Identity politics in secondary school

[OrchidCarer]

Please be gentle because I’m trying to work out how I feel about this issue.

I have 3 boys at secondary school. A new Head started in September. Since then I’ve noticed the school has increased the amount of teaching time given over to identity politics.

For example:

• Students have special science lessons on LGBTQ+ Scientists. Surely they shouldn’t be recognised for their sexuality but for their achievements? Why is their sexuality even relevant to their job?
• Every subject studies load of ‘Black History’ type subjects – so far my Y9 kid has studied slavery, the slave trade, the Windrush generation this year. This is in history, geography, English. These are presented in a way that makes all black people victims and all white people oppressors. The kids pick up on this and their friendship groups form around race (school is about 30% black, 65% white, 5% other ethnicities).
• Assemblies all the time about how women are downtrodden, oppressed, victims and men are the aggressors, perpetrators. Female dominated classes with a female teacher discussing the patriarchy and similar themes.

I am uncomfortable about all of this division. We are all just human. There is a big difference between educating about past prejudice and forcing stereotypes on kids now.

Concerns

• White straight boys are never in the oppressed group, so are constantly told they are the bad guys. My sons have given up trying to prove everyone wrong – the narrative against them is too strong. My eldest rails at home about the unfairness of it all, how he’s depressed, he can’t do right because he’s a straight white guy, he just wants to go and fight in Ukraine where he’ll be allowed to be a man, doesn’t care if he dies. It’s exhausting to deal with.
• Push towards the far right. If you watch slightly right-wing content, algorithms recommend more. There is a danger that disenchanted boys will turn for comfort to online creators who exploit their anger and encourage sexist, racist and homophobic attitudes.
• Where is the evidence that these interventions make the ‘oppressed’ groups feel supported?
• Women, queer people, and people of colour need allies. We are all on the same side, in the end, and this divisive approach is having the opposite effect to the one intended.

There is a real taboo about saying these things. I raised the LGBTQ+ scientists question and got a dramatically long and patronising lecture in an email back again as though I was the bad guy.

Maybe I am being unreasonable?

Is there anything that I can do or do I just have to watch it all unfold?

you probably need to read some of their textbooks? How can a bunch of white boys understand all these things if you apparently think learning about them is too... what, woke?

Women are oppressed. Why not learn about LGBT from history instead of the inevitable pale, male & stale stuff that usually gets peddled at us?

@Franca123

I have mixed race children and I dread them going to school and being fed this victim nonsense. We're planning to go private so we have more control about where we send them and the culture they're taught. As a mixed race household we very much believe we have more in common than what divides us and wd should move forward as one country. It's politically incorrect now but we're still with Martin Luther King on race.

I know what you mean. There's a way to teach people about the past, and how it influences the present, that doesn't push people into boxes. People banging on about 'old white men' in power always conveniently forget the most powerful factor - parental wealth! How many people in power do you see from poor backgrounds, or with very thick regional English accents?

'Those who forget the past are doomed to forget it', yes, but the emphasis should be one - how 'othering' of certain groups led to them being mistreated. How not listening, collaborating, etc has caused such carnage.
However critical thinking is dead, and it's degenerated into 'how many boxes can we tick'.

A very, very small proportion of people have held power, and doing an arithmetic more privileged/less privileged/what have you helps nobody.

@WonderfulYou you're a teacher and you don't understand why you're being asked to concentrate on a certain group of pupils???

@woodhill

I remember when Y8s were taught about slave trade and the history book which said the Arabs took Africans as slaves but they were the good guys because the slaves could buy their freedom but surely this was a tad simplistic and pc?

Wow, that seems a bit odd. The slave trade to the Americas grew right out of the Arab-African slave trade as sources of European slaves dried up.

Though, it strikes me - part of the problem is trying to teach history as a matter of "Good guys" and "bad guys". That's never going to be accurate and trying to do it will create all kinds of inaccuracies because you will be trying to justify these judgments.

[quote Franca123]@LeoOliver The modern view is that everything is set against non white people and they can't get ahead. This is not a believe that I think will benefit my mixed race children. I see it as a self fulfilling prophecy. I used to work in a very woke FTSE100 company. They attributed different believes and characteristics to people based on their skin colour. I'm just not allowing my children to be told that on a daily basis by teachers.[/quote]
I saw a video the other day of a father talking about this at a school board meeting. How his kids had come home being confused that they had been told they were oppressed and would struggle to achieve. He thought this was completely unacceptable and also alien to his experience.

It's not an uncommon perspective and the question is where do schools get off telling kids which don't belong to them otherwise?

