Sunday - January 03, 2010
SCHOOL DAZE, SCHOOL DAZE, GOOD OLDE FASHIONED SCHOOL DAYS GONE FOREVER.
But all is not lost. Just ask elf ‘n’ safety.
I wanna write hundreds of words on this but I can’t think of one outside of ... HUH? Gee, in our day 100 yrs ago a sand box was fun. Now it could be a danger. And sadly, it really could be considering the times and the kind of ppl roaming about who shouldn’t be. Jeesh.
Health and safety rules to guard pupils against dangers of singing and spicy food
Schools are being warned to follow new health and safety rules designed to protect pupils from musical instruments, singing with a dry mouth, spicy food, a helicopter landing in the playing field and other bizarre hazards.
By Julie Henry, Education CorrespondentThe guidelines produced by councils highlight a whole range of unlikely threats to be guarded against.
Headteachers are told to carry out “risk assessments” for scenarios ranging from a pupil injuring himself with a musical instrument, to a helicopter landing on school grounds.Policies are having to be drawn up to meet health and safety diktats which are unnecessary, state the obvious or relate to incidents that are never likely to happen, according to headteachers.
One council has produced more than 70 risk assessment forms for schools, one of which focuses on “voice care” for teachers. It lists “hazards” including “throat clearing, failing to lubricate the mouth, singing in too high or too deep a tone, using a forced whisper or talking too quickly”.
It even advises against “hot spicy foods, very hot drinks and breathing continually through the mouth”, which it says can “have an adverse effect on the voice”.Another authority has a 35-page health and safety code for primary schools which points out that hemlock and deadly nightshade plants should not be grown by children.
Headteachers said last night that the health and safety culture had gone too far.“Schools used to feel under pressure to have a policy for everything that moves, now they have to have a policy for everything that might move and even for things which don’t,” said Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. “This guidance is produced by local authorities in the guise of being helpful but it is all about the transfer of responsibility.
“Schools do have to keep sites safe but this deluge of paperwork goes beyond that. It’s just too much information. These things need to be nailed down to sensible risk assessments. Time shouldn’t be wasted producing a policy on everything.”Local authorities say the risk assessment guidance is sent to schools to in a bid to keep staff and pupils safe, as well as to protect officials from being sued if accidents occur.
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Permalink • Thursday - December 31, 2009
Root Causes, Root Cures
Want to fix America? Tear down the entire education system and rebuild it the old way. Get the hippies, leftists, communists, revisionists, and America haters out. And the unions. All of them.
Walter Williams (Negro Card revoked, 1990) writes about the dreadful state of black city kid’s performance on standard school exams. Nothing to see here, move along, just throw more good money after bad, and don’t forget: doing well in school is acting white and being a race traitor.
Detroit’s (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only 3 percent of Detroit’s fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. “Below basic” is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It’s the same story for Detroit’s eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic.
Michael Casserly, executive director of the D.C.-based Council on Great City Schools, in an article appearing in Crain’s Detroit Business, (12/8/09) titled, “Detroit’s Public Schools Post Worst Scores on Record in National Assessment,” said, “There is no jurisdiction of any kind, at any level, at any time in the 30-year history of NAEP that has ever registered such low numbers.” The academic performance of black students in other large cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better than Detroit and Washington.
What’s to be done about this tragic state of black education? The education establishment and politicians tell us that we need to spend more for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. The fact of business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C., for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller than the nation’s average, and with an average annual salary of $61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.
No, Williams doesn’t have the answers. Not all of them. But he is trying to make the first step by getting other black people to admit that the problem is theirs; it’s time to own up to it. Read the rest. This is the real CHANGE that America needs; without it we have no HOPE.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Tuesday - December 29, 2009
Bass Ackwards in Moonbat Land
Have to eliminate that racial divide you know. Can’t have the white kids and asian kids excelling at science while the browner kids flunk. Easy solution: get rid of science class!
Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.
The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High’s School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley’s dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.
Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.
Ass backwards into the future. Want to really know how to make our country excel? Turn out smarter people from school? Want to know how to do that? Stop molly coddling the little bastards. Teach, and teach hard. And stop every last cent of funding for “slow kids” past the 6th grade. If you can’t figure out how to study or learn by then, too bad. Put in a major exam at the end of 9th grade. If you don’t pass, then it’s off to a 1 year lawn mowing and cardboard box folding classes for you. And that’s all you get. Tough.
To get our best and brightest to be our best and brightest, we need to push them, and we need to start funding education for the advanced pupils. Screw the dumbshits. They aren’t going to be pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. Fuck their little egos; gear school towards the top 15%, and everybody else has to sweat it. Even the regular kids can make use of a regular education, and they’ll get one plus really learn how to strive. Raise the bar, then raise it again. Keep on raising it every few years.
Posted by Drew458
on 12/29/2009 at 01:31 PM
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Permalink • Friday - November 06, 2009
Parents to be fined if they take their children out of sex lessons. It’s de law.
