Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No14
Newsletter Themes: unscientific trans ideology, disaster education, can Scotland have world class schools?
This week Stuart Waiton discusses the antiscientific and anti-educational trans orthodoxy being imported into the culture of schools. Parent, Kate Deeming discussed another dimension of disaster education and asks what parents can do about it. And Julie Sandilands looks at the diminishing returns of the Scottish curriculum and qualifications framework.
Our public meeting in Dundee, looking at the transgender trend in schools, with Dr Jenny Cunningham, Maggie Mellon, Ewan Gurr and Jim Sillars is available to view here.
And our online discussion with Jim Sillars about politics, schools and the future for Scotland can be seen here.
We are holding private meetings with parents and teachers in cities around the country, and are looking to set up more public discussions about the indoctrinating nature of education. If you would like to get involved, contact us at info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk
Trans ideology is neither scientific nor progressive
Stuart Waiton is an academic and Chairperson of SUE
As reading standards tumble in Scotland, we can at least be proud of the fact that last week we discovered that 60% of our schools have signed up for an LGBT Charter award!
Academics concerned about educational standards often contend that schools have lost their focus on education itself and increasingly use social justice as a crutch to give them some kind of purpose.
Rather than education educating, they argue that schools are becoming centres of social engineering where we see the policing of ‘values’ rather than the acquisition of knowledge and fostering of critical thinking. As such, education itself is transformed and increasingly becomes a framework for fashioning ‘children’s souls according to political criteria’.
No better does this idea of a new type of social engineering apply than in the case of the LGBT Charter, something that has developed not from schools, or subject teachers or curriculum experts, but by politicised gender activists who feel that their view of the world must be pushed onto young children from primary age onwards.
Schools appear ever more keen to show their moral goodness by passing the 18+-month ‘exam’ to achieve Charter status, which is based on them showing they have ‘championed inclusivity at every turn’.
One wonders what schools were doing before they received the charter – denouncing homosexuality and encouraging heteronormative bullies to do their best?
But then LGBT Youth Scotland, who anoint schools with Charter status, are not really interested in homosexuality or the rights of gay, lesbian and bisexual people – rights that few people oppose today. Rather, like Stonewall, the point of the ‘safe space’ Charter is not the LGB but the TQ+ and the gender identity outlook that promotes transgender ideology to children.
In a traditional sense, groups such as LGBT(Q+70 other genders and rising) Youth Scotland are anti-educational. Indeed, their demand for ‘safe spaces in schools and universities’ and talk of ‘inclusion’ are really another way of saying, ‘Thou shalt not dissent from the trans truth’. For those pupils and students who do dissent and suggest that there may be only be two sexes or that ‘women have vaginas’, this new orthodoxy can lead to disciplinary proceedings and potential punishment.
The anti-educational and censorious dimension of this trans religion could be seen last week at Edinburgh University when, once again, a screening of the film Adult Human Female was cancelled due to safety concerns caused by trans activists, who were helped by my increasingly shameful union, the UCU.
As Joanna Cherry, KC and MP, notes for those who don’t take this seriously, ‘try to conjure up a picture of how you would feel if your right to discuss and campaign for independence was under attack and you were stopped from speaking out to defend it or from meeting with others who are like-minded’.
Is this inclusion? It’s certainly not very liberal or tolerant or the type of activism you would expect schools to be queuing up to embrace. Inclusion, LGBT Youth Scotland–style, means indoctrination. It also means mob rule.
Do schools endorse this intolerance that masquerades as inclusion? Does your local council or MSP endorse the closing down of debates or the punishment of children and students who question trans dogma? Do they support activists intimidating women who want to discuss the threat they feel when men identify as women? Let’s ask them.
One of the trans critiques of Adult Human Female is that it promotes (in their view) unscientific ideas about the biological distinction between men and women. I’ve had a recent email exchange with a trans ideologue recently who used this very argument.
Insisting that biology is not binary, Suzi denounced me for being anti-scientific and (as trans ideologues do) threatened to close me down if I did not desist, stating, ‘I will bring your situation to the attention of those who are sponsoring this cause to try and limit (hopefully prevent) the further damage that you will cause. For now, I suggest that you cease activity until you are well enough informed to resume’.
Suzi usefully sent me her ‘science’, which turned out to be an article in Nature that is essentially about people with variations/differences of sex development (sometimes termed ‘intersex’ conditions) who do not fit into the binary XX and XY chromosomal make-up of women and men. I mention this because it is one of the false arguments used by trans activists to justify their ideology, and the Nature article, entitled ‘Sex Redefined’, is a classic example.
Here we find almost 3000 words describing all the genetic variations that exist among a very small group of people in society; therefore, the arguments goes, clearly we can see that sex is not always binary.
This is true, it is a scientific fact. It is also a fact that the vast majority of people are one sex or the other. It is also true that some people are not born with two legs, but that doesn’t stop science from defining humans as bipedal.
More importantly, however, is the final line of the detailed scientific article. The piece ends with this astonishing sentence: ‘In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask’.
