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Academia Mischief Parenting Pronouns Or Else

The Words ‘Genie’ And ‘Bottle’ Come To Mind

June 20, 2023 45 Comments

Further to this rather telling incident, a footnote of sorts, via the Telegraph:

The incident at Rye College… was not a one-off. Inquiries by this newspaper have established that other children at other schools are also identifying as animals, and the responses of parents suggest that the schools in question are hopelessly out of their depth on the question of how to handle the pupils’ behaviour.

The Telegraph has discovered that a pupil at a secondary school in the South West is insisting on being addressed as a dinosaur. At another secondary school in England, a pupil insists on identifying as a horse. Another wears a cape and wants to be acknowledged as a moon.

Not the Moon, obviously. Just a moon, a generic moon. With a cape.

One pupil at a state secondary school in Wales told the Telegraph of a fellow pupil who “feels very discriminated against if you do not refer to them as ‘catself.’” She added: “When they answer questions, they meow rather than answer a question in English. And the teachers are not allowed to get annoyed about this because it’s seen as discriminating.”

The student in question is in Year 11, but began using the pronoun “catself” in Year 9 “when the whole thing with neo pronouns started,” the pupil said. She described how lessons could be completely derailed if a teacher attempted to get the child to reply to a question in English rather than meowing.

Readers of a certain age may recall pupils being sent home for wearing trainers or an inappropriate skirt. I remember overhearing a discussion regarding the selective enforcement of dress codes, and the precise shortness of skirt that would escape the disapproval of certain teachers, while resulting in the desired impression of rebellion and sluttiness. It turns out that similar issues remain, albeit with a twist:

While other pupils would be pulled up for wearing non-uniform items, such as facial piercings or dyed hair, children who identified as cats or moons would be allowed to wear cat ears or cloaks to express their “true self,” breeding resentment among other pupils.

At a distance, it is, of course, difficult to tease apart mischief and mentalism. And even up close, it’s not clear to me how a teacher, dutifully observing the Sensitivities Of The Current Year, could dismiss as mere prankery some farcical claim. As opposed to some other farcical claim.

With many secondary schools now teaching children that they “may be born in the wrong body,” with “safeguarding” policies that often exclude parents but include dozens of imaginary identity options, and which are shaped by unhinged activist groups – activist groups suggesting that teachers should “engage in conversation about… the benefits of the furry community” – then farce, and mischief, will ensue. And be difficult to untangle.

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Written by: David
Academia Free-For-All Parenting Pronouns Or Else

Regurgitation Is Heard

June 18, 2023 62 Comments

Or, “How You Identity.”

A professional educator, Mrs Donna Starkey of Rye College, East Sussex, attempts to impart her new and shiny knowledge. Two schoolgirls prove troublesome:

“Where’d you get this idea that there are only two genders? […] It’s not an opinion you can have… You’re talking about the fact that cisgender is the norm, that you identify with the gender… with the sexual organs that you’re born with, or you’re with. That’s basically what you’re saying…”

“Yeah.”

“Which is really despicable… I’m reporting you to Miss Willis. You need to have a proper educational… conversation… about edu… about equality, diversity, and inclusion. Because I’m not having that expressed in my lesson.”

“Everyone else thinks it. They just don’t say it.”

Threats of further ideological correction ensue. Apparently, the recorded exchange was prompted by a pupil claiming to identify as a cat, and the two girls, heard above, expressing some doubt.

Update:

Very much related.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Academia His Pretty Nails Parenting

Playtime Is Never Over

June 13, 2023 58 Comments

Speaking of schooling, and lifted from the comments:

The thing that keeps me going is knowing my power as a queer educator, and the power that me showing up like this, 180 days a year, in front of kids, the message that that sends them… My authenticity makes a difference.

A message, indeed. I’m assuming the campy paper fan is a fundamental aspect of his “full authentic self.”

Evidently, our fearless educator has determined that any gay kids in his class – or rather, kids who may turn out to be gay on hitting puberty – need aspirational role-models. Like a grown man with painted nails, wearing tinselled Deeley Boppers, and flapping a paper fan. Because hey, what else could they possibly aspire to?

See also this:

Mr Brassington is, he says – or they says, because pronouns, obviously – that he’s “working to make educational spaces more emotionally honest.” And so, we’re expected to believe that “queer” teachers everywhere are somehow being suppressed and robbed of their energy unless they can start cross-dressing at work and telling small children about how screamingly fabulous they are. Such are the struggles of the modern primary-school educator.

You see, authenticity requires fancy dress and elaborate accessorising. And it’s just “so important” to parade around the classroom, looking “cute,” in painted nails and make-up.

What’s that you say? A one-off, an aberration? Oh, you sweet innocent thing.

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Academia Free-For-All Parenting

Is The Fondling On The Test?

June 11, 2023 112 Comments

Via Nikw211 in the comments, some classroom incongruity:

Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it. pic.twitter.com/FUnB9DKYrN

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023

To paraphrase, but only very slightly:

WATCH THE GAY KISSING VIDEO IN MATHS CLASS OR I WILL PUNISH YOU.