This is more or less an update and we’ve been through the subject here before. I still think the starting age is too young but as I’ve noted, I’m not a parent. Not very fair to parents who’d rather not have their kids in these classes. Could that argument also be used btw, if a parent didn’t like the way history was taught? Oh wait a minute. From what I’ve heard, not much of that being taught anyway.
Recent poll found that a number of school age kids thought Hitler was a German football coach. Kid ya not.
‘Attention children. To set the mood Miss Spilsbury will strip off to demonstrate upside-down pole dancing whilst snorting a line of coke...’
Parents to be fined if they take their children out of sex lessonsBy Laura Clark
06th November 2009Parents will face fines if they remove 15-year-old children from sex education lessons as they become part of the national curriculum for the first time.
Lessons in relationships and sex will begin at five, with prescribed content for each age group.
Parents will still be able to withdraw children on moral and religious grounds, but this right - which currently extends until students are 19 - will be lost at 15.
Mothers and fathers risk being fined and prosecuted under anti-truancy laws.
Under current arrangements, secondary schools must teach sex education but can choose the content. Primary schools do not have to offer it at all.
The shake-up, outlined by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls, will affect 600,000 children from September 2011. It drew immediate protests.
Campaigners said sex education in the last year of secondary school - to which all children will now be exposed - is often the most explicit, with pupils taught about how to use a condom and access to contraception and abortion.
Religious leaders said parents would ‘vote with their feet’.
The Government insists that only a ‘tiny minority’ of parents exercised their right to pull their children out of sex education.
Mr Balls said it would not make sense to keep the age limit of 19, because teenagers can vote at 18 and the age of consent is 16.
Enlarge What they will be taughtIn a Government-backed poll nearly a third of parents wanted to retain the right regardless of age. But another third said it should end at 11 and 20 per cent said there should be no opt-out at all.
Mr Balls said the aim was for all children to have at least one year of sex education. He said the changes would help tackle teenage pregnancies. But critics said the Government’s strategy of handing out contraceptives and spreading sex education was already failing.Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘It is not for the state to become a parent.
‘We will be making representations to fight for the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education.
‘Some parents view exposure of their children to this sort of material as morally objectionable and morally corrupting.’
Posted by peiper
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Permalink • Thursday - September 24, 2009
UPDATE … To a story that recently appeared here and I’ll bet nobody is surprised.
GIRL TIED TO FENCE AND BEATEN THEN SAVED BY SCHOOL EMPLOYEE, WHO GETS THE SACK.
BMEWS will recall that story from the other day. Briefly to recap for those who don’t know.
Four school boys grabbed a young girl, tied her to a fence and beat her with a skip rope. Another kid saw what was happening and ran into the school and got an employee who ran out and got the girl free and also managed to get a couple of the little bastards.
The school reported to the girls parents that that their kid was hurt in a skip rope accident. Clearly a freeken lie by ppl who would normally instruct kids to be truthful. Or they should and they might if they weren’t the same sort of shits as the boys who abused that little girl.
Well, the lady who saved the kid informed the parents of the truth, and got herself fired for her trouble.
And that brings us to this UPDATE on that story.
( A dinner lady is the person who dishes out the lunches in school cafeteria)
Bully exposed by sacked school employee revealed to be son of school governor
By Sarah Harris
Last updated at 12:30 PM on 24th September 2009One of the bullies at the centre of a row over a sacked dinner lady is the son of a school governor.
Carol Hill, 60, was sacked for telling the parents of seven-year-old Chloe David that their daughter had been tied up and whipped in the school playground.
The school had informed Scott and Claire David she had simply been ‘hurt’ in an incident with a skipping rope.
Mrs Hill was suspended after the incident in June and yesterday it emerged that she had been fired by a disciplinary tribunal for breaching pupil confidentiality at Great Tey Primary School, near Colchester, Essex.
Angry parents are demanding the resignation of headteacher and governors at the school and some are threatening to remove their children if Mrs Hill is not reinstated.
Parents have questioned whether Mrs Hill’s sacking was influenced by the fact that a governor, who did not take part in disciplinary hearings, is mother of one of the four boys accused of tying Chloe’s wrists and ankles with the skipping rope.
Sarah Harris, 36, who has two children at the school, said the treatment of the dinner lady was unfair.
‘Maybe this would have been dealt with differently had a governor’s child not been involved,’ she told The Times.
‘You put your trust in these people not only to teach your children but to keep them safe and look after their pastoral care.
‘I am worried and very concerned as to what else may have been covered up.’
Sure does tell us a lot about our wonderful new world. And of course we are all surprised by this. Instead of a damn good whipping the little SOB’s mommy covers up and costs someone their job. No sweat, no conscience, and no wonder her little angel is a snot faced bastard along with his friends. And if she didn’t personally cover it up, then the school admin did. None of them should ever again be allowed to work in that sort of position. But what are the chances of that happening?
Posted by peiper
on 09/24/2009 at 11:53 AM
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Permalink • LOYAL AMERICAN CHILDREN SING PRAISE TO DEAR LEADER OBAMA … some very bad stuff BMEWS!
