Eton teacher sacked for controversial lecture cleared by TRA

These are children. You don't provoke debate amongst teenaged boys by reinforcing the worst of their views with misogyny.

Any more than Prevent training gets you to show good reasons to fight against the West.

If you want to challenge ingrained views you need to do it in such a way as you don't accidentally support them.

If he really wanted to challenge their thinking why not use some materials from feminists?

I actually know of this teacher (although I don't know him personally) and a bit about the situation.
Eton masters have tried for a long time to stir debate amongst the boys about views on feminism, about their role as young adults, and to get them to challenge and question traditional male role models which are no longer helpful in today's society.

As I understood it, the video wasn't what the teacher believed, it was a collection of views which were to spark (heated) debate and actually make the pupils think....

I am not sure why he made the video public in the way he did. Eton wanted the video taken down but he refused, I understand (but I am open to correction here) that he felt Eton were dictating rather than allowing free speech and therefore free debate.

He seemed to get sacked (again, others may know better) for disobeying Eton's orders rather than the debate itself. He was cleared by the TRA because he hadn't actually done anything which prevents him from teaching, like being abusive or safeguarding issues etc. Disobeying Eton's edicts aren't a reason for not being able to teach elsewhere as far as I'm aware....

The women - teenaged girls in actual fact- turned out to be better than the experienced men drivers had been, with a lighter touch on the wheel.

However it didn't stop them all being sacked as soon as the war was over. T

And this is a school that positively reeks of male entitlement. The boys need to see views other than their own, not the same old patriarchal misogynistic bullshit.

He had done plenty of controversial topics prior with no problems.

There's controversial and there's controversial, isn't there?

On the one hand, Brexit, the abolition of the monarchy, privatising health care are all controversial but within the parameters of reasonable debate.

On the other hand, saying that (for example) we should reintroduce slavery or Jewish people should be made to wear yellow stars are not within the parameters of reasonable debate.

IMHO, saying that women are so useless and incapable that we couldn't even manage to feed ourselves falls into the second category rather than the first.

I too was a bit freaked put that the TRA had cleared him.Wondered if there had been some Taliban style takeover of academe.

Following on from indub’s post above, this is the Triggernometry interview where Will Knowland talks about the lecture and what happened to him.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6yohTYJ8w0

I lost about an hour of my life watching his videos. While he had passion, some of his info was plain old wrong and v cringy.

@BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted That's my impression too.

I listened to a podcast interview with him and he did explain its a compilation of views on one side of a debate and the point is to get them to argue merits - not that he personally believes it all, and that it is deliberately excessive. He came across as quite reasonable and very concerned that there was no discussion on this video with the staff member who registered complaint as there would normally be, and they moved just to ban it and kick him out. He had done plenty of controversial topics prior with no problems.

I watched that presentation on YouTube a while back and from memory I understand that it was produced for a debate by his 17/18 year-old students. Not that he agreed 100% with the content himself. I approve of encouraging debate regardless of which side I find myself or who I find disagreement with.

I started watching but drifted off. Clip art was below par, I would say.

Is he a bit dim?

And have the TRA not noticed?

If I had a child at Eton I think I would want a refund.

Or is it a deliberately provocative and preposterous intervention designed to get students to argue back using their own observations, commonly obtained facts etc?

Maybe it's because women can't work together to do stuff because we end up arguing over who has the prettiest nose.

Working together for the common good is for Man. Efficient and organised. Rational. You never ever see men acting through base emotion. Ever.

Wiki-

Horticulture is the art of cultivating plants in gardens to produce food and medicinal ingredients, or for comfort and ornamental purposes. Horticulturists are agriculturists who grow flowers, fruits and nuts, vegetables and herbs, as well as ornamental trees and lawns.

See women would be unable to grow crops cos of getting distracted by the desire for a nice shrubbery a la the Knights who say Ni.

Obviously.

And flowers for our hair.

www.fao.org/3/x0262e/x0262e16.htm

Just in case he bimbles through this thread while surfing the net in a masculine manner.

He's not a geographer or a historian or anything like that I assume.

And always have ..

He thinks the whole world is industrialised and run by men with big man machines?! That laydees can't operate with their feeble bodies and substandard intelligence...?!!

Is he a bit dim?

Who does he think produces loads of the world's food :/

He's quite quaint really. Bit of a throwback, I'd say, but good luck to him - he can say what he thinks, I won't shoot him down. Dismantle his arguments, most certainly, but wouldn't try to stop him making them. Though I did laugh at the line in the report (haven't watched the vid) about men being stronger and more capable of physical work than women - slight paraphrase. I wonder how many Etonians earn their living from manual labour?