To be absolutely gutted that the first BNP MEP is a teacher

[clemette]

It is so bad that he has been elected, and even worse that he is a teacher. londonone told me that it was wrong for me to openly oppose the BNP in the classroom. Perhaps I should be teaching acorss the border in Yorkshire

Sorry, meant to bold the bit about him being the LEADER of the NF!! The college must have known about that when they employed him?

flamingobingo - that is exactly my point. By all meant teach the facts, but my issue with clemette is that she has said that she goes further and pushes her own opinions.

saadia - You can't really have one without the other though. You either accept free speech and democracy applies to everyone even if you find their views unpalatable or you go down the route of censorship.

FFS londonone I don't push my personal views, I highlight the FACT that the BNP has almost the same manifesto as the Nazis in the 1920s and can thus be seen as the British Nazi Party. As on the other thread you are ignoring this is historical fact.

My problem with him being a teacher is that I don't think fascists should have any contact with children/young people at all.

So why in your own words do you "go into the classroom and break the law"?

"I should imagine that most posters (myself included) would be fearful that a BNP party member (in fact any party member who is a teacher) might not be that professional and would push their agenda too much. "

but surely the same could be said about the supporters of any other political party. all teacers should leave their poitics at the door and as long as they do that and are resppnsible then i see no reason why they should not be allowed to pursue their career in a free country.
now obviously people will view the possibility of a bnp member pushing their views as more dangerous than others, but you can't have one rule for one politica party and another for all the others, the rule has to be applicable to all. i.e. you don't push your own politicalagenda, or you don't push racist/homophobic/sexist agendas full stop. regardless of their political affiliations.

Um...yes...that's what I said - you even quoted it!

well no you said you'd be worried that a bnp member wouldn't be that professional. my question is why only single out bnp members, surely their is exactly the same legitimate fear about any party. so why only single it out when it's the bnp. as long as they are all held to the same professional standards it should be immaterial of their personal views.

My mum has just rung me in shock to say she used to work with him and he seemed like such a nice, quiet chap. He kept his political beliefs firmly out of the classroom, but apparently some of the students did protest against him once. But the college had no grounds to get rid of him.

sorry flamingo bingo reading back your post i did take it up the wrong way.i apologise.

I feel a bit sick that this can happen in my county. Read on another thread that 1 in 10 Yorks voters must have voted bnp.

I feel a bit sick that this can happen in my county. Read on another thread that 1 in 10 Yorks voters must have voted bnp.

I was taught by him, he was a very good lecturer, extremely fair. He stuck very strictly to the mechanisms of politics - opinion polls, voting systems, the media, etc., and never once strayed onto dodgy ground.

Whereas by contrast I remember some ghastly left-wing woman coming and propagandising about the welfare state and saying that the largest part of it was MIRAS 'for the middle class', and the 'tip of the iceberg' was benefits. I remember one of the students having a go and she said 'don't be judgemental' to which I pointed out that you have to be judgemental in life, otherwise you can't condemn fascism.

There is large amounts of far-left ideology spread in British education. Practicaly nobody complains. By contrast the right (not just the far right, but centre right as well) is basically voiceless.

It would be interesting to know if there were non-whites in his class and if he marked them objectively rather than subjectively.

Harrogate doesn't have a very big non-white presence. There was a quiet rather studious Asian girl, he certainly didn't act oddly towards her. No idea about her marks, although his marking didn't count for anything as everything is externally assessed anyway.

Spokette - Well given the anecdotal evidence on this thread I would imagine he did as he seems from the evidence on this thread to have been wholly capable of keeping his personal political views and his professional life separate. Ha d he not been able to do this he would have been disciplined fairly swiftly I would imagine. BTW I am basing this on the anecdotal evidence on this thread.

i'd agree with what was said about left-wing lecturers above. i had a couple who pushed their agenda mercilessly where as i never had the same thing with any lecturers doing similar with right-wing politics.
i've always considered myself a liberal, hoever in recent yars it seems as though liberal politics is the most right-wing of them all (if that's not too much of an oxymoron) because the people who seem to promote them are basically saying "everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as they're the ones i say are right"
where as my ideas of liberalism where always that you had the freedom to believe in whatever you want, as long as you didn't infringe on others or break the law. so i'd actually support peoples right to hold racist or sexist beliefs etc as long as they respect my right to think they are scum and not associate with them. i'd rather i knew their opinions as being out in the open so i could avoid them.

londonone making any comment on a political party in a classroom is against the code of practice, even if the point is valid and irrefutable. I personally choose to break the code in this instance.

And I think it is wrong of you to do that clemette because the other end of the spectrum is people like this BNP guy deciding to do as you do. The same rule needs to apply to everybody IMO. You obviously feel that you are above the rules on this one, I happen to disagree that's all!

Quite, people are entitled to make up their own mind, not be told what to think.

Always gets me that the left are so intolerant about what people are allowed to think.

I give up. You seem determined to ignore what I have said. I don't give my opinion, I point out the facts. You seem unable to tell the difference.

For the record, this leftie thinks anyone can think what they like, but that when fascists start trying to implement their ideology they need to be challenged. SomeGuy would you like them to be allowed to spread their filth?

As for "Always gets me that the left are so intolerant about what people are allowed to think" - perhaps we should look to the example of Senator McCarthy for thought-intolerance.

Fascists can spread their ideology/filth yes, that's their democractic right of free speech. They are not spreading it in your classroom and you don't need to 'challenge' it there either.

I think with two BNP MEPs I have to challenge it everywhere.
Evil flourishes when good people stay silent.

Another one with experience of dodgy left wing teachers.

My A level economics teacher was a communist who used to ram his views down our naive throats.

His habitual garment was a red home knitted jumper with holes in it.

It showed his solidarity with the workers and contempt for the petty bourgeois convention of expecting male teachers to wear a collar and tie.

This was in an Essex grammar school in the '70s.

You'd think his professional training would curb his enthusiasm for the dire economic situations in the then Soviet Union and old style China.

I'd love to ask him what he thinks of North Korea and Cuba these days but sadly, I can't be bothered with the views of the silly git.

I was also taught in history lessons that Chairman Mao was a jolly nice person, though a bit on the paternalistic side.

An extreme right wing teacher would have been given a very hard time by the pupils at the time given the political consciousness-raising (often misguided) of bands like the Clash etc.

So I'm less worked up by this person, who is at least dealing with over-18s, than I am by the people who were inflicted on us.

btw, I think the BNP are vile. I just think you should give young people credit for noticing that.

I think any teacher is charge of any young people has a profesional duty to keep their personal political/religious/whatever beliefs to themselves.
It pains me to say that from people I know in the town who were taught by/worked with Brons (i have spoken to six so far), he was explemplary in his professionalism as a teacher.

Interesting thing to have on your CV that, isn't it?
"I used to be the leader of the National Front".