I got this piece of sick stomach churning crap from James Delingpole who of course got it from another person. Love the way the blog world works, HATE the way indoctranation is taking place in my country. Do I still have one btw?
I LOVED President Reagan, I voted for him in Calif. as gov. and I voted for him as president and I’m sorry he couldn’t serve in office longer coz I’d have kept voting for him. BUT ... I would have been much embarrassed and unhappy if school kids were taught songs in his praise. No way. That smacks of something else altogether and this really bothers me. You guy may already know but for those who don’t, well, misery just loves company. Doesn’t it?
So here. You can be miserable with me.
This is what Delingpole had to say on the subject.
Next time my daughter comes home from school saying she has been studying Mary Seacole (again) for Black History Week, or compulsorily watching a video called An Inconvenient Truth or one her teachers has suggested she “Go Veggie” for a day, I shall play this video and be grateful for one small mercy:
No British primary school teacher, however rabidly left-wing and deranged (if that’s not a tautology?), is ever going to be coaching their class in a hymn of praise to Gordon Brown.
September 24th, 2009 Here’s some footage to gladden the heart: children at an elementary school in New Jersey being coached by their teacher to sing a song in praise of their Dear Leader. (Hat Tip: Steve Foley)
Once upon a time I worked with song writers and musicians in Nashville. Whoever put this together hasn’t got “IT.” That writing spark. Glad they don’t or this could be worse. They might buy their way onto Billboard.
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand [?]
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be clear today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said Red, Yellow, Black or White
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
THIS IS AS VAPID AND TALENTLESS AND TOTALLY STUPID AS WE SHALL OVERCOME. THAT OTHER TUNLESS DIRGE FROM THE LEFT.
I couldn’t even listen or watch the whole thing. While you’re viewing this I’m off to find an Alka Seltzer.
Posted by peiper
on 09/24/2009 at 08:14 AM
Filed Under: • Commies • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Education • Outrageous •
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Permalink • Wednesday - September 23, 2009
What kind of chance do kids have with stupid idiots teaching in schools? And this one is stupid!
Oh Boy. Here we are again with this racist pc bull. It just seems to get worse and not better. Ppl complain and still, things stay the same or grow worse.
So the little boy (age 9) is playing with a friend. He says something that a teacher then claims was, “inappropriate language.”
If this article is accurate, if the Mail hasn’t taken any liberties with the facts, then it goes to show how deeply and politically correct folks have become.
Soon folks will be afraid to open their mouths for fear of maybe saying the wrong or politically incorrect thing.
I’d really like to shoot those dumb ass schmucks. Here ya go. Read this one.
Boy, 9, told to apologise for ‘racist’ taunt to Polish classmate while playing soldiers in lessonBy Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:46 PM on 23rd September 2009A nine-year-old schoolboy was branded racist by teachers after playing a game of soldiers with a Polish friend, his parents have claimed.
Steven Cheek was reprimanded for pointing a finger at the Eastern European classmate and said: ‘We’ve got to shoot the German army’.
His teacher immediately sent him to see the deputy head, who forced him to stand in front of the class and make a humiliating apology.
Steven’s mother Jane Hennessey, 37, of Harlow, Essex, slammed teachers for ‘over-reacting to kids playing games’.
She said: ‘Steven has always wanted to join the Army when he grows up. That’s his burning ambition and he loved learning about the war in class.
‘He’s not a racist - he’s only nine years old and he didn’t single out the Polish boy, who is one of his good friends. That just happened to be who he was playing with.
‘The deputy head shouted at Steven and said ‘that’s racism’, which is ridiculous because he has a Polish aunt and they were on our side during the war.
‘He didn’t understand what he had done wrong - he was just playing a game like kids always do. He came home after being told off and said ‘Mum what’s racism?’
‘I think the school has over-reacted and been very heavy-handed. They could have quietly told him off instead of turning it into a big issue.’
Steven was hauled before the deputy headteacher of Purford Green Junior School, in Harlow, Essex, on September 11 during a lesson.
He pretended to fire a gun with his finger at a fellow pupil, who happened to be Polish, and saying: ‘We’ve got to shoot the German army’.
Teachers claimed that Steven was singling out the pupil, who has not been named, and forced him to apologise publicly for being racist.
But Steven’s mum Jane, who lives with his electrician father Darren Cheek, 39, and sister Amy, 18, claims the boys are friends and were playing a game.
She said: ‘He was just playing like boys do. I am so angry and he has been upset by it because he does not know why he has been told off.
‘Steven has a Polish auntie and he has been bullied since the incident after he had to stand up in front of class.
‘What made me furious was that the head has carried out an official report on Steven which will stay on his record in the future.’
Posted by peiper
on 09/23/2009 at 11:15 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - September 17, 2009
Britain and France were never meant to be on the same side. From a former diplomat.
The Telegraph is running a series of double page articles over the next couple of weeks, that have to do with this damned European Union of which England is a member. It has been quite an interesting and lengthy read so far, and educational.
