Or is school out of order

[mazu]

Dd8 (yr3) while sat at the table spied a box of Nestlé cereal on the table and announced she would not be touching any of it (it wasn't hers and wasn't offered to her). She then goes of to say she would not be buying anything from them as they are horrible people and goes on full blown attack on the brand and palm oil and orangutans. I'm sat there stunned at are very strong beliefs and thought perhaps she's seen an advert on YouTube kids about it.
On the contrary it turns out her at school they were taught about the evil that Nestlé is and that they were told to write letters to the president Mr Schneider to tell him they hate nestle because they damage forests and kill orangutans.

She then spent the entire weekend feeling guilty anytime she has eaten anything with palm oil chocolate, Nutella , bread, crisps I mean everything! She pretty much stopped eating by last night.

While I am up for teaching children about environmental and ethical responsibility at a young age AIBU to feel the school went too far? I made me feel quite angry that they could pretty much teach my child the politics that could shape her entire life and little ones are quite vulnerable and without a balanced view of the facts I do not want this to be the way my child is taught about issues. I want her to read and form her own opinions not spew garbage based on someone else's agenda. Bear in mind the issue here is now the Nestlé as I'm fully aware of the atrocities they have committed in the past.

Nestle are a nasty piece of work though.
I've boycotted them since 1992. Apart from the odd wistful pang for munchies or a lion bar it's been easy.

You should be proud of your daughter.

Well done her and the school.

This survey is a little out of date now (2016) but still an interesting read - Nestle were actually the second best in an examination of the ‘big 10’, which means that most food stuffs come from less ethical companies. Not saying they’re perfect, but think they can be used as a scapegoat!
www.behindthebrands.org/brands/nestle/kit-kat/

@Littlehouseinthebigcity thanks! having worked for some of them, i can confirm that nestle’s pr deparment is awful. otherwise they are as good/bad as the others. but the others are a lot better at hiding stuff

Just as an aside, you probably would find it difficult to avoid Nestle products. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestlé_brands

If you boycott Nestle you have to boycott every brand. Seriously.

I work in Corporate Responsibility for a large UK retailer and you would be amazed by the amount of letters we get from school children about really very difficult and complex topics that are not black and white at all, like palm oil.

The 'Sustainable Palm Oil' is a myth.
The RSPO is headed by the biggest companies who use palm oil!
They are not monitored and continue to burn forests in the interests of palm oil in food and as bio fuel. Human rights violations are everyday occurrences, even on supposedly “sustainable” and “organic” plantations. Its a farce.

Refined palm oil contains large amounts of harmful fatty acid esters that are known to damage DNA and cause cancer. Why are they allowed to continue to put it into our food?

The photo is from a peatland fire burning near a village started by a palm oil company.

www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/Global/international/publications/forests/2013/Indonesia/RSPO-Certifying-Destruction.pdf

On the palm oil issue, Nestle actually seem comparatively favourable on the bit of research I've done whilst on this thread. Interestingly annoyingly. Which is another reason to discuss the issues more generally and not leap on the bandwagon with children at school. (On palm oil, anyway)

@81Byerley. It's not difficult to boycott ALL Nestle products, it takes a bit of practise at first but once you know the MANY products that Nestle own or part own it's quite easy. And I'm guessing the hundreds of thousands of people who have boycotted Nestle since the 70s also don't find it too difficult. The Baby Milk Action website regularly update their list of Nestle products, I keep a close eye on it. I'm very happy because after many, many years of not buying from the Body shop, Nestle no longer are a part of it so I can buy my make up and smellies with a clear conscience again.

When I started teaching a survey revealed that roughly half of the teaching staff was left wing and half right wing in their voting intentions. Recently, researched showed that 94 per cent of teachers vote for left wing parties.

This pretty much confirms what I saw in my last few years of teaching. State education is now largely biased propaganda. The ability to research, evaluate sources, think and write logically and debate a question is being eradicated, not nurtured.

This is why I virtually lived on beans for ten years to pay for my kids to get a grounding in how to read and think. When they went to state grammars the left wing propaganda kicked in straight away but the children were equipped to evaluate and resist it.

One of my children is leftish and the other rightish - on the whole - but they can think, debate and argue and do not slavishly follow any one ideology on all issues.

As for palm oil, I read a very interesting post on Gransnet about how consumers should not unthinkingly reject all palm oil products and producers as not all are harmful to the environment. Moreover, blanket bans and boycotts could crash local economies and starve communities.

Jumping on ideological bandwagons is not a good idea and teachers would do better educating their charges in how to think rather than what to think.

