Rant time....BBQs, Garbage and unintelligent people.

I shudder at the way in which schools and universities operate now. They’re less about academic education and more about indoctrination of common social views.

 

That has always been the case. The difference is that you don't like the stuff they're teaching now, which challenges the status quo, as opposed to the empire-driven establishment indoctrination that they fed us when we were at school.

 

That’s not the case. I don’t think our schools and universities should be teaching social or political mantras of any kind. Or religion of any kind. They should be teaching people to think critically, examine fact, challenge your beliefs positively and negatively - either to learn or reinforce your opinion. To preach personal responsibility and tolerance, to empower rather than victimise.That’s how we become a fairer, more civilised society. Not this mass victimisation, identity politics madness, which only seeks to label people, assign victim - and therefore blame - status.

 

This should have been done though a democratic process not by breaking the law.

I heard that Bristol council has been run by labour and the Lib Dem’s ever since the early 1980’s and nothing done,blame them for it’s none removal.

If you want to praise yobbery like taking down statues by force and illegally then you and others will be on a sliding door to anarchy.

What about Cromwell outside parliament,I’m sure the Irish ancestry would want that down or Richard the lion heart outside parliament with the muslim peoples.

FFS.

 

My five year old came home one day, back end of last year, and asked “dad, why does Donald Trump want to kill us all?”. Asked him who told him that “Mrs .. told us in class”.
She’s no longer a teacher at the school - and no, I didn’t grass her up....

 

Good. And a good example of what I’m talking about. I’ve had to make a similar complaint against a teacher at my daughters school - nothing to do with Trump, but a similar principle.

 

Well my experience of school in the 60s was that most were fed a largely uncritical status quo narrative. That was every bit as much indoctrination as the stuff you are complaining about now.
It's impossible to teach History, Sociology, Psychology, English Literature or any of the arts/social sciences without some degree of bias. There is no such thing as value-free education. Of course people should be taught various perspectives and taught to understand that everyone has an agenda. My experience of higher education in the 80s, when I attended uni in my mid 20s, and currently (I teach part time on a mental health MA level course) is that this is precisely what is done. What you call 'identity politics madness' is what other people call challenging centuries of dominance and looking beyond flawed 'common sense' narratives which preserve the status quo. Like I said, there's no such thing as value-free education.

 

I'm much more bothered about the systematic destruction of our public services, health care, independent civil service and judiciary by this government than I am about the symbolic toppling of a few statues.

 

I disagree. You can teach and present a balance of perspectives and context to just about any historic, psychological or social incident or period in history. I don’t see anything but madness in the identity politics movement, as explained in a far more articulately and informed manner than I ever could by Jordan Peterson



An even better representation of what I think we're seeing play out at the minute:

 

I notice it's only days of the British empire you refer to . All the European powers have through history had empires , the Spanish destroyed / eradicated 2 south American indigenous peoples . The Roman - Viking empires were built on the backs of invasion - looting - murder - violence and slavery , the Eygptian and ottomon / Persian empires followed suit , should all monuments to these cultures be torn down / looted ?. The French , The Dutch , and Belgians had empires througthout Africa and the far east . The Swiss have billions worth of stolen jewish money and gold stolen from them by the Germans , should they give it back ?. You can't cherrypick points in history to prove a point it's either all or nothing .

 

We have a long and diverse history as a people and as a nation, We should be proud to teach and celebrate it good and bad,

 

What does one have to do with the other?

 

Why post on it then.

It was you praising people breaking the law.

I wonder why a labour/ lib dem councils in bristol that have been in power in the city for 40 years never removed the slave trader ?

 

The vast majority of football fans protesters behave impeccably. However, the minority of violent hooligans protesters get the media coverage and give everyone a bad name.

 

Teachers teach the curriculum set by the current government and can do this without bias and prejudice. I know because I do it.Of course at times people's beliefs do get in the way, I've seen it happen. However, not all teachers are wishy washy liberal lefty types, absolutely far from it. Most teachers I know have zero interest in politics to be honest and are devoted to their pupils. That's not to say they don't slip and let personal opinion in at times.

This bit of Faithful's post is nail on head:

They should be teaching people to think critically, examine fact, challenge your beliefs positively and negatively - either to learn or reinforce your opinion

That is absolutely what good teaching is and is what teachers strive for. One of the most memorable lessons I taught, I didn't do any teaching at all! We'd had a topic about WW2, the usual activities. We had this thing going so that if I put the air raid siren on randomly from YouTube they had to get under the tables really quickly. The school was near RAF Lossiemouth and one time we were under the tables one of the large RAF planes was up and it was actually very eerie and poignant with the low drone of the engine running. At the end of the topic we had a group discussion. I put on the board 'Is war wrong?' and left them to it. The discussion these 12/13 year old kids had was incredible. This was I believe as result of the previous learning. It is possible.

 

Brilliant post Hoochy, well said. I know most teachers do an incredible job - I couldn't do it. And to balance my earlier post, I'm not laying the blame for the identity politics movement at the door of the country's teachers, certainly not en masse.

WW2 is a great example. Easy to conjure Jingoistic narratives of British Bulldog spirit, all Germans were evil etc. But there were many complexities to the what led to that war - including (maybe ominously) what happens when the masses are fed a very specific narrative. Even the very simple fact that Britain and France declared war on Germany is probably a miss for most people.

 

Excuse me? Where did I mention British Empire? Where did I say that all such statues should be torn down? Please stop putting words in my mouth. I'm well aware of the colonial history of many other nations besides ours over the centuries.

 

I agree; I think they should have removed it long before now.

I responded to MB's post suggesting that we're on the road to anarchy because a few protesters pulled a statue down, which seemed to me to be a ludicrous overreaction. Whereas, in my view, the systematic destruction of our our democratic institutions by this government is a much more important thing to be worried about, yet receives next to no attention or comment.

 

Fair enough. It's not a subject I have much visibility of, other than perhaps the NHS if that's what you mean.

 

So @Offcomedun , the reference to " Empire driven establishment indoctrination " was a random quote and not based on any reference to Britain ?