Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No81
Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No81
Newsletter Theme: challenging the misery of social justice education
Photograph by Freepik
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As the school term kicks off in Scotland, I thought it would be worth giving a shout-out to all the transgressive teachers in our schools.
I’m using the word transgressive purposefully here, turning it on its head if you like, because the term is one that is most associated with social justice warriors who want to ‘transgress’ the norms of society.
Today, being a truly transgressive teacher means doing one thing: believing that your job is to impart knowledge rather than to indoctrinate children with the latest social justice cause.
You’ll see in our article this week, written by a teacher in England, that social justice indoctrination is at the front and centre of school life. As far as I can tell, Scotland is ahead of the game in terms of social justice education, so if this is happening down south, you can imagine what is happening up here.
The ethos of schools has changed in the past two decades. Visually, this is most noticeable when you see the rainbow flags filling up corridors. But beyond this, as Rob Willson notes below, we have a whole range of issues that have become central to school life, issues that have nothing to do with what most of us would think about when we hear the word education.
I was down south last month, talking to a teacher about this – another Robert, as it turns out – and he pointed out to me that ‘most of the kids don’t buy into this stuff’. It was interesting to hear this, because, as adults, we tend to think that young people, stuck on their computers and phones, watching Netflix and listening to their ‘progressive’ teachers, have fundamentally changed – become ‘woke’.
Not so, Robert insisted. On all the ‘correct’ issues being promoted in schools, he said, there is a huge split among the children, and most of them have very different views to those of their teachers.
But then he pointed out that there are plenty of teachers who don’t buy into it either. They may keep themselves to themselves, he noted, but they simply ignore the latest dictate or quietly reject the messages and mantras being handed to them from the education authorities and the zealots.
These are the true transgressors: the brilliant teachers who love their subject, who are genuine experts in their field, and who have a passion for education and educating. There are many of them in our schools – and they deserve our support.
In Scotland, our politicians talk endlessly about wanting to ‘change the culture’, and they clearly see schools and schoolchildren as the easiest way to do this. Many children and teenagers may not be buying into this new ‘culture’, but without resistance it is hard to know how long this will last.
Over the next four months, we are going to push outwards and see if we can get a new cohort of people reading our Substack. While it is difficult for parents to know what to do about what is happening in schools, it is arguably even more difficult for great teachers to do their job, which, let’s face it, is a pretty tough job at the best of times.
As with most things, I suspect this is a numbers game, and that the more people – parents, teachers and people in communities across Scotland – who know what is going on in our schools, the harder it will be to carry on with this modern form of indoctrination.
To this end, we’ve printed thousands of leaflets that we want to hand out to people. Ideally, we want every person in Scotland to receive one through their letterbox. Some will be binned or ignored, but others will be read, and hopefully we can start to expand our reach.
To do this, we need your help.
If you would like to volunteer, we can send you some leaflets – the more the merrier. So get in touch (email info@sue.scot) and we will send some out to you.
And if you are a teacher, feel free to contact us about your experiences.
Stuart Waiton, Chair of SUE
‘Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!’
Rob Willson is Head of Design and Technology at a large secondary school in Lincolnshire, England. He also writes as a concerned parent of two young boys.
Few sights can be more uplifting for the soul than seeing children playing happily, their smiling faces engrossed in the moment. But in 2024, is this joyful sight as common as it used to be? To put it simply, are children as happy as they once were?
As an opinion piece, please forgive my generalisations. I appreciate there are always exceptions to the rule. So, I’d like to start by caveating what I’m about to say with the fact that there are still many very happy and bright children set to lead fulfilling and productive lives. I meet fantastic young people every day. Moreover, there also needs to be acknowledgement that many reading this will look back on their school days with mixed feelings. Not everything in the past was rosy.
However, it is my anecdotal experience from over 20 years’ teaching in secondary schools that, on average, children aren’t as happy as they used to be. The reasons for this are many, complex, and involve big-picture thinking and discussing some uncomfortable truths.
Daily onslaught
So, what has changed in recent years? Let’s start with the content of information disseminated and unpick a typical week’s experiences for an average year 10 student.
MONDAY
MORNING TUTOR TIME: Teacher reads key points from a Guardian news article about racism, which leads to the introduction of the concept of critical race theory, delivered by some staff as fact.
PERIOD 3, GEOGRAPHY: Learning about anthropometric global warming, where the science is settled (97% of scientists apparently agree?), it’s primarily humanity’s fault, and the students need to take responsibility for the failures of their elders.
TUESDAY
MORNING TUTOR TIME: Students shown a Stonewall video on LGBTQ+ Role Models; this is followed by a discussion which is steered to require all students to affirm they are supportive because indifference is akin to bigotry.
PERIOD 2 SOCIOLOGY: Content delivered on the work of Heidensohn on female conformity in male-dominated patriarchal societies.