This is merely one tiny portion of one part of one page.
Lyndon will LOVE this but I hope you’ll find some interest here as well.
rosbifs Nope. I haven’t a clue what those letters stand for. But Mr. Collard does and I guess maybe that’s all that matters. (said with sarcasm)
But never mind. This is interesting. Except that I didn’t meet the charming people he refers to as I didn’t keep the same company he did and more likely still does.
EU: Britain and France were never meant to be on the same side
During my time in the Foreign Office it was my aim (achieved) to go through my whole career without setting foot in Brussels.
By Tim Collard
Published: 7:30AM BST 16 Sep 2009I have always imagined Belgium’s capital as a homogeneous Europhiliac monoculture, where thoughtcrime can be sniffed at fifty paces and UKIP can’t get served in the bars. Europe was strictly for those of high career aspirations and even higher boredom thresholds, and I had neither.
My main experience of Euro-diplomacy was at our Embassy in China, where I sat on the EU Coordinating Committee, where we “coordinated” our position on issues of common concern. This opened my eyes to the realities of EU “partnership”; genuine transnational politics is still some way away.
If the Germans’ dog-like devotion to all things EU reflects a sincere commitment to the renunciation of war in Europe, the French seem to see the EU as a continuation of the Hundred Years War by other means. Among the strategic priorities of French foreign policy, getting one up on the rosbifs is certainly prominent.
It starts with the eternal battle over language. It is written in the sacred scriptures of the EU that English and French have equal status as working languages, and all French diplomats are under instructions to conduct business in French when it is their turn to chair anything. This of course triggers passive resistance; our diplomats are all supposed to speak French, though some don’t and others conceal it, and the French are doing well if they can get 10 minutes into the meeting without everyone lapsing into English. The arrival in 1995 of various Scandiwegians sealed victory for Britain, as most of them couldn’t manage so much as a parley-voo, and no doubt the struggle is now utterly hopeless.
Dealing with China presented endless opportunities for one-upmanship. In the early Nineties it was all about holding a unified line on trade sanctions against China after Tiananmen Square. As at that time the Chinese only bought anything if we lent them the money to do so at negligible interest, these sanctions didn’t hurt us much, and the French took the hardest line in enforcing them. This was, naturellement, because they had found a devious way round them, involving fudging dates on contracts, and wanted the rest of us bound all the tighter.
When China’s economic situation improved, our hosts became worth sucking up to. Since 1990 the EU had brought an annual resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission condemning human rights abuses in China. In 1997 this position was being reviewed; not because the human rights situation had improved, but because the rewards available for sucking up certainly had.
The declared aim was to arrive at a united EU position. This proved difficult to achieve, and negotiations stretched over the rest of the year. But with a united position all 15 of us would benefit equally; it became steadily clearer that the Quai d’Orsay wanted to contrive a competitive advantage.
Deadline day drew near with no decision reached; all the blocking moves came from Paris. By this time one or two partners, principally the Dutch and Danes, had committed themselves to tabling the human rights motion, and as one of them (I forget which) held the rotating presidency, the proposal was formally put.
Once more than half of us had agreed, the French announced that they would not sign up, as no proper agreement had been reached. The Germans and Club Med chancers rushed to join them. Thus the French advantage was obtained, and the Dutch and Danes got a good commercial kicking from the Chinese.
All attempts to remonstrate with the French for this behaviour were brushed aside with Gallic insouciance. I was reminded of this episode when Tony Blair was persuaded to concede on the UK contributions rebate in return for a promised review of the CAP, with Chirac smirking away and saying afterwards that he would make sure the review didn’t change anything.
I’m no francophobe; I love the country, the charming, cultured people, the relaxed attitude to working, and the browsing and sluicing. But we were never meant to be on the same side. As for real EU partnership, we’ll never see that this century.
Next Up:
EU: is Britain still a sovereign state?
EU membership has led to deep constitutional changes in the UK. But it would be wrong to say that we have been robbed of our sovereignty, says Philip Johnston. Our government has been an accomplice all the way .
Posted by peiper
on 09/17/2009 at 08:52 AM
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Permalink • Monday - September 14, 2009
IT’S WRONG TO TEACH LITTLE KIDS PATRIOTISM … So say a number of teachers …makes ya wonder.
A few days ago an article appeared in the Telegraph that I have since lost. However, I found an older version from 2008 that appeared in the Time and so present part of it here. I can make no sense out of continual apologies for the past and the left wing view that being a patriot is somehow a wrong thing to be.
Now of course the kiddies are getting the benefits (or might that be brainwashing?) from the liberal left.
Posted here as well is opinion of an editorial writer in The Daily Mail, who see it differently. I think I can say for certain that if kids are in fact getting this sort of (non) education in early school days, it isn’t any wonder that the country is in the shape it’s in.
‘Don’t teach children patriotism’
Nicola Woolcock
The Times (from Feb. 2008)Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is “morally ambiguous”, a leading educational body recommends.