Here we find a sudden shift. No longer is the author interested in science, in whether or not someone who claims to be trans has an underlying variation of sex development. Suddenly, as if my magic, the sex binary is dismissed, along with any talk of X or Y or any biological category, and ‘Sex Redefined’ because it is totally subjective – ‘I am whatever I say I am!’
Of course, there is not a shred of evidence that the small children turning up at nursery saying they are the opposite sex have any sex development condition explaining this belief. Nor is there any suggestion that the 1000+ children queuing up to get into Scotland’s Sandyford Gender Identity Service are there because of their biology.
Children and teenagers, especially young girls, are adopting transgender speak because they are being instructed in this ‘progressive’ ideology by adults, by online activists, by LGBT Youth Scotland, and shamefully, by our schools and councillors, who are adopting it and forcing it down their throats.
No surprise then that, as I write, there is news that, ‘Parents of trans pupils plan to sue the government after teachers “kept their children’s gender switches secret”’. In England a group of parents now plan to sue the Department for Education for not protecting their children from transgender ideology in schools.
Schools and councils and the education authorities in Scotland have a choice. They can continue to endorse an anti-educational, unscientific and intolerantly confused dogma onto children. Or they can wake up and understand that their job is not to socially engineer correct ‘values’ into children – their job is to EDUCATE THEM.
The Scottish Union for Education has been set up to raise concerns like these with the authorities. If any headteacher or councillor would like to talk to us and the many parents and teachers who are opposed to indoctrination in schools, please get in touch: info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk.
Fighting the fire of our ‘disaster education’: parents are essential in this fight – How we can beat the system
Kate E. Deeming is a solo mother to a P5 child; she is also a dance artist, a child advocate and a community organiser. She has developed dance programmes with children in educational and community settings globally for three decades. Originally from Philadelphia, USA, she has been based in Glasgow for 23 years.
While sitting at the park with some mums recently, one mother recounted how her six-year-old was losing weight to a dangerous level because he had anxieties around eating food in the dining hall at school. She said she had asked if she could, ‘take him home for lunch for a short time to get his health to a better level’, proposing that she would pick him up at designated time and have him back for class time. She was told by the school administration ‘this was not possible at this time’, citing logistical issues.
As I listened, horrified, what struck me is that the other mothers nodded sadly but accepted this was normal.
This is where we are at. A mother accepts that the school can hold her child in the campus and not be fed. This is worrying, and this is not uncommon.
As I understand it, the bedrock of schooling in Scotland is based on a ‘community model’. That is (in theory) that primary schools are rooted in and reflect the communities in which they live. In the quickly changing world we live in, however, this is no longer a reality. Teachers (in the main) do not live locally; they do not meet parents casually at the local shops or churches, wherein informal information may be shared and the social contract reinforced. This divide has many implications.
This model exacerbates the larger problem we face in education. While I think (I hope) that this child not being fed as per the mother’s wishes is an extreme example, it shows how parents allow themselves to be relegated (even in the case of physical harm to their children) to the authority of the school. In matters that are less obvious, such as social justice topics, it becomes even trickier as they bow to ‘the experts’, not realising the larger long-term problems this will create for their kids.
We ask our children questions hoping for crumbs of information of what might have been told to them within the classroom setting. We hear resonances of things that worry us and don’t know what to do. Are we overreacting?
And let’s be clear: parents want their children to get a good education. We like when our kids learn the myriad of things they do, that they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. We are inspired when teachers open doors, as only good teachers can, which light up our children, sending them down new roads. And we know there are still many teachers committed to that endeavour.
I remember when my six-year-old son learned about the emergency services as his topic in school. The class got to go to the fire station and use a fire hose. It was a thrilling experience. Off the back of his enthusiasm, I took him back for Doors Open Day and I have a beautiful and clear memory of him jumping out of his skin with excitement surrounded by the fire service paraphernalia, of sitting in the truck and wearing the fireman jacket. Even relating the memory here forces a smile onto my face.
Fast forward four years, a mother relates to me how her seven-year-old has come home having also learned about the emergency services. Her child does not speak of the equipment she has been introduced to, or the generalised roles of ambulance, police or fire services, but about a form of disaster education where all the talk is of strokes, heart attacks and other physiological emergencies.
The child speaks in great detail about ‘blood on the brain’; in fact, she can’t stop talking about it. Suddenly this previously free-spirited child exhibits extreme anxiety around what her parents are eating, fearing it is going to kill them. Her father has been in and out of the hospital with a congenital issue since her birth; the sharing of this new information exacerbates already present anxieties. And to what end? Why was this information necessary at this time for this age group?
As a parent I increasingly find myself fighting a system which seeks by accident or design to destroy my son and other children’s childhood. What are the options as a parent?
My current challenge of ‘the system’ by official complaints procedure (two currently) is leading me into Scottish government bureaucratic minefields that churn out Orwellian word salads (produced by teams of highly paid Scottish education staff) in response to my claims. One might think this model is designed to placate me because after the (unpaid) hours I spend addressing my concerns and the like, I have a series of emails letting me know ‘they have dealt’ with my claim, and yet, curiously, no change. To untangle the miasma of doublespeak one would require perhaps a law degree, lots of time and financial security – none of which this single low-income mum has access to. So nothing changes for good, and the will of the bureaucrats is upheld. The system is not designed for democracy but for complacency.