WEDNESDAY
OFF-TIMETABLE PSHE DAY: A mix of sessions, some delivered by outside organisations, on knife crime, sexting, and rape culture (see my previous article), plus a session on careers.
THURSDAY
MORNING TUTOR TIME: Session on Global Citizenship (UNESCO) (go to any school’s website, look up their values and goals, and you will find the words global citizen).
PERIOD 5, ECONOMICS: Financial markets and monetary policy – focus on Keynesian economics without the balance of also explaining the Austrian School of Economics.
FRIDAY
MORNING TUTOR TIME: Year 10 assembly on mental health – body image, also including information on sextortion.
PERIOD 3, DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY: Environmental, social and economic design. Learn about carbon footprint, with students using a carbon footprint calculator which inevitably tells them to eat less meat, turn the heating down, and fly less or they’re a bad person.
This is just a fraction of the content disseminated to students. I’ve included links to existing curriculum content and resources used by teachers to substantiate my example.
Students barely experience a day at school where they are not subjected to some form of agenda-pushing narrative. It is an onslaught of negative messages and fear propaganda. It would depress the majority of adults if they were subjected to this barrage of negativity day after day! Does the 14-year-old brain really need to be grappling all these concepts? I believe it is our moral duty as teachers to protect, not expose.
A feeling of self-worth is a major factor determining happiness. According to the American Psychological Association, self-worth can be defined as ‘an individual’s evaluation of himself or herself as a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration’. Is the current messaging at school affecting children’s self-worth? Do students feel a sense of worthwhile achievement frequently enough? David Graeber identified unhappiness and feeling a lack of self-worth in his book Bullshit Jobs. Although I didn’t agree with one of his solutions, universal basic income, he was insightful with his analysis, and one can’t help but wonder if a similar phenomenon is happening in education. There is no doubt that a large percentage of the curriculum is considered ‘bullshit’ by students, and by many staff.
I now challenge any teacher of more than 10 years’ experience to deny that a dumbing down is happening. Ignoring GCSE and A-level results which are ‘adjusted’ each year, average reading ages are falling, average levels of attendance are falling, and levels of poor behaviour are increasing. Anecdotally, I have noticed a big reduction in students’ listening skills, attention spans, and ability to critically analyse information. In addition to this, feedback from employers is evermore damning regarding young people’s suitability for the workplace.
In 2022, a national research partnership involving the Centre for Education & Youth and Sheffield Hallam University, and led by Ipsos MORI, found that in terms of reading age distribution,
a quarter of 15-year-olds have a reading age of 12 or below
one in five pupils aged 15 has a reading age of 11 or below
one in 10 pupils has a reading age of 9 or below.
In my opinion, these large numbers of students with comprehension difficulties are going to have their self-worth significantly affected, and in turn, their happiness levels. Ignorance is not bliss in this instance.
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/new-guidance-empowers-headteachers-to-ban-mobile-phones-in-scottish-schools Kevin Scott, New guidance empowers headteachers to ban mobile phones in Scottish schools. Scottish Government issues guidance that empowers teachers to impose a full ban on the usage of mobile phones on the school estate. 15/08/24
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2024/08/britains-exam-delusion Pippa Bailey, Britain’s exam delusion. Assessment has eclipsed learning in an education system that fails students and worsens inequality. 14/08/24
https://www.scotpag.com/post/scottish-gp-shows-the-way-in-a-challenge-to-bma-over-gender-ideology?utm_campaign=9f438477-3cf7-4e66-99b3-e6b75f431422&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=8ba70ec0-5e5a-451a-a2b5-fa029719421b ScotPAG, Scottish GP shows the way in a challenge to BMA over gender ideology. Aug 2024
https://archive.is/vBSBy Michael Searles, Schools referred 160 children to controversial gender clinic. More than 30 of the children sent to the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service by education professionals were under 10. 17/08/24
https://archive.is/qGAsT Editorial, Educational rigour is under attack from Labour. This year’s school leavers have been especially hard-pressed, enduring the disruption of the pandemic lockdowns and crumbling classrooms. 15/08/24
https://archive.is/CbCLu Robert Tombs, Labour’s war on history is a war on the nation itself. The fear is that Wales will turn out to be a prototype for the rest of the country, with sinister consequences. 20/08/24
Frank Furedi, The Plot to Turn The Library Into A Safe Space For Indoctrination. Why The Philistine Culture Warriors Are Targeting The Library. 24/08/24
https://archive.is/ay7Yy Neil MacKay, How smartphones, narcissism and materialism are making children ‘mad’. 25/08/24
https://archive.is/8HeCe Kathleen Nutt, MSP bid to give pupils 'life-changing' outdoor education. 25/08/24
https://unherd.com/newsroom/kirstie-allsopp-is-right-about-parental-safetyism/ Jennie Bristow, Kirstie Allsopp is right about parental safetyism. 25/08/24
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