History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
The slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars should be taught as controversial issues while students are deciding how they feel about their country, the report says.
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
Historians said last night, however, that it was impossible to teach the subject without patriotism or a recognition that British values were rooted in the past.
The report criticises the current drive to use citizenship lessons as a way of promoting pride in being British and developing a sense of belonging. It said: “To love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption. And there’s the rub for patriotism.
The historian Tristram Hunt said of the institute’s report: “I think it’s a very immature approach to the topic. The point is not whether history was right or wrong from a 21st Century liberal-left perspective. It’s about teaching students to understand the mindset and context of our forebears.
If children are taught that patriotism is wrong, Britain’s very identity is at stake
By MELANIE PHILLIPS
14th September 2009A survey found three-quarters of teachers believed it was their duty to warn pupils about the danger of patriotism (posed by models)
One of the most startling aspects of our society at present is the way things that were once considered to be virtues have now become the object of intense disapproval, and vice versa.A recent survey of teachers by London University’s Institute of Education found that some three-quarters of them believed it was their duty to warn their pupils about the dangers of patriotism.
Once upon a time, loving your country enough that you were prepared to die for it was held to be the highest virtue.
Indeed, without patriotism there would be no one serving in the Armed Forces.For the past 1,000 years, it has given the people of these islands the strength and courage to repel invaders and defeat the enemies of liberty.
Is it not extraordinary that such affection for your country should now be considered so objectionable that children should be told it is positively dangerous?
One teacher said that praising patriotism excluded non-British pupils.‘Patriotism about being British divides groups along racial lines, when we aim to bring pupils to an understanding of what makes us the same.’
But on the contrary, patriotism is what binds us together through a shared sense of belonging and a desire to defend what we all have in common.
What this teacher seemed to be saying was that children from immigrant backgrounds can’t have that shared sense of belonging because they are not really British. Is that not itself a racist attitude?
And if such children really are merely foreign visitors, it is even more extraordinary that teachers should tailor the education of children who are British to suit the few who are not.But then, some of these teachers seemed unwilling to acknowledge the concept of citizenship at all, spouting idiotic nonsense instead about promoting ‘universal brotherhood’ or the need to ‘identify as humans’.
With no awareness of any irony (they probably don’t understand what that means either) some said promoting patriotism was a form of ‘brainwashing’.
So what, pray, is promoting ‘universal brotherhood’? Planet earth to teachers: make contact, please!As the researchers who conducted this survey point out, much of history and politics is incomprehensible without understanding the power of patriotic sentiment.
Accordingly, they say, schools should ensure that pupils not only understand what patriotism is, but are also ‘equipped to make reasoned judgments about the place it should occupy in their own emotional lives’.Surely that’s the point. Teachers should not set out to put across one point of view, which replaces education with propaganda. Instead, they should be giving pupils both knowledge and the ability to think about it and learn from it so they can arrive at their own conclusions.
But on the grounds that love for your country is wrong, many teachers have long stopped passing on to children the knowledge they need if they are to admire and identify with Britain. Somehow this has got mixed up with racism, xenophobia and the BNP.Thousands of pupils are being allowed to drop history at the age of 13.
Professor Derek Matthews, an economics lecturer at Cardiff University, was so concerned at his students’ lack of historical knowledge that he set them four simple questions.
He discovered that only one in six knew that the Duke of Wellington led the British Army in the battle of Waterloo; only one in ten could name a single 19th-century British prime minister; some of his students had never heard of the Reformation; and one thought Martin Luther was an American civil rights leader.
Yet these students were probably in the top 15 per cent of their age group for educational success.
Despite - or perhaps, because of - this collapse of knowledge in the schools, there is a tremendous appetite for history among the general public.
Posted by peiper
on 09/14/2009 at 11:52 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - September 03, 2009
ONE HELL OF A VERY GOOD REASON TO HOME EDUCATE YOUR KIDS NO FOOLING.
H/T Wardmamma
Who gave me a heads up on another but related item altogether. And I’ll get to that as well.
There’s so much on the net and so many places to visit, shamed to admit I forgot about this old favorite. Michelle Malkin. Fell in love with this lady some years ago before I left the states. How in the heck did I manage to forget to check her site over the last too many months?
So anyway, Wardmom sent me to Malkin where I got caught up in the link thing as I read. And found this.
Hey ... I would be as upset if a poor English speaking white teacher (teacher?) pulled the same crap. This looks more like indoctrination then it does education to me. And if this teacher(?) was a conservative and speaking as she does to a class of youngsters, I’d still have a damned serious argument with her.
I have to vacate machine for 20 minutes ....
BBS ..stay tuned
And THANKS WARDMOM!!!
AND THANKS: MICHELLE MALKIN
Partial transcript:
Harris:We want to talk about the presidential election. I want to ask you, who are you pulling for? Raise your hand.
Student: Obama.
Harris: You pullin for Obama. Who you pullin for?
Student: Obama.
Harris:Any of you pullin for John McCain? That’s fine, say him as well.
Student: Obama.
Student: Obama.