Not a good look, really. Presumably, the conceit is that any gay pupils will somehow feel affirmed – rather than, say, mortified, or made complicit in something that’s naff and contrived, a vaguely weird imposition. And note that the teacher is the one scolding the kids for being “inappropriate.”

But imagine being a gay kid in the class, possibly a gay kid not entranced by ‘progressive’ politics. Suddenly, the classroom is a world of rainbows and cringe, something the rest of the class groans at and resents having to sit through, again – and it’s all supposedly being done for your benefit. It does rather suggest an unhappy dynamic.

The video, made by other students, and apparently shown in all classes, is presented as both a sentimental review of time spent at the school and an appeal for tolerance and “acceptance” – of cuddling lesbians, glitter-adorned transsexuals, and people with imaginary genders and pronouns. “Don’t forget to love each other,” intones the narrator. It’s very much framed in ‘Pride’ terms – i.e., in terms of social and political “change.” Of “fighting,” alongside “allies,” against unspecified dark forces. As if the purpose of being at school were to become some kind of activist.

Presumably, the forces being fought against include people who think that time in a maths class could perhaps be better spent.

Several people have commented on Twitter and YouTube that the video is unobjectionable and in no way “propaganda.” Well, seen as a child, without wider context, perhaps. But it seems to me that the readiness with which the children have internalised ‘Pride’ and its rainbows and non-binary woo as something unassailably benign illustrates rather well just how effective the propaganda has been.

That the ‘Pride’ movement is intensely political, increasingly extreme – one might say unhinged – and entails rather more than “tolerance” and “acceptance,” is not acknowledged, of course. Apparently, it’s all hugs and sparkles, and being nice.

That the same banners, the same rainbows, the same compelled groupthink, are invoked and deployed to sterilise and mutilate children, and to actively deceive parents, and to make a farce of women’s sports and women’s intimate spaces – for instance – remains unmentioned. And once you’ve demonstrated your acceptance of the flag and all that it entails, what could possibly go wrong? Because it’s all just so nice.

[ Expanded via the comments. Which you’re reading, of course. ]

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Written by: David
Academia Media Politics

Turns Out This Thing Is Interactive

May 24, 2023 69 Comments

From the comments, some items you may have missed. We’ll kick things off with some kicking off, care of commenter Mr Farnsworth M Muldoon:

Move along now, nothing to see here, just an adjunct professor with a machete chasing a reporter down the street.

Curious how when you hear of yet another educator being intolerant, childish, or wildly unhinged, you don’t need to ask what their politics might be.

Speaking of unhinged:

REPORT: Ron DeSantis Will Formally Announce His 2024 Bid With Elon Musk, Because Apparently David Duke Wasn’t Available.

After many months of refusing to confirm what so many people already suspected, Ron DeSantis will reportedly announce on Wednesday that he is running for president. And that’s not all: He is said to be planning to formally jump into the 2024 race during a conversation on Twitter with Elon Musk, because apparently other neo-Nazi sympathizers weren’t available.

When you get your news from Vanity Fair.

Found via Flappr.

And with near-telepathic simultaneity:

Twitter Is A Far-Right Social Network. 

You see, Twitter has “fully assumed the role of a far-right platform.” “It is,” says The Atlantic, “accurate to call [Elon Musk] a far-right activist.”

It can no longer be denied. 

Remember, dear readers, always respect the media.

Oh, and because I do like quoting myself, we revisited the moral pretensions of Guardian columnist Zoe Williams:

The abandonment of distinctions between the unfortunate and the merely verminous is a phenomenon we’ve seen before. As when the Guardian’s Zoe Williams wanted us to believe that the problem with ‘problem families’ is simply that they’re poor, and nothing whatsoever to do with how they choose to abuse their equally poor neighbours. And so attempts to deal with people who repeatedly play loud music at 3am or throw pets from top floor windows are framed as a “demonization of the poor” and “trying to shunt people out of society for not being rich enough.”

According to Zoe, we should be “unstigmatising,” which is to say, non-judgmental. A result of which is that empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working class perpetrator of crime and antisocial behaviour, on grounds that the thug or criminal is in some way being oppressed and, unlike their neighbours, being made to misbehave.

Presumably Ms Williams’ own neighbours have little in common with, say, the delightful Stuart Murgatroyd, a father of twelve who has never worked and boasts an extensive criminal record, not least for robbing the elderly in graveyards, and whose attempt to challenge an antisocial behaviour order was cut short at the very last minute due to him being arrested for assaulting the mother of his children, herself a convicted getaway driver, on the steps of the courthouse.

And I suspect our infinitely compassionate Guardianista has yet to experience an all-night eleven-hour rave being hosted next door, which would doubtless give her an opportunity to practise that non-judgmental piety.

See? If you poke about, you never know what you’ll find.

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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.