law/?ref=ebbn&nid=1388&u=3113c1b3a77b3e25e409aaa02c22166f&date=180823 Andrew Learmonth, Alister Jack did not act ‘irrationally’ in blocking gender law. 18/08/23
https://archive.is/VBjdB Alan Cochrane, Weasel words can’t hide Labour’s dismal record on gender recognition. 18/08/23
https://archive.is/Ys5TL The Times Editors, The Times view on cancel culture at Edinburgh: Beyond the Fringe. The clamour to shut out speakers at this year’s festival threatens the free exchange of ideas upon which the arts depend for their vitality. 17/08/23
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/graham-linehan-edinburgh-fringe-frankie-boyle/ Brendan O’Neill, What does it take to get you cancelled at the Edinburgh Fringe? 16/08/23
https://archive.is/4odcD#selection-2859.4-2859.80 Daniel Martin, Stonewall cuts all Government departments from its list of top 100 employers. Kemi Badenoch told officials to withdraw from the charity’s diversity scheme amid gender row. 18/08/23
Frank Furedi, Why Is It OK To Black-Face Women. When cultural decadence masquerades in a caricatured female form. 20/08/23
https://thecritic.co.uk/why-i-write-about-gender/ James Esses, Why I write about gender. The issue affects us all. 21/08/23
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sadiq-khans-racial-dystopia/ Brendan O’Neill, Sadiq Khan’s racial dystopia. 21/08/23
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/20/triggered-toxic-narcissist-are-you-fluent-in-therapy-speak?CMP=share_btn_link Eleanor Morgan, ‘That’s triggering!’ Is therapy-speak changing the way we talk about ourselves? 20/08/23
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/19/khan-tried-silence-scientists-questioned-ulez-claims/ Sarah Knapton, Khan tried to ‘silence’ scientists who questioned Ulez claims, emails show. Correspondence shows deputy ‘really disappointed’ that Imperial College publicised findings questioning effectiveness of scheme. 18/08/23
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A 'global ban' on smartphones in schools would certainly allow teachers to continue more easily with indoctrination. Outside those hours the distraction from reality and exposure to selectively censored content (i.e. mind your pronouns, but porn & violence can be easily accessed) will continue unabated. Humanity may look back on this era and realize that giving these types of phones to kids was one of the stupidest things ever allowed by parents.
Another ‘great’ analysis.