[Cathy, the daughter of an American soldier answers McCain.]
Harris:John, oh lord, John McCain.
Oh Jesus, John McCain.
Ok, now I wanna axe you somethin.
Why are you pullin for John McCain? It’s ok, but why are you pullin for John McCain?
Cathy: I thinks it’s because my parents are going for him too.
Harris: Ok, your parents are going for him. Why are you pullin for Ba-RACK. Barack.
Student: I just want a black president sometimes.
Ok, you want a black president.
Student: The reason why I want Barack Obama is because he’s making good changes in the good country and stuff like that.
Harris: So, he’s making good changes for our country. Now can you tell me just a little bit more, like what type of changes?
Like not having big fights between Iraq and having soldiers killed.
So in other words, Barack is going to end that war in Iraq. What do you all know about that war in Iraq?
[Harris addresses Kathy] Talk, cause yo daddy in the military. Talk. It’s a senseless war! And by the way, Cathy, the person that you’re picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to!
[Camera pans to Cathy, in near tears.]
Harris: So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years!
Reason number 999,999,965 to take control of your own children’s education.Posted in: Education, National ServiceSend to a Friend
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Posted by peiper
on 09/03/2009 at 07:02 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - September 02, 2009
English-speaking pupils are a minority in inner-city London primary schools.
And that’s just London.
I think most immigrant families want their kids to learn the language of their host country. Of course, there are exceptions. But most I think realize they’ll have to acquire English skills to survive. At least it’s that way for now. I think this article says a lot about the rate of immigration from some third world countries.
I wonder if maybe in a few hundred years there might be articles in this paper telling people that too many natives are still speaking English and something will have to be done about it.
54 per cent of primary pupils from inner city schools do not have English as their first language
By Laura Clark
Daily MailChildren who speak English as their first language are now a minority in inner-city London primary schools, official figures showed yesterday.
Youngsters with a different mother tongue form a majority in primaries in 13 out of 33 London boroughs and in nearby Slough.
In inner London, 54 per cent of primary pupils and 48.5 per cent in secondary institutions do not speak English as their first language. This amounts to an astonishing 159,340 children.
Across the country, English is a foreign language to more than one in seven primary youngsters - almost half a million.
The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families point to the major demographic changes over the past few decades. Around a fifth of pupils are from ethnic minorities - up from 11 per cent in 1997.
There are concerns that school finances are under strain as growing numbers of youngsters require help with English.
Heads’ leaders have urged the Government to fund schools adequately and give fair treatment during inspections to those with large concentrations of non-English speakers.
The figures show there are 14 council areas in which primary children with English as their second language are in the majority - 13 London boroughs and Slough.
In Tower Hamlets almost four out of five youngsters do not have English as their mother tongue. In other areas, including Leicester, Luton and Bradford the proportion is approaching 50 per cent.
For primaries overall, 15.2 per cent are non-native English speakers - up from 14.4 per cent last year.
The figures indicate that many recent migrants have settled in London. The lowest populations of youngsters with English as a second language are in the South West and North East.
Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘These figures confirm the huge impact immigration is having on our society.
When Government funds are as tight as they are, this is bound to have a negative impact as children with English as an additional language will need extra tuition.’
He added: ‘In inner London it’s hard to know who immigrant children are supposed to integrate with since they heavily outnumber local children.’
The figures reflect a five-fold increase in immigration since Labour came to power. Net immigration has increased from 48,000 in 1997 to 237,000 in 2007.
A DCSF spokesman stressed that the figures ‘only indicate the language to which the child was initially exposed at home, irrespective of whether they speak English fluently later on. It is only a relatively few recent arrivals for whom communication problems are acute.’
‘We are increasing funding in the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant to £206million by 2010, to bring students weak in English up to speed. We also equip schools to offer effective English as an Additional Language teaching for new arrivals.’
Yesterday’s figures also showed that the recession has brought the first rise in four years in the number of children qualifying for free school meals.
Posted by peiper
on 09/02/2009 at 05:22 AM
Filed Under: • Education • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • UK •
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Permalink • Saturday - August 29, 2009
What’s it take exactly to put a creep away?
This is creepy. Gak. Take a look at this guy. So then. Bad heart, force kiss young girl in school, get outta jail free.
Come on. I’m not suggesting the law has to lynch the guy. But jail is exactly where ppl like this belong. Unless I read this wrong, he has a record of this sort of behavior. What’s he doing teaching in school? Oh. Silly me. Almost forgot. His civil and human rights. Got it.
And can you just imagine being kissed by this? GAK, again. Stomach churning for the poor girls I’d say.
Teacher who French-kissed 14-year-old schoolgirl spared jail because of his heart condition
By Daily Mail ReporterA science master who French kissed a 14-year-old girl and asked pupils about their sex lives was spared jail because he has a heart condition.
Keith Ogunsola, 44, grabbed the teenager in his office before kissing her as she tried to push him away.
The married father also embarrassed girl pupils during a chemistry revision class by asking if they had performed sex acts on their boyfriends.Ogunsola had been warned last month that he faced an inevitable prison sentence.
