Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson is crying. The headteacher at Anderton Park primary school in Birmingham has suffered eight weeks of protests outside her school gates over her decision to teach LGBT-inclusive content to her young pupils, the vast majority of whom are Muslim.
After repeatedly putting on a brave face when I ask her how she is feeling, she finally admits: “I am in despair”, and then breaks down. She is struggling for control as she continues:
“I know one of the phrases that’s associated with domestic abuse is the crushing of the spirit of a woman. And that’s what I feel is happening. We can’t give in.”Really? You're a woman of your convictions, then? Pity the same can't be said about your backers...
The local Labour MP, Roger Godsiff, says that...“It was wrong of the government to give headteachers the power to decide what LGBT content to teach children at different ages, he says.
“I think that the government guidance should have been more prescriptive as to when the different elements of the Equality Act were appropriate, in the government’s opinion, to be taught to children. Governments are elected, people have recourse to hold their politicians to account. Headteachers have had this burden put on them, and in some cases are going to end up in the situation Anderton Park is in.”
He blames the academies system. “If schools were still maintained by local councils, in a situation like this Birmingham council could have put down a programme about how the elected representatives of the council believe the protected characteristics of the Equality Act should be taught. And then headteachers could have said: ‘we’re doing what we’ve been told to do.’”There speaks someone who has no courage, no convictions. "Big boys did it and ran away" "We were only obeying orders!"
What about fellow MP Jess Phillips?
“People have been too scared to stand up to this protest, including the Department for Education,” says Phillips.
...
She is deeply concerned that the protests will spread to other schools and bring in other faiths. “If we allow the protests at Anderton Park Road to change the way we teach in British schools and create a two-tier teaching system, where kids in white neighbourhoods can have all the equalities and kids in Asian neighbourhoods have to have things kept in the dark, they win.”"We can't let this happen, or we'll lost control, and that will never do!"
But back to Hewitt-Clarkson:
The government is shifting the responsibility for LGBT content – including the highly sensitive question of whether any LGBT content is “age appropriate” for primary school pupils – from politicians on to the shoulders of individual headteachers, she says.
“I’ve had eight weeks of protests as a result. It’s just unforgivable.”
While she is trying to deal with the protests and run a school, policymakers are “sitting in their offices in Whitehall looking at the Thames”: “They’re not working out how we’re going to sort out our deficit budget, our Sats results, all that stuff I’m doing in my job as headteacher. It’s not OK to write policies in Whitehall that affect me in Birmingham so badly.”When they write policies you agree with, I bet you're all for it.
That's why these protests are a warning sign. It's because you're weak. And they know it.
I felt I should answer this one.
ReplyDeleteAlthough LGBT relationships should be promoted, they should not be taught until secondary school. Kids at primary school are too young to learn about the adult world. If an issue were to arise about LGBT relationships, then it is down to the parents to explain to primary age children. Not the school. This goes for all relationships, not just LGBT relationships. Let the schools supply the proper education of reading, writing and arithmetic in primary schools and deal with relationships at secondary school. Sorry if you disagree.
"Don't be a bigot" only has to be taught because children are taught, mostly by their parents and slightly older peers, to be bigots. Bigotry isn't bred, it's taught. We're innately capable of hatred, but have no innate sense of who to hate.
ReplyDeleteThe precise source of the bigotry and the targets it's directed against aren't important. Those have changed somewhat since I was at school, but the existence of it has not. What's important is teaching kids that people who ain't breaking the law have the same fundamental rights as everyone else and you have to work out how to get along with them. This is not, and it must never become, negotiable. Fundamental human rights are not negotiable. If you believe they are negotiable, then you should find another country. There is a broad choice of much sunnier destinations where open discrimination against other humans is tolerated, encouraged, even legally enforced.
Age-appropriate is not more than one day after the children are taught that gays are sinners, or that black people are inferior, that Jews control the world, a woman's place is in the home, or that all Muslims are terrorists. I'm sure the local Imam can advise the local headmaster on at what age such attitudes are first aired among members of his community.
The teaching of LGBGT to primary school children is yet another of the social experiments of sexualising children devised by the Frankfurt School of Marxism. "Keep 'em confused and we can steer them in the direction we want themm to go, which is to rely on the globalists for everything, even the way they think.".
ReplyDeleteThis 'teaching' is simply another form of brainwashing.
Penseivat
Lost any sympathy I had for her when she called the young people in her care "kids".
ReplyDelete‘...where kids in white neighbourhoods can have all the equalities and kids in Asian neighbourhoods have to have things kept in the dark…'
ReplyDeleteIt’s hard to believe this nonsense, replete with tortured syntax, was uttered by a school teacher.
"When they write policies you agree with, I bet you're all for it."
ReplyDeleteIt's patently obvious that in this instance she does agree with the policy.
What she's bleating about is that she is not being given any backup. She imagines that the doctrines of tolerance and diversity are obviously true but that when designated victim group A and designated victim group B fall out she's lost. Someone besides herself has to crack the whip so that she can (a) do what she wants to anyway and (b) tell the parents it's those bloody Tories forcing her. As it is she has the choice and the blame.
This is a teachable moment. LGBT are going to be thrown under the bus to suit a different designated victim group
"Kids at primary school are too young to learn about the adult world. If an issue were to arise about LGBT relationships, then it is down to the parents to explain to primary age children. Not the school. "
ReplyDeleteSomething most parents feel is the correct approach, not simply Muslim parents.
" What's important is teaching kids that people who ain't breaking the law have the same fundamental rights as everyone else..."
At primary school...? You don't think that's a bit advanced?
"It’s hard to believe this nonsense, replete with tortured syntax, was uttered by a school teacher."
A very modern schoolteacher, don't forget!
"This is a teachable moment. LGBT are going to be thrown under the bus to suit a different designated victim group"
That's been on the cards for years, hasn't it?