War on Woke: Conservative Cultural Campaigning

[ItWillNeverWork]

You could always listen to the host of people here who know what they are talking about having actual experience working with children in education

I did

 

[chilango]

Like all of this stuff the "war on woke" as it manifests in education, relies upon deploying the rhetoric of "common sense" to an audience that has neither the experience, skills or motivation to address it critically. Just like the "get back to work" nonsense from IDS wasn't aimed at workers but at an audience that are retired.

It is, ironically, a hefty dose of "virtue signalling" to whip up passive consent for hard-right authoritarianism.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Perhaps like 'Back to Basics' it'll end in some sort of sex scandal... "Williamson caught in zoom wank".

FFS, spoiler tags!!!

 

[killer b]

I mentioned this in the Birbalsigh thread, how is this going to prepare kids for uni, especially if this level of control is extended to 6th form.
As far as I see, a lot kids are going to either end rebelling with the new found freedom, or sinking as they are not at all used to not being spoon-fed everything.

you'll be delighted to hear about ongoing changes to the higher education sector towards spoon-feeding the students everything then.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I absolutely agree on the government with regard to refusing to let people speak.

It is absolutely unconscionable that politics of one stripe is encouraged, whilst opposing political view is silenced.

What are the left afraid of? Are they afraid that when their bullshit views are challenged, they will be exposed for what they are?

The left wing bias inherent in tertiary education is a disgrace. It is more than time that this is addressed.

Some Marxist fuckwit in the NUS decides that they don't agree with a potential speaker, so 'cancels' them. In no way can this be judges as being equitable.

If the NUS has any charitable status, this needs to be removed, they are not a charity, they are a hard left cesspit.

The NUS is about as "Marxist" as an Aberdeen Angus, you muppet. It's the breeding pit of right-wing plonkrs like Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, & way too many other right-Labour politicians.
As for this supposed "left wing bias in tertiary education", bollocks. The fact is that the majority of young people are idealists, & that's reflected in their choice of political positioning. Only a small minority become prematurely-aged bitter virgin incel Tories at uni.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Are you playing some kind of anti-woke word salad bingo?

Apoplexy causes dysphasia.

 

[ViolentPanda]

BNP?

Hmm, I remember Nick "skullfucked by Martin Webster" Griffin appearing on QT, so I don't think they were "silenced" or cancelled" beyond paying for their own cuntitude.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I like the idea of the NUS being hard left. The uni I was at the NUS hierarchy was full of sports type who were there to get as much money for the sports clubs and as much sex as possible in general.

I've just googled the VP as his name is unusual. Turns out he now runs his own events company. You don't get much more hard left then that.

At Birkbeck the NUS were mostly budding political careerists, or Billy No-Mates cunts. All of them about as "hard left" as a jam butty.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I believe in free speech and free expression. But there is a range of things that people seem to mean by that. To the right, it seems to mean: bigots get to say whatever they want where ever they want, whenever they want, and there must be no reply.

To me, free speech means not only the speaker has it. The listeners have it too. Telling a bigot they’re full of shit is not removing their freedom to speak; it’s exercising mine.

It's concatenative. Remove any of the links between your & my freedom to speak, & the result is the reverse of free speech. You call me a cunt, I exercise my right to call you a fucking cunt, you fucking cunt!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Flegs

Croppy bastard, mocking our flegs!!! Next ye'll be mocking our Bowler hats!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Christ.

Shit!!! She's got the Blair eyes!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Talking? In a school? What is the world coming to?

We used to get chained to one of those old cast iron radiators, then electrocuted, so we eventually cooked in a puddle of our own piss. They didn't mess about regarding disciplinary infractions at my alma mater!

 

[SpookyFrank]

We used to get chained to one of those old cast iron radiators, then electrocuted, so we eventually cooked in a puddle of our own piss. They didn't mess about regarding disciplinary infractions at my alma mater!

Your school had radiators? Jammy bastard

 

[ViolentPanda]

Don't know much about this woman, but having very tight rules in schools is a good idea in my opinion. If your entire world outside school is chaotic, as is unfortunately the case for many people growing up in deprived situations, it can be quite comforting to have a school environment that is strict, and therefore predictable and safe.

Conversely, it can also provide a fine environment to rebel against. I speak as someone who went to a very discipline-focused school.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Your school had radiators? Jammy bastard

They didn't work - mostly because I started there during the 2nd "oil shock" of the '70s.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They didn't work - mostly because I started there during the 2nd "oil shock" of the '70s.