But Judge Martyn Zeidman, QC, suspended a 12-week jail term for 12 months after reading medical reports. The judge said: ‘Certainly what you have done doesn’t deserve a death sentence.‘I’m just persuaded that it would be right in the circumstances of this case to suspend the sentence of imprisonment.
‘You will never again be employed as a school teacher. My primary concern is to protect members of the public and other potential pupils.’
The judge praised the victim’s courage, adding: ‘I want to pay tribute to the girl who bravely made this complaint. She’s a very impressive young lady.Ogunsola was banned indefinitely from working with under-18s and will be placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London heard how Ogunsola struck at the school where he taught in Ilford, Essex, on February 27 last year.
Describing her ordeal in Ogunsola’s office, the girl said: ‘He put his arms around my waist and said, “Do you want a kiss?”
‘He pulled me close and then kissed me and put his tongue in my mouth.‘I pushed him away. He pulled me really close. He was holding my wrists and he kissed me again.’
She said she was ‘shocked’ by Ogunsola’s advances and simply ‘froze’. She said Ogunsola asked her: ‘Aren’t you supposed to be my Valentine?’
The girl said she reminded Ogunsolahe was married with children. ‘I said, “You have got a wife and kids and I have got a boyfriend”. He said, “Dump your boyfriend”.’
The girl said Ogunsola had asked her about her love life, and added that other girls at the secondary school had described him as a ‘pervert’.Jurors heard how Ogunsola asked other girl pupils of 14 and 15 whether they had performed sex acts on their boyfriends.
He also warned the youngsters that boys were ‘only after one thing’.
A jury convicted Ogunsola, of Banstead, Surrey, of sexual assault but cleared him of an attempted sexual assault on a girl of 15 at the same school in February 2006.Jurors also acquitted Ogunsola of two indecent assaults on teenage girls at a school he taught at in Carshalton, Surrey, between January and May 2000.
Ogunsola left the school in Surrey in 2001 before stints at Islington Green School, North London, and the Pimlico Academy in Westminster before moving to Ilford in 2005.
The former headmaster of the school in Surrey revealed Ogunsola had been warned about his conduct with girl pupils prior to the alleged assaults in 2000.
Posted by peiper
on 08/29/2009 at 12:07 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 05, 2009
Wasted Grant Money?
A physics professor who says he’ll do “anything” to get people interested in science is teaming up with the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleaders to offer online lessons on magnetics, mass and matter — all through the magic of miniskirts.
James Trefil’s 20-year campaign for science literacy has led him to link up with some unlikely allies at ScienceCheerleader.com, where he and a scantily clad crew of dancing Darwins offer 18 video lessons on core ideas in science.
Trefil, who’s left behind his classroom for the summer to help on the Brain Makeover videos, said it made sense for him to use “a little sex appeal” in his effort to reach and teach nonscientists.
“Why not cheerleaders?” asked Trefil, the Robinson Professor of Science at George Mason University. “My own philosophy is, any way you can get the scientific message across, that’s a good thing.”
The Web site offers brief scientific lessons from members of the Sixers squad ("All matter is made of atoms,” explains Lauren), and a bit more background from the septuagenarian Trefil, who does not appear in the videos. Visitors can then take a quiz to judge their own scientific literacy.
The site is the creation of science advocate Darlene Cavalier, a Master of Science Policy who has spent a decade working for Discover Magazine and was also one of the original 76ers dancers.
Cavalier, who is also leading projects to increase the number of citizen scientists in the country, told FOXNews.com she doesn’t worry that some people visiting the site might be less interested in their physics than their physiology.
“More than anything I think it does help break stereotypes,” said Cavalier, who said a higher percentage of Tennessee Titans cheerleaders have formal science training than do members of Congress. Cheerleaders have the edge 10 percent to 8 percent, she said.
Some students could be getting more skirts with their science soon. Cavalier said she’s fielded a number of requests from high school teachers who want to use her videos next year “to turn people on to science.”
Ok, color me willing. Pretty girls with pom poms, and a bit of school. What the heck. Besides, I used to take science classes at college just to pump up my GPA. No worries. So let’s go visit!
Aside from a few minor grammatical and html errors, the site is not bad. It’s a bit hard to figure out how to get to the lessons, so I linked directly there for you. Basically the site is a blog.
Now onto the lessons, let’s put some sexy into our schooling!
YAWN. This is not sexy. It’s lame. Each of the 18 little lessons has a 15 second video, wherein a thumbnail sized cheerleader speaks aloud the label/title of that lesson. It’s not until video 15, labled “All living things are made from cells, the chemical factories of life” that they even try the risky practice of having a conversation; in this one cheerleaders Chenelle and Dierdre go all ad-lib to ratchet up the excitement:
Dierdre: “Number 15 - All living things are made from cells”
Chenelle: “I know, the chemical factories of life.”
Cinematography at it’s finest! But fear not, there is also a paragraph or two of study text, and once in a great while a link to some external bit of deeper reading.
