Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No58
Newsletter Theme: how educators become censors
Simply for promoting our conference, Kirsty Miller, one of the SUE board members, was attacked and censored, and could now face a ‘monstering’ online, after her personal email was shared to the websites of trans rights activists. The intolerance shown here is a useful example of the problems we face in schools and in society – problems that must be addressed and challenged.
Education not Indoctrination Conference
09.45 – 5.00 - Saturday 09 March 2024
Tron Church, 25 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW
Buy your ticket from Eventbrite here
Dr Kirsty Miller is a Board Member of SUE and an academic psychologist specialising in teenage mental health.
I sent an email to colleagues informing them of an event that I thought may be of interest called ‘Education not Indoctrination’, a conference which has been organised to discuss some of the causes of the rapidly declining standards in Scottish education. The responses I received showed exactly why such a conference is necessary.
For context, I am a psychology lecturer, primarily in higher education, but I have also worked in further education. As part of the latter, I’m included in a mailing group which consists of National 5 and Higher Psychology lecturers in Scotland – a group that was set up to share best practice, ideas and support regarding the role. Usually, discussion centres on the exceptionally ambiguous and unclear teaching requirements on the psychology courses, but sometimes members share other points of interest, including relevant courses, conferences and resources.
Therefore, I thought it might be appropriate to share a link to information on SUE’s education conference (given that the thread consisted of educators and given the crossover between the topics of the conference and our teaching subject of psychology). Here is the email I sent:
Here are some of the responses I received:
I don’t think this is the platform to be gathering support for events on ‘transgender ideology’ and the anti-intellectualism associated with opposition to decolonising the curriculum.
I can’t speak for college lecturers, but registered teachers are expected to support transgender pupils and engage in anti-racist practice as per government guidance and GTCS standards.
If you oppose those policies, this is not the platform in which to voice your opposition.
I wasn’t going to respond, but then I figured that it’s actually pretty important to speak up against these sorts of view, in these cases specifically that, ‘No, there is no “transgender agenda” and that ‘White privilege is a real thing and is not a racist term’.
People are welcome to hold whatever opinions they like, but the rest of us are also equally welcome to explain how repellent we find those opinions.
The blurb on the conference website actually sounds very divisive and it certainly doesn’t sound like a forum for open debate but rather, it sounds like a platform for their own indoctrination they state they wish to avoid.
Think I’ll pass. Sounds like right-wing indoctrination to me.
I personally think it’s more harmful to teach kids that being transgender is wrong, especially when we will undoubtedly be teaching kids who are confused about their identity. But each to their own.
I’ve done a little research on this and the SUE is neither a trade union or an organisation advocating for teachers in the classroom so this is a little misleading.
I am really surprised this is being advertised here.
My initial concern about these responses was their dismissive nature, the tendency for name calling, and the way in which different ideas were simply denounced. As educators, we need to take ideas seriously, especially ideas we disagree with. Otherwise, we risk becoming one-sided and can end up with a dogmatic approach to learning that results in a form of indoctrination.
Additionally, words are put into the mouths of SUE members that have never been spoken.
We don’t, for example, argue that children being transgender is ‘wrong’. Rather, SUE believes that the ‘affirmative’ approach to transgender care is harmful. This is an evidence-based belief that has been presented time and again by medical professionals, psychologists, parents who have lost their children, detransitioners, and some trans-identifying people themselves. SUE’s beliefs are based on evidence and held with young people’s best interests at heart. Individuals may disagree with our stance against the affirmative approach, but they couldn’t reasonably claim that it equates to dislike, or even ‘hatred’, of children who believe themselves to be ‘transgender’.
Nor does SUE claim to be a trade union in the traditional sense of the term. What we do is support and act on behalf of anyone who has an interest in education, which includes teachers in the classroom, lecturers, support staff, pupils, students and parents. We cover all aspects of education, and all those who are affected by it.
If we give these educators the benefit of the doubt, we could say that they struggle with accurately understanding the issues they are discussing. The alternative, of course, is that they are deliberately misrepresenting our stance, which is a behaviour that raises questions of a different kind – moral questions.
There are also a number of statements that indicate clear misunderstandings of the government’s pet policies. When transgender activists are entering schools and ‘advising’ on policy and even teaching, to state that there is no ‘agenda’ is either naive or disingenuous. Whatever you think of the transgender issue, as educators we must be aware of the controversies and the contested nature of this debate. Closing down discussion about this issue is both anti-educational and does nothing for the children we teach.
Similarly, when we have educators uncritically promoting the notion of ‘white privilege’, we have to wonder whether they are aware that this idea is seen by many as divisive and wrong. Judging people by the colour of their skin has rightly come to be seen as racist and wrong, but this appears to be exactly what we see here.
Another example of confusion is provided by the individual who argued that there is no link between the transgender rights agenda and the teaching of ‘anti-racism’ (and that this, in turn, has no link with falling education standards). But this is not true. The origin of these agendas stem from critical theory and its subsections, queer theory and critical race theory, respectively.
The respondent does not appear to know the origins of what he is teaching. Perhaps he can’t be blamed for this, as we can’t necessarily expect staff on the frontline to be aware of the theoretical derivation of all government policies – especially when those in our institutions often go to great lengths to hide these facts. Indeed, the majority of academics don’t know the history of critical theory, let alone know that this is what is being implemented in our institutions.
However, we should all know that it is unwise to lay forth on something we don’t have knowledge about. In particular, we should avoid the cheap and easy response of calling names and dismissing as ‘political’ or ‘right wing’ anything we don’t intuitively agree with.
While the responses from these educators were disappointing, the following events were even more so...
The day following this exchange, I found that I had been blocked from accessing my own (further education) work e-mail account. My personal e-mail address had also been signed up to a number of transgender websites.
Had strangers on the Internet behaved in this way, I wouldn’t have been surprised; after all, we’re all aware of the petty and vindictive tricks of online social justice activists when we dare to offer an evidence-based alternative to their worldview. However, as I was constantly reminded in responses, the people on my mailing list are professionals. For people who are educated and claim to be critical thinkers and compassionate, this struck me as very odd behaviour.
However, this is what our government is pushing – both students and staff are to be activists championing social justice (i.e. critical theory) interests. Part of this includes censorship, ostracism and punishment of dissenting voices. The rest involves breaking down the skills that allow challenges to such an ideology.
However, SUE will continue to challenge these behaviours, and will continue to speak out. Anyone who wants to come to the conference will have their opinion listened to and engaged with, thus offering a courtesy that the educators on my mailing list didn’t (and couldn’t) offer me. Ultimately, the responses indicated that our conference, and our cause, is greatly needed. Not only are students’ standards slipping, but so are the staff’s.
Thankfully, we know that there are many teachers out there who do not simply adopt government policies and politics uncritically, who still believe in open discussion and debate, and who would be appalled at the one-eyed and censorious behaviour of some of my colleagues. These are the sorts of teachers who children and society desperately need, the sort of teachers who will be at the SUE conference. I hope to see you there.
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