And electricity too. Luxury.

 

[ViolentPanda]

unless you're ADHD, or on the autism spectrum, in which very tight rules applied ridgidly and without flexibility, will, in all likelyhood, be very damaging.

As one of my nephews, on the ASD spectrum, is currently finding out.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And electricity too. Luxury.

The charge came from a van der Graaf generator cranked by a 1st yr, with the wires connected to our testicles. We learned by the light of burning library books.

 

[ViolentPanda]

At a national level?
School by school?
Classroom by classroom?
Pupil by pupil?

White male m/c Oxbridge graduates deciding boundaries for black female w/c teens? Is that ok?

How do you qualify "genuine desire"?

Who decides what a child's "potential" is? How do you quantify this? What's included? What's excluded?

It's incredibly political, ideological, classed, gendered, racialised and way too contested to not challenge and unpick.

Birbalsingh has ALWAYS been about making her mark so she can do politics, mostly at the expense of the children she reigns over. If you can't take all the kids with you, then you're doing something wrong, especially given the resources she has.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I mentioned this in the Birbalsigh thread, how is this going to prepare kids for uni, especially if this level of control is extended to 6th form.
As far as I see, a lot kids are going to either end rebelling with the new found freedom, or sinking as they are not at all used to not being spoon-fed everything.

The should be boundaries, but this is crazy.

Birbalsingh's school environment sounds very much like the military school environment my grandad suffered 100 yrs ago. It was so ingrained in him, the layout of the school, & the posture expected etc, that when my dad took him there in his 80s, he stood to attention and marched the halls, even though he was half-lame, & fully blind. He knew exactly how many steps to take before a turn in the hall. Did he learn anything there? Only to obey authority, blindly & to his own detriment.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The Tories might go for boosting funding for STEM subjects at the expense of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They have probably wanted to do so for a long time and now they could claim that the poor state of public finances demands it.

That's what they're doing here. All kinds of liberal arts programs have been cut back or discontinued entirely in favor of STEM majors.

 

[two sheds]

The charge came from a van der Graaf generator cranked by a 1st yr, with the wires connected to our testicles.

"Stick your 'ead near that"

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

STEM funding will be a good idea until it isn’t. After all most teaching isn’t done by STEM grads, with all the focus on STEM we will see a shortage of Humanities and Social Sciences in a decade with the usual conservative concern about students not knowing history.

Ah, but it has to be "their history."

 

[Raheem]

Thoughts on Katherine Birbalsingh.

1) "Strictest headteacher in the land" is 100% media hype. It's a competitive field with lots of headteachers willing to take it much further beyond the point of idiocy.

2) The whole fairytale is too much to be taken seriously. Teacher gives speech at Tory party conference saying Michael Gove is a genius and the entire teaching profession are idiots. Gets lots of media attention. Teacher is then invited to be the head of a free school which is effectively being sponsored by the Tory party. School opens and is the greatest, most magical school in history. Teacher becomes media personality and anti-woke heroine.

It could be that the moral of the story is that Michael Gove is, after all, a genius and the entire teaching profession really are idiots. But I'd say there is probably more to it than that.

 

[petee]

That's what they're doing here. All kinds of liberal arts programs have been cut back or discontinued entirely in favor of STEM majors.

yyyyup

 

[ViolentPanda]

"Stick your 'ead near that"

Ah, schooldays! When I look back, I realise that our physics & chemistry teachers were all sadists!

 

[two sheds]

To be fair I think it was one of the boys that (successfully) suggested that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's what they're doing here. All kinds of liberal arts programs have been cut back or discontinued entirely in favor of STEM majors.

Here, music & drama have been residualised in our secondary education system. They're an "after school club" extra in some cases. History qua history has regressed 60 yrs, to "great deeds by the great & the good" type bollocks, rather than anything interrogative, & as for social sciences...

 

[ViolentPanda]

To be fair I think it was one of the boys that (successfully) suggested that.

My school:
Chemistry teacher: "Boy, come here & sniff this" (chlorine gas). Same teacher: "Boy come here & sniff this" (chloroform).
Physics teacher: "didn't I say not to touch a piece of sodium with your bare hand? Whoops!".

That's a few where people were hospitalised. There were many, many sub-hospitalisation incidents!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ah, but it has to be "their history."

In other words, revisionist fictions.