Terrorist attacks and beheadings in France

[Pickman's model]

Some people think this is out of order and so everyone is going to have to act in a way that treats it as out of order?

You see this way too much in publishing. Some shocking omissions are made to kid's books that will be published in both UK and US in order not to offend a religious minority in the US. It means that everyone misses out and the minority dictates the discourse.

I think you'll be shocked when you find out about the ruling class, capitalism and billionaires

 

[chilango]

I think the phrase you use there - “this kind of content” - is going to be at the root of why we aren’t going to agree on this. I don’t want to rerun the several Charlie Hebdo threads, so I’ll respectfully leave this discussion now.

Should anyone want to see my views on the CH cartoons, I can’t imagine I’ve moved my position much.

Thing is, it's not about my view on the cartoons. I suspect our views are similar on them. But when you become a teacher, rightly or wrongly, you are expected to leave your views outside the classroom. Not always possible, and certainly not always desirable, but widely and commonly held as an expectation. Any teacher choosing to present material that they know will definitely be considered obscene by members of the class and the community also knows that they "shouldn't" be doing that.

...and, yes, beyond these cartoons this does place teachers in the position of including and excluding material against their own wishes/views. There's all kinds of examples from the mundane to the murderous.

 

[platinumsage]

Such as

Parents gather outside Birmingham school to protest against gay teacher

FFS. The world is going backwards A gay primary school teacher who leads diversity lessons for children said he has received threats from those who are calling for him to resign. Andrew Moffat MBE has been under fire from parents who are protesting his No Outsiders project, which teaches...

www.urban75.net

 

[mauvais]

I'm not sure there's a legitimate debate to be had about the rights and wrongs of this teacher's actions, because it can't be removed from the context of their death, and so any critique produces victim blaming, which would not be acceptable in other scenarios that I'm sure you can think of.

 

[bimble]

I think what people are missing from the comparison with porn is the idea of "obscenity".

I don't know what the cartoon looked like but even if it showed mohammed shagging an ocelot its the crime of blasphemy not obscenity that this man got executed for, different thing.

 

[chilango]

Some people consider sex ed to be obscenity.

They do.

Which is why teachers can't just launch into sex ed without it being part of a highly/tightly regulated curriculum. Within which I'm sure there's a lot included/excluded that is not how "we" would like it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Parents gather outside Birmingham school to protest against gay teacher

FFS. The world is going backwards A gay primary school teacher who leads diversity lessons for children said he has received threats from those who are calling for him to resign. Andrew Moffat MBE has been under fire from parents who are protesting his No Outsiders project, which teaches...

www.urban75.net

And

 

[chilango]

Some people think this is out of order and so everyone is going to have to act in a way that treats it as out of order?

You see this way too much in publishing. Some shocking omissions are made to kid's books that will be published in both UK and US in order not to offend a religious minority in the US. It means that everyone misses out and the minority dictates the discourse.

No it's the powerful (in any given scenario) dictating the discourse. Whether they're a minority or not is irrelevant.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No it's the powerful (in any given scenario) dictating the discourse. Whether they're a minority or not is irrelevant.

And in this case that power comes from murders such as this one.

 

[Chilli.s]

More than 4000 religions in the world, all professing to be a true belief while the others are wrong. It doesn't sound likely does it... If a religion doesn't manage to have the belief in itself to make it impervious to the criticism of all the others, then it's even less likely to be any kind of truth.

 

[chilango]

I don't know what the cartoon looked like but even if it showed mohammed shagging an ocelot its the crime of blasphemy not obscenity that this man got executed for, different thing.

I'm not religious so I'll defer to anyone who has more knowledge on the distinction between the two.

 

[chilango]

And in this case that power comes from murders such as this one.

In part, yes.

 

[Chilli.s]

Blasphemy is only a crime if you are a follower. For a world population it is an outdated concept, like fairies, trolls and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't know how this class was taught but it would be entirely possible to discuss the subject within the wider context of anti-clericalism, a long tradition of which CH is a part. After all, CH is every bit as rude about, and devotes more of its time to, Christianity.

Totally appropriate subject for older schoolkids imo.

 

[bimble]

Blasphemy is only a crime if you are a follower. For a world population it is an outdated concept, like fairies, trolls and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Sure, whereas obscenity is more like a universal concept just everyone has a different version of it. I don’t think blasphemy should be considered as an issue when designing a curriculum but then I don’t think religion should be allowed in schools at all and that’s far from reality.

 

[Mation]

But that rules out discussion on all sorts of subjects that might personally affect students doesn't it? The students were offered the option to leave the class as well it seems.

Would you defend the parents taking their kids out of sex eduaction classes on these grounds as well then?

Not the same. When you're talking about people who face discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, gender, you don't, as their teacher, put them in a situation of having to deal with controversial stuff around it in a space that should be equally safe for all.

 

[Mation]

I'm not sure there's a legitimate debate to be had about the rights and wrongs of this teacher's actions, because it can't be removed from the context of their death, and so any critique produces victim blaming, which would not be acceptable in other scenarios that I'm sure you can think of.

