For sure, there's been some silly reporting, and we have the Graun to thank for patiently explaining: "At no point did anyone identify as a cat".
A short exchange between schoolgirls and a teacher was recorded by one of the girls and then posted on TikTok, after which it went viral, was picked up by Fox News and the rightwing press, and then blessed into respectability by mainstream media and politicians. It was a heated debate, during which one of the girls cited a conversation with another girl about identifying as something other than a girl, such as a cat. “I said, how can you identify as a cat when you are a girl.” She is scolded by the teacher, whose tone and language definitely to my ears from the short recording sounded troubling, and the wrong approach to such discussions. But no one ever identified as a cat, or was criticised for doing so.
Well thanks, Graun, a real public service there: otherwise we were all in grave danger of worrying over something silly. But the audio itself is worth listening to (here), and the great thing is how sharp the kids are: they have eminently salient arguments against the doctrinal trans-identity nonsense being spouted aggressively by the teacher complete with scolding, insults and disciplinary threats. It is she who needs disciplining - and whatever "movement" that puts teachers up to proseltysing for this kind of thing in the classroom.
Actually, of course, the least advisable thing in the world is to force-feed kids doctrinal stuff: they can be relied upon to react against it every time (unless you are willing to go the full Mao). Given, however, that it is apparently Labour policy to extend the voting age to 16, there is a serious flipside. A friend of mine recently went to give a talk in a secondary school and was begged not to mention, or react to any mention of, Andrew Tate. Apparently, Tate has been adopted as a hero figure among teenage boys and gets constantly thrown at teachers in "life education" / PSHE classes, to general dismay. Be careful what you vote for ...
ND
26 comments:
Labour want to reduce the voting age to 16, the age at which you are competent to decide on contraception or an abortion to 10 or 11, and the age at which you're competent to decide on life-changing hormonal or surgical castration to what, 7 or 8?
Otoh the age for drinking, driving and gambling is likely to go up sooner or later.
Ps - Nick, what's the evidence for stating that Western intelligence knew about the March On Rome before Russia did? That they said so?
There was a time when catcalls were restricted to the theatre. This comes of letting children pay more attention to their felines than to reason.
When my kids were in school we were going through one of the many phases of "homosexuality is wonderful".
Notwithstanding that, or more likely because of it, my two sons at age 8 and 10 started referring to everything they didn't like or thought was unpleasant or gross as 'gay'.
"...the great thing is how sharp the kids are..."
The Who were right all along! And by that I mean the pop group. Not the World Health Organisation.
I'm an old bloke these days and carrying a lot of old bloke despair about what's going on in the world. I hadn't bothered listening to the audio of that classroom interaction until just now; those kids renewed my hope for the future. The teacher, on the other hand....... dear God, talk about increasingly desperate bluster.
I got chucked out of a physics class when I was in third year at grammar school because the teacher couldn't answer my questions about magnetism (what is the very obvious force made of - or, as I would express it these days, what is the force carrier?) and I didn't have the sense to let it drop. So, chucked out to wait in the corridor. Headmaster chooses this moment to wander round his domain, demands to know why I'm in the corridor, takes me off to his study and slippers me. I learned a very painful lesson that day, never forgotten and never forgiven. Bloody teachers. I know they're not all like that, but.....
Ah some corroboration that my experience of school childrens' attitudes in the 1960s, (contempt for teachers), still survive today.
markc - that's a bum deal and a great question. Pity the teacher couldn't have said "I don't know but we'll try to find out". Some teachers would love pupils who ask questions like that.
(It IS amazing, though, an invisible force like that. A great lesson subject - invisible forces)
Thank you, anon 10:37. It took years for me to find the answer to that question; but just to close the loop, the answer is - it's photons! The problem is then that scores of new questions immediately pop up, and you have to go digging to find out why for instance magnets don't glow and why does the force not exhaust the energy in the magnet, but at least we have t'intertubes and Google these days :-)
"I'm an old bloke these days"
So am I: I have no idea how to listen to the recording at that link.
Good morning, dearieme.
Just scroll down the Graun page linked to until you see a graphic / twitter link about half way down the page. Click on the "play" button.
Enjoy!
It's called "Real Women" or some such.
Thank you, markc.
But I don't see a Twitter link with a "play" button.
Sorry, forgot to put in the link HTML tags.
Every generation of teacher seems to think kids are just empty vessels to fill with wisdom.
In the 80's even the more psychopathic ones got to be the pupil, as whilst no one was going to go give them much cheek out of fear, that did not mean their shiny new car was immune to an impromptu fresh coat of paint, with added linguistic flashes alluding to their parentage and similarity of their personality to vulgar descriptions of genitals.