@MangyInseam

Though, it strikes me - part of the problem is trying to teach history as a matter of "Good guys" and "bad guys". That's never going to be accurate and trying to do it will create all kinds of inaccuracies because you will be trying to justify these judgments.

Yes exactly

It's always the wicked white people

“ It's always the wicked white people”

Well it seems to be now. It wasn’t in the fairly recent past then it was all about heathen savages who needed saving.

History needs to be taught without sides. This is hard to do but important.

True, it needs to be balanced with some nuance

I would highlight the following...

What do they mean by white? White people have had bad times.

Irish - Irish famine
Scottish - Highland Clearances
Jewish- Holocaust

All were treated appallingly.

Arab slavers captured more black Africans than European traders.

The “Salt-Water War” of July and August 1845 led to the last African slave trading ruler of Lagos, Prince Kosoko. (Lagos was the only natural harbour in almost four hundred miles of the Atlantic coast.) The British intervened, shutting down the slave trade. Same thing happened with General Gordon of Khartoum, in Sudan. He suppressed slave trading, which caused a lot of problems locally.

History is complicated, messy, and at times illogical. Simplistic views of history rapidly unravel

Jewish people are not 'white'.

@Onlyforcake Some are. Race does not equal ethnicity nor nationality. Some jewish people are white. Some Jamaicans are white.

@Onlyforcake

Jewish people are not 'white'.

Oh dear that shows some ignorance.

@thestaffy

I would highlight the following...

What do they mean by white? White people have had bad times.

Irish - Irish famine
Scottish - Highland Clearances
Jewish- Holocaust

All were treated appallingly.

Arab slavers captured more black Africans than European traders.

The “Salt-Water War” of July and August 1845 led to the last African slave trading ruler of Lagos, Prince Kosoko. (Lagos was the only natural harbour in almost four hundred miles of the Atlantic coast.) The British intervened, shutting down the slave trade. Same thing happened with General Gordon of Khartoum, in Sudan. He suppressed slave trading, which caused a lot of problems locally.

History is complicated, messy, and at times illogical. Simplistic views of history rapidly unravel

You actually think they’re going to teach history at secondary school level without teaching the Holocaust? Primary pupils know about that.

(Actually, do history lessons in England now include Highland clearances? I’d like to know that if anyone knows. )

What makes you think the school is taking a “simplistic” approach to history? Surely, by expanding the issues covered in history, the chances for disgusting nuances are more?

Colonialism, slave trade, Irish indentured slavery, highland clearances, Roman invasion, lgbtq+ persecution, etc are all part of history and must be studied in relation to how our nation is where and what it is today.

[quote Franca123]@LeoOliver The modern view is that everything is set against non white people and they can't get ahead. This is not a believe that I think will benefit my mixed race children. I see it as a self fulfilling prophecy. I used to work in a very woke FTSE100 company. They attributed different believes and characteristics to people based on their skin colour. I'm just not allowing my children to be told that on a daily basis by teachers.[/quote]
I am curious where you got this perspective from? What is the modern view? Why would you assume that a teacher would be telling your child on daily basis? My understanding is the purpose of schooling is to provide your child an education including a understanding of history and the current world.

I find some of the responses in thread bizarre. How does teaching history cause identity issueS? Perhaps the issue here is white fragility. When I was at school I learnt about the roman, Tudors, the ancient. Egyptians, the transatlantic trade, suffragettes, civil rights, the holocaust, Word war 1 and two. I don't remember it causing me to have identity issues.

@VladmirsPoutine

Some of the kids I feel most sorry for are the mixed race ones esp with a white parent who doesn't think racism even exists or indeed that they can't be racist by virtue of having mixed kids. I'm mixed and every so often I thank god that my mother is the black parent.

I agree with this. I think it would be very confusing if you have racist parent or a parent who thinks racism doesn't exist. I found some of the most racist people are those with mixed race children.

It's more that the proponents of these theories see Jewish people as honorary non-whites because otherwise the theory is revealed as absurd.

During apartheid the South African government used to declare certain individuals and groups as 'honorary whites' to get around the absurdities of that system too.

Just here to say well done for adding women to your complaint - it's the first time I've seen it done on here when someone starts a similar thread on identity politics and so. I was expecting yours to go the same way till that last twist.

Now, I'll sit and watch as the regular ones, who'd have been fully on your side if you only spoke about lgbtq/trans and Race issues (with the typical mention of "woke" littered everywhere), struggle to do so while being on the side of 'but women's issues need to be talked about, etc'.

Or maybe they won't struggle and they can make an exception easily.

I wonder if they'll show up on this thread at all because of that.

Still, I'll be reading with interest.

