Dear NUT (National Union of Teachers),
I used to have sympathy for you, my counterparts back home. Dealing with the levels of violence and threats you face with little support must be agonising. Now I can’t help wondering if you deserve it, or derive some weird sadistic pleasure in this kind of divisiveness.
No I don't mean the standing ovation you gave Jeremy Corbyn, I mean the NUT’s call to end teaching “British values” in favour of teaching “international rights”, because the former is “cultural supremacy”. I can’t help but wonder how many of you even have a true knowledge and understanding of what those words mean but it’s hard to tell, since there were no further details. I wonder: who will decide what constitutes “international rights”? You? Or will you use the UN declaration? You know, the one that Saudi Arabia refused to sign because it violated Sharia Law.
The truth is that some cultures are superior to others. It’s simply impossible to logically argue otherwise. Saudi Arabia refuses to allow women to drive because they follow a hard-line take on Sharia Law. Other counties, like yours, allow women the same rights as men. Does the NUT believe that our children should be taught that females cannot drive? Do they admire the old Aztec culture of human sacrifice? If all cultures are equal, it’s perfectly acceptable to support that belief. The reality is that any teacher even remotely hinting at such an idea would be fired within a week and would never be employed again, because it's an abhorrent idea. We know full well there are better and worse cultures, we’re just terrified of admitting it.
But while all of you were light on facts about "international rights", you were thick on rhetoric. The list of complaints emanating from the NUT conference read like a textbook (pun intended) example of how modern British teaching has become a parody of itself. Let’s read the grandiose ideas asserted by one of your own (via the Telegraph article):
But Mister Denson wasn’t done. He continued:
Yet still this teacher - thank the Lord he’s not teaching my (mixed-race) kids - wasn’t done...
Dear NUT, it’s no secret that exam standards are getting easier, schools are getting more crowded and as already noted, you guys are in more danger than ever. Heck, you usually harp on about that at your conferences. But now, when you actually have some way to find a common cause, a sense of unity and principles that will make your lives easier, you’ve spat on it. Why? Could it be that you’ve succumbed to the stereotypes: the teacher who can’t live in the real world so instead spends time at school pushing his or her views onto others?
Stop applauding yourselves. Stop believing that a teacher is also a parent. Stop believing in your own self-righteous superiority. Your role and moral responsibility is to gift students to the tools to think, research and decide for themselves, it is not to tell them what to think.
Remember that next year when you complain about working conditions once more.
I used to have sympathy for you, my counterparts back home. Dealing with the levels of violence and threats you face with little support must be agonising. Now I can’t help wondering if you deserve it, or derive some weird sadistic pleasure in this kind of divisiveness.
No I don't mean the standing ovation you gave Jeremy Corbyn, I mean the NUT’s call to end teaching “British values” in favour of teaching “international rights”, because the former is “cultural supremacy”. I can’t help but wonder how many of you even have a true knowledge and understanding of what those words mean but it’s hard to tell, since there were no further details. I wonder: who will decide what constitutes “international rights”? You? Or will you use the UN declaration? You know, the one that Saudi Arabia refused to sign because it violated Sharia Law.
The truth is that some cultures are superior to others. It’s simply impossible to logically argue otherwise. Saudi Arabia refuses to allow women to drive because they follow a hard-line take on Sharia Law. Other counties, like yours, allow women the same rights as men. Does the NUT believe that our children should be taught that females cannot drive? Do they admire the old Aztec culture of human sacrifice? If all cultures are equal, it’s perfectly acceptable to support that belief. The reality is that any teacher even remotely hinting at such an idea would be fired within a week and would never be employed again, because it's an abhorrent idea. We know full well there are better and worse cultures, we’re just terrified of admitting it.
But while all of you were light on facts about "international rights", you were thick on rhetoric. The list of complaints emanating from the NUT conference read like a textbook (pun intended) example of how modern British teaching has become a parody of itself. Let’s read the grandiose ideas asserted by one of your own (via the Telegraph article):
“Christopher Denson, a teacher from Coventry, said he had reservations about using the term "fundamental British values" in schools because many of his students had ancestry in countries which had been at the mercy British colonialism. “I don’t follow your reservations, Mister Denson. When we teach “British values” are we teaching that the UK is a perfect union, the only state in the world never to have committed immoral actions? Is that in the curriculum? I don’t see it. Surely we’re teaching that we have learnt from past mistakes and now promote freedom and tolerance? Are the students in question aware that they have been granted British citizenship?
But Mister Denson wasn’t done. He continued:
“ "The inherent cultural supremacism in that term is both unnecessary and unacceptable. And seen with the Prevent agenda, it belies the most thinly veiled racism and a conscious effort to divide communities."Simply reading this statement makes me think Mister Denson will soon be high-up in the government’s well-paid, pen-pushing education hierarchy if he isn’t already. Apparently, using the name of the country in which you live and work followed by the word “values” means you discriminate against others because of their race. A teacher openly declaring his intention not to tolerate other’s views and to redefine national values inside the context of race is shocking to me, but not to you folk at the NUT apparently.
He added: "It’s our duty to push a real anti-racist work in all schools. And that doesn’t mean talk of tolerating other’s views, but genuine, inclusive anti-racist work."
Yet still this teacher - thank the Lord he’s not teaching my (mixed-race) kids - wasn’t done...
"We organised a politics day for Year 8s in the week before Easter. They had a day to form a political party in their tutor groups to come up with a manifesto, film a broadcast, and make banners and take part in a debate. (If this quote is verbatim, I hope Mister Denson isn’t an English teacher.)
"Apart from the quality of the work, the other thing that really made my proud was that every single tutor group had as a policy, 'refugees welcome, open the borders'."
Now I may be going out on a limb here, teacher, but given your earlier comments, is there just the most minute possibility that you guided these children to these conclusion? As any teacher should know, children are not yet fully developed in their capacity to make informed and fully-logical decisions, particularly their long-term consequences. If they were, there’d be no need for teachers and no need for any legal age limits on any civil contract. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that you denied them equal time to any views that opposed allowing “refugees” unlimited entry? I don’t wish to be presumptions but in your own words “that doesn’t mean talk of tolerating other’s views”. I bet I’m not the only person suspecting that when you praise the conclusions of your students, in your mind you’re smirking and patting yourself on the back.
Dear NUT, it’s no secret that exam standards are getting easier, schools are getting more crowded and as already noted, you guys are in more danger than ever. Heck, you usually harp on about that at your conferences. But now, when you actually have some way to find a common cause, a sense of unity and principles that will make your lives easier, you’ve spat on it. Why? Could it be that you’ve succumbed to the stereotypes: the teacher who can’t live in the real world so instead spends time at school pushing his or her views onto others?
Stop applauding yourselves. Stop believing that a teacher is also a parent. Stop believing in your own self-righteous superiority. Your role and moral responsibility is to gift students to the tools to think, research and decide for themselves, it is not to tell them what to think.
Remember that next year when you complain about working conditions once more.
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