so what would lessons in "Core British Values" be and how far should the curriculum bend towards multi culturalism?

[zippitippitoes]

Britishness or core British values are to become a school subject in some way..what would a Britishness curriculum or lesson plan have in it?

\link{http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1774972,00.html\And according to this article Muslims will not be getting as much as they are asking for in the new curriculum}

(made a hash of this in the in the news topic so trying again here!)

Great British values:

Plunder - the slave trade cost Africa about 20 million people

Famine - Mike Davis ("Late Victorian Holocausts") estimates that British policies in late 19th century India (which included shipping grain AWAY from areas of food shortage and working people to death in food-for-work camps) caused up to 29.3 million deaths.

Massacre - the Peterloo massacre, countless colonial 'battles' where British soldiers with guns and artillery faced local people armed with spears.

Racism - older people I met in Kenya remembered signs on restaurants saying 'Dogs and Africans not allowed'.

Lack of democracy - women got the vote only after WWI

Funnily enough, I don't think these are the values New Labour has in mind.

A thought for the 'immigrants go home' brigade - where do you think the rest of the population came from? Even we Celts came from Europe. There is no such thing as an indigenous population.

I wonder how this fits in with all the faith schools popping up all over the place at the moment....

Fairymum, do you mean faith schools as in CofE and RC or are you referring to those of other faiths for example, let me see, ah yes, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh etc?

I apologise if I have misinterpreted the intent of your question. It is just that I don't understand why Christian based faith schools are more acceptable than non-Christian ones, particularly as most of the indigenous population don't even go to church.

speedymama, I don't think any faith schools are acceptable. It's a way of segregating children based on belief. I don't see how the government can come up with this "britishness" initiave and at the same time push faith schools? Surely, children who are only ever exposed to others of similar background and beliefs will grow up pretty ignorant and very likely even fearful of others.

FairyMum, I agree. My FIL went to a RC school and is vehemently against faith schools. If I had my way, I would abolish all faith schools (and I attend a CofE church)but that is another thread

Firestorm, you said 'if the immigrants dont like the values of the country they have chosen to live in then they can leave anytime they like.' I'm sure many immigrants would like to return to their countries of origin or to have stayed there in the first place (Damilola Taylor for example)but they might have to tackle the small matter of torture, persecution or extreme poverty first. What happened to that good old British value of charity?

And so much for Britain being a democracy. We still have an unelected head of state, the Queen, and an unelected House of Lords FFS. We live in a country where you can still buy a peerage and therefore political power. We have a lot to learn about democracy yet Blair and Bush think it's ok to bomb other countries which they consider to be undemocratic.

Plus the fact that if we didn't have any immigrants our economy and the NHS would collapse because actually in spite of common misconceptions and prejudices many other cultures have a more positive attitude to work and find it so anathema to accept state handouts that they will take on the jobs that many 'native Britons' spurn in favour of state benefits.

Hate the fact that there are any faith schools. These encourage social divisions (Northern Ireland, Bradford) and breed ignorance and conflict. You can and should teach important human values (fairness, justice, equality) without religion.

It would be a very good idea if children were taught about the history of civil rights. Teach them about the campaign to end the slave trade. And the woman (appallingly have forgotten her name) who ran the railroad to freedom. Teach them that the British actually saved slaves from the US, while you are about it, as well as teaching what this country did wrong. And teach them that slavery still exists today.

Teach them about the suffragettes and suffragists. About Elizabeth Fry and the duty any civilised society has to treat the excluded with respect. And about the long, hard fight for democracy – the Chartists, the Peterloo massacre, the way police stormed early meetings of the Labour party becuase you couldn't possibly have common people trying to play a part in politics, could you? About the bitter fight for the very first shoots of any welfare state (the old age pension), about the way families were torn apart in the workhouse.

Then maybe they will realise that you can't take liberty or democracy for granted. You actually have to guard it. (Personally I see the threat more from autocratic government than terrorism but let them discuss it and make their own minds up.)

That would be worth something.

Oh, and while we are about it, why not actually include the development of religious schools in history or citizenship lessons? Then maybe we'd have an informed debate.

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1775634,00.html\What it really means to be British} from the Guardian today. Not entirely serious but interesting.

Read it :-)We don't have a monopoly on snobbery though so we can't claim it as being unique to britishness!

Edam it was Rosa Parks - the lady who refused to give up her seat to a white man.

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm

this is a hard one - but ded interesting and i want to comment but find myself not beinga ble to comment

my first comment has something to do with seperating religeon and country.

and for those who dont have a religeon to udnerstand that faith is gonna come first it doesnt matter where you live - so if a certain faith has some fucked up preachers telling you that god will be proud if you go and kill a few folk - then you do - its really got not a lot to do with a fucked up country but rather fucked up elements of religeon.

and for us religous types our god comes way way before our country.

not sure what british values are

i would hope they were good stuff that all people from all nations should aspire to - things to do with good manners and respect - that you would expect from any nation.

you cannot cut off cultural heitidge - the simple " cricket" test of englishmess - who do you support at cricket - india or england

erm errr ermm

that a bag of old shite too.

so this is more about religeous doctrine and barmy preachers than it has to do with britishness - and to be honest

i would rather at some point during the say - someone taught them ENGLISH AND FUCKING MATHS

The school I teach in is only about 10% white, but I don't see it as being unBritish in any way. Classic British attributes of supporting the underdog, sense of fair play, knowing what good manners are, are all alive and well. The kids all know what British values are, even if they don't choose to adopt them all at all times.