I'd be writing a letter to the school personally. This sounds like a teacher with a huge chip on their shoulder and they're too young for this as it sounds like they're being brainwashed with the opinion of one person and how is this on the curriculum at this age?
As regards to palm oil it is in so many foods(under different names too) that unless you want to barely eat anything or can afford the alternatives (don't even start me on Iceland and their greenwashing,wonder how much they're donating to charities from all the Christmas food they sell..probably nothing) and afford the cosmetics and beauty stuff free from it ditching it is just not an option unless you have deep pockets which the modern environmentalists seem to have.
No I didn't watch the Iceland advert. I don't watch Christmas ads if I can help it, they're just there to get you in their shops and this was no different.
As much as what is said about Nestle is true,kids are too young at this age to be educated about this.
I know I'm going to get a huge amount of hate from this but having a social enviromentalist conscience is nice if you have deep pockets for it.
I feel sorry for you OP. That's wasted food that costed money due to that one woman's personal soapboxing which doesn't belong in a primary school.

When I started teaching a survey revealed that roughly half of the teaching staff was left wing and half right wing in their voting intentions. Recently, researched showed that 94 per cent of teachers vote for left wing parties
Of course instead of suggesting there's some big conspiracy to ideologically poison young minds, we could use a bit of criticality and say it's one survey.

Then we might think about the changing demographic of teachers. Younger people are more typically centre to centre left. As the shift in age and background of teachers then there might be some shift there. People tend to leave teaching after 5 years, some of us career change into it but not as many.

Equally younger voters are more likely to be floating voters so neither die hard labour or conservative.

Then consider that the older members of staff who are say 50s and 60s did quite well out of the post war era, were in their professional years during the 90s and 2000s and times of plenty.

Post 2008 the austerity hit and the young and the poor paid a big cost.

Politics changed post 2008 as the effects of austerity kicked in. Maybe people in the public sector took an issue witj the conservatives running down and selling off the public services.

Then add in the Brexit debates and the rise of UKIP.

Younger voters are more likely to be remain over leave in terms of Brexit. A shift to Brexit in the Tory party may have swung some floating voters, after all it's a prominent issue.

I mean it could be a giant left wing conspiracy where only lefties teach, or what's probably more likely is there's a range of complex factors meaning that in the current political climate young professional floating voters felt more aligned to a centre or centre left party at the time of the survey.

Ah I wouldn’t worry. My 6 year old has been telling me to stop running the rap when I clean my teeth, turn the telly off and read a book, put a jumper on instead of the heating, not waste food, recycle, the list goes on. It’s all fine until she wants to watch the telly and have a bath and leaves half her tea and keeps asking me to buy plastic tat!!

when i was at school in the 80s they showed us a film about battery farm chickens
i have ben vegetarian on and off
now in again
since .
thinking it this way
she is informed about events concerning us in the world right kid
she has a mindif her own to make decisions based on the information she receives
she is intelligent

@nannykatherine I was shown a childbirth video in y5. It took me til my 30s to agree to have my own children.

School is out of line. They should not be using a political argument for persuasive letter writing.
This is entirely inappropriate

OP you are misunderstanding the lesson. It is not a lesson about environmental issues, but one about persuasive writing.

sparkerparker Take it up with the Government then. The National Curriculum suggests amongst other things, environmental issues for persuasive writing lessons.

Your daughter is right though. You should be avoiding palm oil and a lot of large corporations have appalling standards of social and ethical responsibility.

I do not think it is out if order. This is an environmental issue and teaches kids about that, so not really just 'political', they are not being told to lobby or hate others for political beliefs. The environment is their future. It also teaches them about healthy eating and ethics of big corporations. If every child was taught this, these companies will change and they also do not need to eat processed rubbish, so will also become healthier.

They are proberbly not going to send the letters....i bet it was a lesson in how to write them!

Wow what a compassionate little girl and good for the school for helping educate the next generation of minds on what's currently happening with deforestation!

Marble2017, regarding your last but one post, what is 'proberly'? Never heard of the word before. The rest of your post is quite accurate and illustrates what you had previously said quite well.

Re: your further post, I agree with you an seriously hope the next generation are better educated. Not sure you are the right person to say it though.

PS. I was referring to first page.
I have read further pages.

It’s not going to stop, OP. Dd is sitting her mocks and learning about “fast fashion” and how unethical it is for workers. As a teenager, she has a fair few Primark and H&M clothes purchased over the years. She says she won’t shop there any more. It’s good that kids care and that schools teach them to verbalise their feelings well and to write or engage in a bit of lobbying.

Can you honestly imagine how shackled teachers would be if they had to get parent approval over everything they taught? OP you’re in a small school but we’re inner city London in huge schools; that would be most of the curriculum lobbied against ny parents!

Moral, ethical and environmental issues are not 'appropriate' in school sparker?
How ridiculous!
Cant think of a better reason for persuasive writing.