Adults are wrong to criticise ‘woke’ children, says Benenden head

I agree male feelings shouldnt be front and centre, but ensuring innocent boys aren't demonised benefits girls from girls schools so they can see what healthy relationships with the opposite sex are like.

I just wrote a post about this elsewhere because to me this is the thing that I think will cause the most long lasting harm WRT the gender issues - The children/ young adults who have transitioned in this time on the basis that they believed they will be treated unequivocally in law and by society as TWAW or TMAM and for this to all come tumbling down. Its extremely unjust & unkind.

Adults and older lecturers should know better. In a way I hope they are just naive & short sighted and that in the future they put as much effort into fixing the harms they caused as they did creating them. Because the alternative is quite harrowing - its quite frankly psychopathic to promise and perpetuate this 'reality' to young people as a done deal.

And YY about the environment. Why on earth we are pinning our hopes on teen 'ecowarriors' resolving the climate crisis I have no idea. It can only be resolved by upgrading infrastructure, expert scientists driving technology advances at the cutting edge of their fields and the power of existing organisations (businesses & governments)

Quote from Times article quoted up thread:

She said: “The issues emerging from the Everyone’s Invited campaign are extremely important and, thankfully, it seems as if some positive action is now coming out of the very concerning revelations that have been reported

“Topics such as what a healthy relationship looks like are built into the revised relationships and sex education curriculum.

“Lots of schools are taking the opportunity for these to be joint discussion sessions with boys and girls present. It is important that all schools work together on this topic and that the boys are not demonised.”

How is this an appropriate or relevant context in which to be worrying about male-owned feelings, generically? I mean, if you think about the very serious harms under discussion in Everyone’s Invited .. and the huge job that so many schools need to be doing to help tackle those, then why would some male’s potentially hurt feelings (assuming that’s what being said must be avoided?) even come up on the radar? It’s not about them.

And she's not saying that it is.

''Everyone’s Invited'' isn't demonising boys Kikkomam

Of course boys in general shouldn't be demonised.

She's not an airhead. Honestly, if you could hear yourselves!

She sounds like a total airhead. She seems to think kids taking part in cancel culture is good (did I really read that?!) and that boys ‘shouldn’t be demonised’ by Everyone’s Invited, (WTF?).

She sounds like jolly hockey stick of an idiot.

The fact that social class and related inequalities disappeared almost completely from political and public debate is a travesty. I am foreigner but it is pretty obvious for anyone with two working brain cells that the private system of education is one of the most potent, systemic factors that work to reproduce systemic inequalities. An inclusion committee in a school where half of the students have live in servants is just ridiculous

Agreed. This Head is talking about luxury beliefs. The state schools that I work with that have countless children identifying as trans / nb etc have predominantly white middle class intakes. The schools with predominantly BAME / refugee / working class intakes where children face life challenges including poverty, deprivation, racism, poor housing etc have minimal interest amongst the student population. They have far greater life issues to face.

Funny that.

Are these people giving up this priviledge or enjoying it heartily whilst announcing publicly how woke they are?

Quite.

I am woke(ish) until it comes to male bodied people taking part in womens' sport. Then I get very un-woke. Fortunately my 19 year old son finds it as unacceptable as I do.

Friend went to millfield Forty odd years ago their progressive teaching was interestingly liberal. The effects waned as she entered the real world of work, marriage, childcare.

If you want your kids to have your values then don't ship them off to boarding schools.

But what I had wondered was if any natal, biological boy who identifies as girl has been allowed to attend an all girl’s school?

NAFAIK but there is bound to be a test case soon.

“Terfasaurus
@ScrollingLeaves the girls school I am talking about has a biological female pupil who identifies as a boy. They do not as far as I am aware, have separate facilities.”

There would be no need for separate facilities in the context unless they felt it went counter to their sense of being a boy, I should think.

But what I had wondered was if any natal, biological boy who identifies as girl has been allowed to attend an all girl’s school?

@Kikkomam

I think my main issue with this is that we are being told not to dismiss or mock teens, for their 'woke' opinions, while having our opinions routinely dismissed and mocked

Are you at a girls private school? If not then she doesn't have to speak for you. You have other groups to do that for you

...,Yes DD is at a girls private school, thankfully run by a wonderful head who's mission has always been to be install the girls with belief that they can do anything they put their minds to it, so I do have an interest in this.

My point was actually on a more general level, it is extremely common for a GC opinion / more traditional views to be dismissed without discussion and often mocked, even though a discussion is all that is sought.

As if gender idology equals equality when in fact it is the opposite. For women and girls, at least.

Thanks, Lovelyrice, for info on class sizes etc.

I think my main issue with this is that we are being told not to dismiss or mock teens, for their 'woke' opinions, while having our opinions routinely dismissed and mocked

Are you at a girls private school? If not then she doesn't have to speak for you. You have other groups to do that for you

Perhaps google the origination of the term 'woke'? It certainly did not originate in the private schools of England

Quite.

'Plenty of kids at state school have never gone hungry or been poor btw'
Exactly, the post-1945 welfare state would have been a massive failure if this were not true. Are we really aspiring to everyone having to experience poverty and hunger and never own their own home? Even Conservative Macmillan in the 1950s campaigned on 'You've never had it so good' (I wasn't alive then but rationing ending was important apparently). Tony Blair realised that most people aspire to better themselves, so you have to think 2 tax brackets ahead with your rates.

One of the issues for the Labour Party is that when your historic core vote has achieved greater prosperity, they consider voting to keep their newly-acquired prosperity. I don't think there is a solution to this, as we all know from recent history that communism never works and freedom is a better option.
Some of us will keep voting against our narrow short-term economic interest for the greater good for many decades maybe but when our hard-won sex-based rights are also being undermined, the switch from centre-left to centre-right is inevitable.
Back to thread topic: I would not want to pay high school fees for my kids to be indoctrinated in 'ideology' of any kind. Let children be children for goodness sake.

Are these people giving up this priviledge or enjoying it heartily whilst announcing publicly how woke they are?

They won't have to give up their privilege. The research and data from countries like US (analysis of the affirmation programs) and countries with recent educational reforms (Poland - happened ~15 years ago, now reversed) shows that it is the lower middle class that looses, not those at the top of social structure. People with money will always find a way to make sure their children have the best opportunities, going way beyond what educational system can offer, especially in a system that values extra-curriculars in university admissions. Giving a leverage to poorer/minority children usually results in people in the lower middle class being squeezed out, rich retaining their privilege and poor gaining a chunk of what used to be lower middle-class space.

I am not trying to argue what is and what is not fair, just trying to make a point that those most privileged seldom if ever feel the effect of the reforms aimed at improving social mobility.

It certainly did not originate in the private schools of England.

I appreciate that is what 'woke' has become.

I don't think it has ever really been anything different. But in any case that is what it is now.