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.

TIMES SOURCE,MORE HERE

If children are taught that patriotism is wrong, Britain’s very identity is at stake
By MELANIE PHILLIPS
14th September 2009

A 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.

GO HERE FOR MORE

Posted by peiper     on 09/14/2009 at 11:52 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Education • UK •  
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