@LeoOliver

I find some of the responses in thread bizarre. How does teaching history cause identity issueS? Perhaps the issue here is white fragility. When I was at school I learnt about the roman, Tudors, the ancient. Egyptians, the transatlantic trade, suffragettes, civil rights, the holocaust, Word war 1 and two. I don't remember it causing me to have identity issues.

I don't think anyone is suggesting these things shouldn't be taught in history. Of course they should. This wasn't about the history syllabus.

I find "white fragility" to be, frankly, a racist term which immediately is going to get people's backs up - and then, of course, you can point out their "white fragility" again. Can we not just talk to each other like adults instead of immediately discrediting each other with these blanket character flaws? It's no different to someone saying that you "just have a chip on your shoulder".

I find "white fragility" to be, frankly, a racist term which immediately is going to get people's backs up - and then, of course, you can point out their "white fragility" again. Can we not just talk to each other like adults instead of immediately discrediting each other with these blanket character flaws? It's no different to someone saying that you "just have a chip on your shoulder".

What about "male ego", "male fragility", "male privilege", "white male, pale and stale", etc. Are those sexist terms and will they affect men, get their backs up, etc? Do you disagree with those blanket character flaws too?

My understanding is that White fragility refers to the the individuals discomfort when the issue of racism or racial issues are discussed. For example, a person may feel they are being personally attacked or they make feel a sense of shame and guilt when certain topics are discussed. In my view, white fragility is not a character flaw but rather a person reaction or processing in relation to certain events or topics.
I think referring to white fragility as racism takes away the true meaning of what racism actually is.

I left school school more than 20 years. It appears based on the on what the OP has shared, it appears that the history curriculum and syllabus hasn't changed significantly since I left with the exception of the inclusion of LGBT issues. I am difficulties seeing the correlation between learning the school curriculum and it causing someone to have depression and identity issues. This an unusual response and it sounds like the OP son needs to more support to feel good about himself. I would be very concerned if my child was feeling this way.

I am concerned that the OP has stated that the narrative against them is too strong and they are constantly being told they are the bad guys. In addition, she has reported that her son feel depressed and wants to fight in Ukraine. This is unusual response. This something that needs to be addressed. This is similar to people who get radicalised and join groups such as Al Qa'ida and other extremist groups.

You need to do a better job at parenting here, sorry. If your sons feel that way then you need to explain that learning about these things is nothing personal and they can be the difference.
You’re pandering to their ‘poor me white man’ mentality and it’s extremely damaging. They are not the oppressed here in any way.

I think the history, current events, and these discussions are important to have with children - actual discussions especially at secondary level, and that schools have too many expectations and objectives on them, some with little supportive evidence even if popular -- there is no evidence that teaching white privilege theory makes white people any nicer. It largely just makes them shittier to other white people and little change in their behaviour towards anyone else. We parents have our own roles to play in helping them work through that information and expand on it.

This thread has reminded me how, even though we have reams of statistics where I am that white working class boys are the at the bottom achievement by a significant margin and a high risk group of getting pulled into criminal gangs and radicalization, we don't have anything specific for them, we don't consider them specifically like other groups because they're white boys. It's all folded into wider support with it being viewed as 'good' if white boys don't make up a significant percentage of the uptake. I don't think this approach is achieving much other than, ime, it's very difficult to get white boys and mixed boys who are more white presenting to access support that would help them.

Like I know young carer support is very slim on the ground, but I've noticed a very specific barrier with these boys that they won't even attempt, won't mark themselves down as such because they don't view themselves as in need enough or worth it. It's engrained that help is for other people, not them. I've seen similar with disabled boys - I know one who is both, but won't call himself either - just says he has 'some communication issues', discusses it as just life, that he doesn't need any additional support, that others deserve it more, and I can't help but think this isn't how we reduce suffering.

If there is anything I've learned from my sons and the boys I've worked with is that I don't know as much as about what guys go through as I thought I did, not even the 'default' white guys. They can't know about my experiences and I'll only know a part of theirs. I think that is important point not always brought in - that our understanding is limited, we don't learn by thinking we already have all the answers about someone else, and that we learn and work to improve by communicating and being open, not by having fixed ideas of who people are.

Teaching issues aside; I'm shocked at the amount of antipathy towards white boys / men here, considering most people have husbands, sons, fathers. I and my family treat everyone equally, whatever their race, gender, etc. We do not and have never been unkind to anyone on those grounds. Therefore I refuse to allow my son or any one of us to accept "guilt " for anything in the past or present. Understanding yes, but never guilt for so called "white privilege" etc , and I will never be persuaded otherwise .