And so we have mothers who dutifully allow their children to, for example, remain in the school campus without eating, because they do not feel free to exercise their rights as parents.
So, what do we do? What are our options and what are our rights as parents?
Next week Kate will describe what rights parents have and what we can all do to raise our concerns with schools and the authorities. If you have any experiences of raising your concerns with schools let us know about them: info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk.
Can Scottish education restore its crown as a world-class education system?
Julie Sandilands is an English/business teacher who worked in several secondary schools in Fife until 2017. Now based in Cumbria, she works as a private tutor teaching children both in and out of mainstream provision.
I remember, roughly around 2007, sitting in an interview for a ‘facilitator’ role, a one-day-a-week secondment to an external organisation, and being asked, ‘Can you define the new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and what it will mean for the future of Scottish education?’ I paused momentarily, searching my mind for words to give a succinct answer. I looked everywhere, at my feet, at the wall, but alas the sentence that fell out of my mouth was, ‘I’m not actually sure, it’s all a bit woolly to me.’ This was despite being the owner of a very official-looking ring binder the size of a deep stoop!
Fast forward to an interview today and I would have absolutely no trouble giving an answer: CfE is reinventing the wheel, only leaving out a couple of spokes – it’s a wonky wheel, and coupled with the National qualifications (introduced in 2013/14), students within the Scottish system are at a disadvantage when competing for education and employment positions, locally, nationally and internationally... ‘Next candidate please!’
Ironically, the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment Phase Three briefing paper states that ‘Society, both in Scotland and internationally, is changing and the pace of that change is ever increasing,’ and that ‘Scotland cannot be left behind’. Well spoiler alert – Scotland is already behind, and sadly for students, past and present, the architects in Scottish quangos and the political arena who drove through the above changes will never be made accountable for the irreparable damage they have caused. And it’s not as if there haven’t been any valid warnings along the way, with one headteacher in 2016 describing CfE as ‘a dangerous and unpredictable experiment’ and warned that families are ‘paying to escape Curriculum for Excellence’. Interestingly, six out of the twelve best Scottish private schools follow the English curriculum, with some offering a blend of A levels, Highers and Advanced Highers at sixth-form level, and one complementing their curriculum with IGCSEs and the International Baccalaureate.
As a starting point to restore trust and confidence (and its crown), Scotland needs to create a qualification framework which can hold its own against others across the UK. Currently, comparisons of qualifications are far too ambiguous, a problem made worse since the introduction of the National qualifications. As a teacher who has taught in both the English and Scottish systems for over two decades, this comparison of the qualifications studied in Y11 and S4/S5 is simply not credible. And therein lies the problem: with courses and assessment systems that are so diverse, meaningful comparisons are nigh on impossible. Going forward, the proposed Scottish Diploma of Achievement, with its three learning pathways ‘which will be awarded on completion of all three aspects’, could exacerbate this further, and any attainment gap between home nations, and internationally, could happily go unnoticed.
For the sake of all learners following the Scottish system, Scotland cannot afford to invest in any more wonky wheels, and waiting for post-pandemic, triennial PISA scores to determine Scotland’s education status on the world stage may, once again, be too late for developing successful global citizens.
News Round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labours-lessons-for-boys-plan-is-a-sinister-sideshow/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Joanna Williams, Labour’s ‘lessons for boys’ plan is a sinister sideshow. 25/04/23
https://dolancummings.com/2023/04/20/in-praise-of-our-moral-inheritance/ Dolan Cummings, In praise of our moral inheritance. (retrieved 02/05/23)
https://www.ebswa.org/post/open-letter-to-cafcass-children-s-best-interests-not-gender-ideology-are-our-paramount-concern Maggie Mellon, Open letter to CAFCASS - ‘Children’s best interests, not gender ideology are our paramount concern’. 14/04/23
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/28/how-activism-took-over-the-classroom/ Alka Sehgal, How activism took over the classroom. Too many schools are now pushing an identitarian worldview on to the young. 28/04/23
https://www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/business/council-commitment-on-controversial-guidance-for-primary-schools-4121266 Peter Urpeth, Council commitment on controversial guidance for primary schools. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar have reaffirmed a commitment that controversial national guidance on the teaching of relationships, sexual health and parenthood in primary schools will not be followed in the Isles. 27/04/23
Dave Clements, School absence - it’s time to attend to the problem. Why a culture of fear and a failure of education is keeping kids at home. 29/04/23
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12029321/Parents-trans-pupils-plan-sue-government.html Sanchez Manning, A group of parents whose children have changed gender plan to sue the Department for Education for not protecting them from trans ideology in schools. 30/04/23
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/28/britain-has-given-up-on-education1/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email Joanna Williams, Britain has given up on education. Children are being painfully let down time and again by a government and teaching profession with the wrong priorities. 28/04/23
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/two-thirds-scots-pupils-rebelled-29851707# Ben Borland, As many as two-thirds of Scots pupils rebelled against SNP's intrusive school ‘sex survey’. 30/04/23
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