I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore (No Outsiders programme)

Re Queer theory.

Methodologically, Queer theory openly refutes the scientific method.

Science, and the aim to discern truths objectivity, are presented as part of mainstream heteronormative institutions, which curtail individual's beliefs and behaviour, and which therefore must be challenged and contested.

That elements of queer theory are being brought into primary schools, without a large and lengthy disclaimer, is irresponsible in the extreme.

I also dont accept for one minute, that the No Outsiders programme provides an opportunity for interesting dialogue at home on the topics it raises.That is a very time rich assumption, many families with children in the UK are very time poor, and would not have time to sit down with their kids and work through the aspects of the curriculum which their children should make are effort to retain and those which are based on attempts to subvert mainstream thinking.

Either a child trusts its teacher to tell them what is true, or they dont, is that what queering primary schools involves, lowering trust? What implication will that have for other curriculum content?

The British educational system should be seeking to educate the current cohort to a standard which will equip them to access the workplace and contribute to their communities and societies more generally in the future, in which case scientific and technological knowledge must be placed above deliberate attempts to obscure and obfuscate, or, the British educational system becomes a vanity project for woke's ville.

Its worth acknowledging that whilst the upper echelons of British HE are, currently, globally regarded, the UK is known as a low skill economy. More queering and less science, within that context, is a good thing, no point educating them for grunt work.

My best friend taught English and is gay. He never discussed his relationship choices with his pupils, his boss, and most if his colleagues.

But what should he do if the children ask him if he's married? And if he says 'yes', start asking about his wife? Children do ask questions like this, and the teachers should be able to answer them honestly.

Would your friend refuse to answer any personal questions? Just refusing to answer would make it look as though he had something to hide.

"The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote two books (I think) on the implications of science for the future of humanity. He doubted our ability to develop a humanist ethics that would allow us to manage the increasing control that we are getting over such things as reproduction, genetics and so on. "

That's very interesting, I'd tend to agree. The difficulty with secular humanism is that it has all this confidence in humanity being able to transcend its animal self, but it isn't really rooted in anything. There is no reason to imagine the human animal has any ability to do anything of the sort, or maybe more to the point, there is nothing to transcend to - rise about our animal nature to what? Science is the same way, we can figure out all kinds of clever things, but it neither imparts nor reveals a moral or ethical element to them. I don't think it's surprising that in that kind of scientific/ethical landscape a lot of people were attracted to social darwinism and eugenics, which is really just saying we are animals and subject and even subservient to all the laws of nature including survival of the fittest, whether we dress it up as something else or accept it for what it is.

Should teachers mention their families? If they have their own DCs in the school, what if their partner picks up the DCs?
So in primary school, is it appropriate for teachers to mention "my little girl likes X" or "when I got married we had Y" or "we went on holiday to Z and my partner liked ABC food"?
In secondary is it appropriate for a teacher to discuss their experience of relationships e.g. "in this poem, the poet discusses unrequited love, I remember when I was a teenager..."

Peoples sexual preferences should be private imo. There is no need to discuss it at work, and that should be inclusive to if you work at a school.

My best friend taught English and is gay. He never discussed his relationship choices with his pupils, his boss, and most if his colleagues.

I don't think they are allowed to push one ideology or another.
The university ethics committee should have had some input though.

It would be nice to know what made them decide that ‘queering’ primary school teaching was something to be investigated

It seems rather a nihilistic and solipsistic ideology to me, not something I’m comfortable with being taught to my children as a good approach to life

So they’re not some shadowy Davos style organisation then!

ESRC is a government funded research council, directing public monies to research projects.

The program was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Haven’t they funded some of professor Hines’s work?

Yes they have though they fund most social science research in the UK - here's a link to all the grants they funded between 2010 and 2014.

Bear in mind that some of the more obscure titles are actually fairly sensible projects but written in jargon... Lots of interesting stuff actually, dementia, children's play, children's writing etc. etc.

www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/search/search-page.aspx?q=:&tab=grants&startYear=2010&endYear=2014&filters=on

And who are they?

Fuck me this got dark quick

Having read that link about queer theory I can’t imagine why anyone would want it to inform primary school teaching

The program was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Haven’t they funded some of professor Hines’s work?

it's the antimatter of safeguarding. - isn't it just that, nauticant?

My best guess OldCrone is that governments are planning for a future that we don't yet see.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote two books (I think) on the implications of science for the future of humanity. He doubted our ability to develop a humanist ethics that would allow us to manage the increasing control that we are getting over such things as reproduction, genetics and so on.

One of the things that future planners must be considering is how to find a way around such things as our natural revulsion towards such things as eugenics. There has been an explosion in "life science" departments in universities around the world and the general public is largley unaware of what the implications will be for the future of humanity.

We can add to this advances in AI and robotics and large swathes of humanity are likely to become surplus to requirements. Governments will be exploring all avenues of social control in order to manage these changes that are beyond the imaginings of most of us.