TBH, the white kids have a lot to learn from the Asians. One of the classes that I teach is Sex Ed to 17 year olds - and they are all virgins, except for the white or AC kids.

The school I teach in is only about 10% white, but I don't see it as being unBritish in any way. Classic British attributes of supporting the underdog, sense of fair play, knowing what good manners are, are all alive and well. The kids all know what British values are, even if they don't choose to adopt them all at all times.

TBH, the white kids have a lot to learn from the Asians. One of the classes that I teach is Sex Ed to 17 year olds - and they are all virgins, except for the white or AC kids.

The school I teach in is only about 10% white, but I don't see it as being unBritish in any way. Classic British attributes of supporting the underdog, sense of fair play, knowing what good manners are, are all alive and well. The kids all know what British values are, even if they don't choose to adopt them all at all times.

TBH, the white kids have a lot to learn from the Asians. One of the classes that I teach is Sex Ed to 17 year olds - and they are all virgins, except for the white or AC kids.

Who are these immigrants asking me to change my way of life? Are they doing it secretly by hypnosis? I haven't been very aware of it up till now.

British values which do not exist in any Muslim country: democracy (except Turkey which is clinging to secularism), freedom of expression, free press, freedom of religious worship (Christians have their churches firebombed in Pakistan, try finding a church in Saudi), equal rights under the law (regardless of race, sex, sexuality) equal access to education regardless of gender (the Muslim girls who are demanding to wear the burka but are benefitting from our higher education should think where they'd be under Sharia law) and toleration.

Whatever Britain's imperial past, we should be proud of these values. They are hard won and harder to defend. And yet we take them for granted. They should be taught in schools to all races and religions, because they transcend these things.

The young Muslim men are the most alienated because in Britain they have lost the power they have in Islamic countries: ie total dominion over women in their families, supremacy under the law. And they have gained nothing: unemployment affects them disproportionately because they live in poor inner city ghettos with crap schools. That is why they cling to some crusading vision of Islam which will give them a better life in heaven, that is why they blow themselves up.

The following is Karen Armstrong on the "muslim" veil.

"There is nothing in the Koran about obligatory veiling for all women or their seclusion in harems. This only came into Islam about three generations after the prophet's death, under the influence of the Greeks of Christian Byzantium, who had long veiled and secluded their women in this way. Veiling was neither a central nor a universal practice; it was usually only upper-class women who wore the veil. But this changed during the colonial period.

Colonialists such as Lord Cromer, the consul general of Egypt from 1883 to 1907, like the Christian missionaries who came in their wake, professed a horror of veiling. Until Muslims aban doned this barbarous practice, Cromer argued in his monumental Modern Egypt, they could never advance in the modern world and needed the supervision of the west. But Lord Cromer was a founder member in London of the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage. Yet again, westerners were viewing Islam through their own muddled preconceptions, but this cynicism damaged the cause of feminism in the Muslim world and gave the veil new importance as a symbol of Islamic and cultural integrity."

I wouldn't argue that there are many regimes identifying themselves as muslim who abuse human rights, but this doesn't mean that all muslims agree with what they do (any more than all christians or atheists agree).

its interesting how this thread took a turn towards arguing about muslim v's british values. rather than ...well any other really.

religeon and state are seperate. for the religeos - religeon comes first - your not going to teach otherwise.

with regards to democracy and equal rights. its this intrinsically british? or are these values of individual worth ones which all man should be afforded - its not a core BRITISH thing but more of a humanitarian thing.

so am still not clear. what are these core brishish values.

"you must like roastbeef?"

custardo, religion and state aren't separate in this country - for just one example, the private members' bill on euthanasia was defeated just a couple of weeks ago, largely because the Bishops in the lords voted it down. Unelected and representing what in practice is a minority in this country (though a large minority).
Power is power though, and for non-christians it is really depressing when you think what little bits of power here and there the church has.

well then that throws that whole democracy argument out the window as well.

i take your point - your right of course. what i meant to get at - although not very vell obviously is that religeon for religeos people will always come before state. ( meaning us ordinary folk with no power)

I was discussing this with a fellow Uni student, who happens to be Sikh and Indian. I think her quote went like this 'British values? waht, you man they'll be running school trips over to India to practice colonialism, and maybe grab a few slaves on the way then?'

Quite.

if they are concerned about their children not learning about their religion and beliefs, then they should teach them.

teach them british history.

i take my children to church, dont expect the school to do that for me.

Exactly custardo, British democracy doesn't really stand up to scrutiny (but it's the best we've got).
The country with the closest thing to democracy I've heard of seems to be Switzerland but I think it all falls down at senate level, much like ours falls down when you consider the Lords.

Don't some cantons in Swizerland exclude women from voting?