I'm sure the age of CCTV some inventive little shit will have found a modern way of doing the equivalent.
Funnily enough, few bothered to annoy the ones who sought a bit of respect, as opposed to merely expecting it by virtue of position, and the ones who did failed to get the laughs they expected. Those teachers got the sass-less "sirs", the "pleases" and the "thank yous."
You got the spot the good teachers and truly lost cause kids.
I suspect these days the former are harder to find, not so much the latter.
Thanks, markc. V handsome of you.
It turns out that I can't bear to listen to it: the teacher is obvs a cretinous virago and the girls all have ugly voices. What a world.
One of my saddest memories of school was in my last year when the physics teacher asked me to help him with dynamics. The poor old sod was a chemist and hadn't a clue.
An elementary lesson in economics: if you insist on paying physics teachers the same salary as teachers of chemistry, Latin, English, and so on you aren't going to attract people who understand the stuff. Happily many other teachers I had were excellent.
OT – twitter thread summary, depressingly true
It’s worth noting that a week ago today President Macron hosted a ‘Summit on a New Global Financial Pact,’ aimed at ‘combating poverty and climate change in the Global South.’
A useful reminder that Western pols grasp onto stuff like this because it is—the seemingly intractable nature of a problem like ‘climate change’ or ‘global poverty’ notwithstanding—fundamentally *easier* than grasping the many poisonous nettles that most of them know will have to be grasped one day, if their nations are to survive.
It’s ultimately *easier* to drone on about sea levels in Kiribati than it is to reconquer the Paris suburbs. Same with David Cameron striking a heroic pose in Libya months before London lights up; it makes a sort of sense, from the perspective of a scared pol like Cameron—in Libya, he could say ‘Bomb this,’ and the machinery of state duly grinds into gear. The problem of crime and disorder in Britain’s streets, the social and legal rot of the last 50-odd years? Oh don’t look at me mate, I’m just the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, that sort of thing’s out of my department.
Always bear this sort of thing in mind when you see them blathering on about climate change. It’s just something to pass the time and look and feel like they’re doing something. They know there are real wars and real enemies to be fought at home, but they’re too afraid to do anything about them because they know it would be hard, certainly much harder than halting sea level rise in the Maldives (which they don’t give a shit about and can’t do much to stop anyway.)
Grate thread. Any more of these so I can express my misery about the loss of the empire? Being surrounded by fools. Being able to state categorically my cat could do better.
I have never in my life, spent largely in the UK, met anyone - not a single soul - who expressed misery about the loss of Empire.
Come to that I have never met anyone who advocated replacing the NHS with the American "system".
Where do these bogeymen come from? Who makes them up? To what end?
And another thing: I have never met anyone who can make a case for British membership of the existing EU (as distinct from an idealised, reformed EU that is just around the corner). I noted that nobody in the Remain campaign rose to the challenge either. It's a sort of anti-bogeyman.
dearieme - I think many of the people who would have been "muscular imperialists" back in the day are now aid workers and the like.
A friend was drilling wells in Pakistan and the soldier guarding them tried to rob them at gunpoint. He ended on his knees begging forgiveness after a tongue-lashing from the guy he was trying to rob. Always thought my friend would have made a great officer on the NW Frontier.
People like Hilary Hook and Thesiger might have regretted it, also the people who were making a good living out there, like farmers in Rhodesia or planters in the various tropics. But the number of Brits who regret it in any sense apart from "it was nice when the world map was half pink" is pretty small.
Alas the EU has joined the UK in becoming just a vassal state/satrapy of the US. They haven't even got the guts to call out the NS2 perps. Sad!
O/T - are you going to cover anything on Thames Water ND/CU? Been out the loop on that, - diskike Bill Blain bit of cretin imo but this was worth a gander
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/thames-water-straw-broke-uks-back
hovus (sic - hovis??)
thanks, an excellent link, must cover this one as you say
get to it when I can
Good article in FT re financial engineering behind the water thing. Regulators not got a clue and held back by politicos.
Clever PhDs go into the City and make mega moolah.
Nowadays, Iraq is much more peaceful than France.
Don
ND: yeah a typo in the moniker - kind like the new one though ..
Will look that up Jim, thanks;
OT but ND might have a few clues - what's a decent energy blog these days? Oil Drum and Eauan Mearns seem dormant*, Tim Morgan likewise - where can I get decent info.
I'm pretty convinced that our economies run on energy, that our Russia sanctions/gas pipeline sabotage is a YUGE own-goal for entire UK/EU, and that coal-burning China is making a killing using that coal energy to build panels and turbines to sell to us... but I need figures and science.
Where do I get them these days?
* whatever happened to KiteGen which was going to save us?
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