This is utterly horrifying - the fact that any team members considered exploring the possibility of creating non-normative learning environments through a process of questioning or troubling established norms of sexuality and gender suggests that these are people not suitable to be trusted with the development and safety of children.

And it is every gay / lesbian teacher's nightmare - to see these ideas being touted by gay colleagues.

I agree with the pp. Please just invest time and effort into training and retaining really good maths and languages teachers. Good teaching of academic and practical subjects. No outsiders just seems like a massive waste of time and money.

I can only speculate as to why they might want to do this.

Sadly yes, because if we openly post suspicions that some people might see an opportunity to entirely obliterate the prohibitions that decent society puts on the sexualization of children, it's likely to get deleted...

clitherow

I don't know anything about queer theory, either. I've been doing a bit of digging around the whole 'No Outsiders' project. This is from the report from the project Atkinson, Elizabeth et al (2009). No Outsiders: Researching approaches to sexualities equality in primary schools: Full Research Report

9. How might queer theory inform classroom practice?
This question strongly informed much of our discussion and analysis. Not all project members considered a non-normative, or queer, classroom, in which identity categories are blurred or erased, to be a possible or even a desirable end, preferring to deploy a rights-based equalities discourse for which concrete identity categories were essential. While this difference in perspectives sometimes led to tensions, these were generally productive in terms of keeping dialogue alive over the overarching philosophy of the project. Some team members explored the possibility of creating non-normative learning environments through a process of questioning or troubling established norms of sexuality and gender.

This project was never about acceptance of others who are different. It was always about creating confusion in children's minds about what is normal and acceptable and what isn't. I can only speculate as to why they might want to do this.

Blimey clitherow that's, well, it's the antimatter of safeguarding.

Some excellent posts. Damian Hinds is the Education Secretary who is funding and enabling all of this. Transgender Trend have written asking him why the DfE is enabling this? Why the DFE are promoting and funding groups undermining safeguarding in schools, not to mention undermining parental rights.

It's the lack of due diligence on the part of the government that is so frightening. The protection of children means so little compared to the risk to Hinds in standing up to adults who are, in plain sight, imposing their adult fetishes / sexual wishes on children.

I am very grateful to the OP for posting this because I realised that I don’t know anything at all about Queer theory. This makes me largely unqualified to comment, but I did find this article which has served as my introduction to the topic.

www.critical-theory.com/what-the-fuck-is-queer-theory/#disqus_thread

It appears that non-heterosexual sex is seen as a political means of smashing capitalism by destroying all notions of “normal”. One of the central thinkers is an academic called Lee Edelman who believes that sodomy is the key to capitalism’s destruction.

I was amazed to read that the child is the central figure for hatred at least in Edelman’s version of Queer Theory.

“Lee Edelman, in his canonical book No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive puts forth a simple premise. Children are awful. Well, the figure of the child. You know, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan on the Huggies commercial? Politics is mostly about that little asshole. Edelman opens “The Future is Kids Stuff” (a prelude to No Future) with President Clinton’s appeal to save the children. After all, if you’re not for the children then you’re clearly a rampaging monster intent on destroying the magic of Disney Land. And you hate America. To which Edelman replies, “yes, fuck those kids, and fuck their Disney Land.”

The central aim of the Queer movement as it is “developing” does not seem to be the promotion of homosexuality. In fact, it seems that Queer Theory has now “progressed” to wanting to destabilise homosexual sex by allowing and promoting all sexual practices including BDSM (and presumably paedophilia in some cases). Its aim is to destabilise sexuality and all forms of “normality” including grammatical norms which makes much of their writing incomprehensible to most.

So “queering” the classroom is not strictly about homosexuality but about destabilising the psyches of children in order to nurture all forms of behaviour.that may be born out of confusion and disorientation. In this way, a whole generation of people will be thrown into psychosexual disarray which will bring about the destruction of any sense of "normality" and so of the current social order.

This seems to be what it is all about. And these so-called academics got a grant from the government in order to find out the best way to do this in primary schools!

Should it not also be explained how "two dads" can have a child

The two dads I know of adopted their child.

And children need to have it explained, therefore, that the child in question has a mummy somewhere who couldn't look after the child.

My DCs know they have two mummies and that their birth mummy (who they know by name) couldn't look after them.

Great post whatisthisfuckery

As far as I'm concerned primary kids need to know the difference between boys and girls bodies, names of body parts and which parts are private and should not be seen or touched by others. They should also know that some children have one parent, some 2 mums or 2 dads and most have one of each.

An individual teachers religion, political beliefs or sexuality should play no part in the classroom. If local then most will know whether they practice a particular faith or have a same sex partner but it is irrelevant in the classroom.

As for desire of teachers and children - NO WAY, what the actual fck has a teacher's desires got to do with a healthy primary education? Whoever raised those questions/comments should be no where near children IMHO.

Talking about pleasure and desire in the classroom, the fucking classroom ffs, is precisely the indoctrination we’ve been accused of, only it’s not the gays doing it, it’s the trans lobby using homosexuality as a shield.

Well said and great post, darling.

Whatisthisfuckery - fantastic post