Fair point.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not sure there's a legitimate debate to be had about the rights and wrongs of this teacher's actions, because it can't be removed from the context of their death, and so any critique produces victim blaming, which would not be acceptable in other scenarios that I'm sure you can think of.

Tosh

It's a simple question, was he right or wrong to a) introduce the subject into his classroom, and b) to proceed as he did? I suspect most of us agree it's not really on to behead people as happened to him

 

[Spymaster]

I'm not sure there's a legitimate debate to be had about the rights and wrongs of this teacher's actions, because it can't be removed from the context of their death, and so any critique produces victim blaming, which would not be acceptable in other scenarios that I'm sure you can think of.

No. Nobody is blaming him in any way. The question is about how far teachers should go to discuss freedoms. Nobody in their right mind thinks this dude was to blame for getting executed.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not the same. When you're talking about people who face discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, gender, you don't, as their teacher, put them in a situation of having to deal with controversial stuff around it in a space that should be equally safe for all.

Would that apply to all religious beliefs? The protesters at the Birmingham school quoted above cite their religion as the thing being offended by inclusive sex ed. Sometimes the things you list above come into conflict with one another.

 

[chilango]

I'm reminded of very early in my teaching career one of my students produced, submitted and exhibited as an examination piece a painting of a masturbating priest "disguised" as an architectural plan of a cathedral.

Fantastic piece of work imo.

...but I'm not sure I'd be allowed to allow that in most British schools these days. Would I?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No. Nobody is blaming him in any way. The question is about how far teachers should go to discuss freedoms. Nobody in their right mind thinks this dude was to blame for getting executed.

But ultimately, if this kind of discussion is shut down in French schools now, it will be because this dude was murdered.

There's clearly a debate to be had about how these ideas should be approached in schools, but any debate about whether they should be approached will only happen cos of the violence. It will mean the violence has worked.

 

[planetgeli]

Let's have a class about freedom of expression and censorship. I'm going to illustrate this by censoring some of the content.

Bollocks to that.

Pupils were given choice in participation as they are in other classes where they may be sensitive to content (such as cutting up frogs as someone said). I don't believe he did anything wrong from what has been said. Being illustrative, through pictures, powerpoints or whatever is an accepted teaching method, an encouraged teaching method. You can't be 100% informed if you are not allowed, or given the chance, to view content.

 

[LDC]

Not the same. When you're talking about people who face discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, gender, you don't, as their teacher, put them in a situation of having to deal with controversial stuff around it in a space that should be equally safe for all.

You didn't say that, you said 'personally affect'. And anyway recently some of the parents against sex education classes said they were being discriminated against on religious grounds by these classes being taught. Being shown cartoons isn't 'unsafe' is it, especially when you're given a warning to leave the room if you want?

 

[chilango]

Let's have a class about freedom of expression and censorship. I'm going to illustrate this by censoring some of the content.

Tbh that would be a good illustration of the reality of so-called freedom of speech. It doesn't really exist, and where/when it does it does so on a very unequal basis.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Tbh that would be a good illustration of the reality of so-called freedom of speech. It doesn't really exist, and where/when it does it does so on a very unequal basis.

And if you want to shut down discussion of a particular topic, one way to do it is to murder a few people who dare to address it.

 

[redsquirrel]

Not the same. When you're talking about people who face discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, gender, you don't, as their teacher, put them in a situation of having to deal with controversial stuff around it in a space that should be equally safe for all.

That's an incredibly high bar that would make teaching of many topics difficult and/or pretty useless. (And that's before we get onto who gets to define controversial stuff).

----

I don't think you can have a debate whether it is appropriate or not for a teacher to show material that they know will offend some students without considering the specifics.
It's a something of a cop out but it does depend on the circumstances - what is going to be appropriate and reasonable for HE students could very will be unreasonable for year 7/8 school students.

For example I can see good arguments that sometimes people need to have to deal with controversial stuff, that may even be a learning outcome.

 

[chilango]

And if you want to shut down discussion of a particular topic, one way to do it is to murder a few people who dare to address it.

It works though.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I don't mean to ignore the context, but there's more than one context here. For instance , the context of worldwide killing of people who offend Islam by pictures, by writing, by spoken word etc. Someone in Denmark publishes a cartoon and suddenly people die in Pakistan. Nowt to do with the French state. Salman Rushdie writes a book to which the Ayatollah takes offence and suddenly zillions of the faithful are seemingly uptight about a publication they will never read. Nowt to do with the French state.
French anarchists used to have the slogan ' ni dieu, ni maitre', neither God nor masters. I have no quarrel with that approach at all. Others may do. But I don't think we should reinstate the crime of blasphemy by the back door.

The problem is Islam, which is an appalling life system, particularly if you are a woman or gay.

 

[Sasaferrato]

What is pornography? What are its defining characteristics? How do you know it?

Pornography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org