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Academia Free-For-All His Pretty Nails Parenting

He’s Ready For His Close-Up

July 3, 2023 79 Comments

As readers may imagine, I do have some sympathy with this view:

I have no problem with my child’s teacher being gay.

I have a problem with them being incredibly strange and narcissistic about it.

It’s not because you’re gay that I don’t want my child around you, it’s because you think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a teacher. pic.twitter.com/3chE6L5Hr3

— Frank McCormick | Chalkboard Heresy (@CBHeresy) July 2, 2023

Note, in the background, the prominent reminder to the class – a countdown to the teacher’s birthday. Because, obviously, it’s all about him and acknowledging his fabulousness.

But then, it so often is.

Update, via the comments:

Mike D adds,

It’s all so tiresome.

It has to be said, in terms of setting an example – a reference point for children of what a functional adult might look like – needy, narcissistic theatre isn’t exactly what one hopes for.

And yet.

It’s worth noting how rapidly, and seemingly unopposed, it’s become something of a norm for children to be entrusted to emotionally arrested men who think that prancing about in leggings and five-inch heels, and flapping paper fans – and looking “cute” in painted nails and make-up – are part of their job description. As if they were doing us a favour.

And so, we have children being taught by men who, in their thirties, are still buying blue and green hair dye, and who habitually film themselves miming to pop records, before uploading the results to TikTok in search of affirmation, not least from their own students.

Because, it turns out, what the children really need to learn is the importance of continual, flamboyant self-preoccupation, and the round-the-clock foregrounding of one’s “identity” and sexual inclinations, especially in office hours and among children. Along with the conceit that authenticity, being one’s “true self,” entails enacting a caricatured pantomime, a generic cartoon. And of course, the lie that the endless, tedious performance is being done for their benefit.

It is, however, curious how the men mouthing this claim most emphatically – about doing it for the children, to create a “safe space” – just so happen to like parading around the classroom in glitter, stilettos and clownish make-up, and just so happen to already have an extensive collection of rather tarty ladies’ shoes.

A coincidence, I’m sure.

Update 2:

Regarding the paragraph above, and Mr Hey-Kids-Look-At-My-Hooker-Shoes, Clam adds,

Snort! What are the odds?

What’s remarkable is the obviousness of the lie. If you poke through chappie’s TikTok videos, it’s clearly all about him and what he wants. The children are just a pretext, a rhetorical shield. And it seems that his peers and employers are too cowed and complicit to acknowledge the obvious dishonesty.

Because objecting to narcissistic overreach – and the use of other people’s children as a captive audience – would be “homophobic,” “transphobic,” “right-wing,” etc. And so, our self-imagined hero, our champion of the downtrodden fetishist, is triumphant and boastful: “If we’re not pissing off the homophobes, we’re not doing our jobs,” says he.

And of course, the children are manipulated, dragged into his drama, made to browse his TikTok videos and read the comments, and made to side with him against any parent who might object.

To call it narcissism scarcely covers it.

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

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Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Academia Parenting Pronouns Or Else

Pretension Is Not A Gender

June 21, 2023 66 Comments

Speaking of educators who say things like this:

Where’d you get this idea that there are only two genders? […] It’s not an opinion you can have… I’m not having that expressed in my lesson.

Here’s another one for the collection. This time from Mearns Academy, a secondary school in Aberdeenshire:

This is an inclusive school… There are more than one gender in this country.

I’m guessing that the chap speaking means more than two. But hey, he’s a professional educator. We must make allowances.

That is my opinion. And that is an opinion which is acceptable in this school. I’m afraid yours, which, you’re saying that there’s no such thing as anyone other than male or female… Please keep that opinion to your own house.

Because acknowledging reality will, evidently, get you kicked out of class. And then scolded by a man who’s getting remarkably upset – possibly for reasons that aren’t being fully articulated.

And this,

You are choosing to make an issue of this… That was your opportunity to keep quiet… You chose to make an issue of making a point which is contrary to policy… You can choose, but you’re making bad choices.

Which seems to translate as “Just sit there in silence while I mouth obvious lies.”

The combination of feeble arguments and peevishness – and the line, “I know what you think and I know what the authority thinks” – does rather suggest that the teacher is aware of the dishonesty in which he participates. Which, I suppose, would explain his irritability.

Update, via the comments:

It’s perhaps worth noting that, despite the drama and agitation, nothing in the video, or in subsequent reports, suggests that the pupil, Murray Allan, was actually rude or mean or gratuitously disruptive. Of the two, he seems the more emotionally restrained, and the more coherent. From what I can make out, he merely responded to the teacher’s own pointed disapproval of website forms that don’t offer umpteen imaginary ‘gender’ categories. Things of this kind.

Rafi adds,

It’s a lesson… in petty tyranny.

Pretty much. Again, I don’t get the impression that the teacher is a true believer. He strikes me more as someone cornered into an absurd position. Someone who knows where the power and status lie, and the consequences of being realistic, and who doesn’t want to jeopardise his own modest position in the progressive pecking order.

Which is, of course, how petty tyrannies often work.

The dynamic seen above may also be a function of just how rapidly these pretensions have spread throughout the educational system, seemingly untested and all but unopposed. I’d imagine there’s been little time, and possibly little inclination, to devise convincing rebuttals to some obvious objections, and so the response to demurral, to any hint of realism, is to chastise and threaten. As if noticing the obvious were some moral failing, an act of wickedness.

It’s also been my experience that people whose self-image and in-group status depend on mouthing things that aren’t true, or which they suspect may be untrue, even absurd – but which are still mouthed anyway – do often react to disagreement, even polite disagreement, as if it were a personal attack, or some wanton outrage. Which, again, may help explain the farcical intolerance seen above.

Update 2:

The student, it turns out, was subsequently suspended for a month, and then expelled – ostensibly, for recording the teacher without his knowledge. The only other mentioned transgression is his reply to the teacher’s claim that a website dropdown menu with only two sexes is “old-fashioned” and “controversial” – by saying that there are two sexes. A heresy that resulted in being ordered out of the classroom and then berated.

And which may strike some readers as a pretty good reason to be recording teachers.

The school’s anti-bullying policy, by the way – and which I mention for no reason whatsoever – suggests that witnesses “speak to parents” and “record the incident.”

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Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
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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Reading time: 2 min
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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Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
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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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.