You can take a quiz at the end. I went and watched all the little videos, read all the text, and took the 26 question exam. Results?
Damn, I got one wrong. Which one? I have NO IDEA, because you don’t get to review the test. And it turns out that the exam questions go waaaay beyond what is covered in the study material and the “sexy” videos. Only about half of the questions are even alluded to, much less answered by, the study text. I guess the exam is more to see who already knows the stuff, and the study material is just a very light refresher.
Still, a passing score is a mere 80%, enough to get you this awesome certificate, suitable for framing or housebreaking puppies on:
I think Hot For Words is about 100 times sexier, and is usually 20 times the learning experience. Cheerleaders “teaching” science may eventually be a good idea, but right now these videos are really lame. The only thing I learned from them is that the cheerleader called “VI” has really great abs and great hips. They’ve got a lot more work to do to “make science fun”, “make learning science easy”, and “make science sexy”. But I guess it’s a start.
Now, how about Obama giving me a few million to videotape pole dancers teaching basic arithmetic and algebra? Solving systems of simultaneous equations was never so much fun!
Posted by Drew458
on 08/05/2009 at 11:57 AM
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Education •
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Permalink • Monday - July 27, 2009
admiration faculty and deans feel toward themselves.
I can’t think of a single thing to add to this. Can you?
It’s late ... leaving the net for now.
Cheers.
Why Some PhDs Are Jerks
By Alan Caruba
WARNING SIGNS BLOG SITEJuly 27, 2009
I was talking with a friend about the latest hot topic involving Prof. Henry Lewis Gates of Harvard and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department.
We both agreed that some of the stupidest people we have ever known were PhDs who too frequently turned out to be over-educated fools.
In this country, we have been taught to revere anyone with the title of doctor, starting with physicians and working our way through the maze of doctors of law, education, music, library science, and the long list of fields of a study that grant these degrees.
These days physicians leave medical school owing about $100,000 on the average and, if the president’s healthcare reform passes, they will never be able to pay it back no matter how long they are in practice. Having to pay $200,000 for insurance against malpractice every year has done more to drive up the cost of medical care than anything else.
I used to work for an institution of higher knowledge, a well-respected institute of technology and, while I came to respect the technical achievements of those pursuing engineering or architecture degrees, I also learned that many of those teaching these ancient skills and modern technologies often displayed all the personal failures of judgment and deportment of those far less educated than they.
The one thing one learns in a college or university is that the admiration which its faculty and deans feel toward themselves. It is their bulwark against the real world where people are actually growing, inventing, making, and selling things.
The problem, as my friend noted, is that PhDs may know a great deal about a particular thing, they are often totally out of their league when it comes to extrapolating that niche of knowledge to practical matters or the great issues of the world.
The recent passing of Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense for Lyndon B. Johnson is a case in point. A good and decent man, McNamara was a wunderkind of the Ford Motor Company who had previously taught at Harvard. He was one of “the best and the brightest” brought into government by John F. Kennedy.
The re-airing of a C-Span interview with him made clear that he went to his grave knowing that he, President Johnson, and his colleagues had been quite thoroughly wrong about expanding the Vietnam War beyond the provision of U.S. military advisors. One can be very gifted in an area of expertise, but that does not necessarily transfer to real world, real time situations.
Moving forward in time to the present, President Obama has surrounded himself with lots of PhDs and each one is just weirder than the next. Dr. John Holdren, his science advisor, once advocated putting stuff in the food supply that would reduce the fertility rate. His Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, is a Nobel Laureate who thinks painting all our roofs white will stave off global warming. His Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, is hell bent on ensuring that not a drop of oil is sucked out of the vast U.S. reserves, nor a single new ton of coal if he has anything to say about it.
Barely a day goes by when one of these loons says something so stupid that you have cause to fear for the future of the republic.
The reason “Joe the Plumber” made all those headlines during the campaign was that he was not a PhD. He was a working man with a very useful skill and he was smart enough to know that Obama was a…how can I say this nicely? Someone not telling the truth and a Marxist.
Prof. Gates suffers from the hubris that goes with being a Harvard professor. He has made his reputation on the basis of his research about the Negro race in America. Any ghetto homeboy could have told him to be polite to the police officer, but Prof. Gates flew into a rage when asked to identify himself and continued to hurl the racism charge at a police officer who was immediately defended by his Black and Hispanic colleagues.
President Obama, despite saying he was unfamiliar with the details of the incident, could not resist visiting the theme of racial profiling. We are now decades passed the great achievements of the Civil Rights movement but the beat goes on.
America used to be a meritocracy. Now the nation is so heavily into “diversity” that we are dumbing down the standards for everyone from firemen to surgeons.
It’s a good idea to proceed with caution when some PhD advises you on anything more complex than your digital camera. It is said that a little education can be a dangerous thing, but too much education can actually blind those chosen to lead the nation and teach its youth to the lessons of history and to plain old common sense.
Posted by peiper
on 07/27/2009 at 02:46 PM
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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