Scottish Union for Education: Education not Indoctrination conference in Glasgow 9 March 2024

[NonnyMouse1337]

Copied from the SUE newsletter:

Education not Indoctrination
Saturday 09 March 9.45 - 5pm

SUE is one year old, so we have decided to hold a conference to discuss the work we have done and the work we plan to do this year.

Speakers include academics, teachers, film makers, campaigners and parents, all of whom have been working to challenge the different forms of indoctrination taking place in education.

Please come along, meet the writers and campaigners, and share your own experiences and ideas about what we can do to make Scotland a country with a brilliant and inspiring education system for all.

This is the link to the event where you can buy your ticket www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scottish-union-for-education-education-not-indoctrination-conference-tickets-818510776767

Linda Murdoch
Conference organiser

CONFERENCE DETAILS

Education not Indoctrination
Saturday 09 March 9.45 - 5pm
The Tron Church, 25 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW

PROGRAMME

Tron foyer
9.45am Registration
Coffee/tea on arrival in Glasgow Room.

Grand Hall
10.30-11.30am Plenary: What’s wrong with Scottish Education?

Speaker: Stuart Waiton, Chair of SUE

Education standards are falling in Scottish schools. Both schools and universities are increasingly concerned about issues that have little or nothing to do with education. A new 'caring' ethos now surrounds all educational institutions. But what does this all mean for discipline, excellence, and the development of the character of children and young people in Scotland?

Lomond Room
11.30-12.45pm Confronting ‘anti-racist’ indoctrination in schools.

Speaker: Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, Director of Don’t Divide Us (DDU).

SUE is increasingly receiving reports from parents and teachers about how the new ‘anti-racism’ is prevalent in more than just a few rogue schools. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become embedded in the curriculum that teaches white children that they are privileged and complicit in oppression. ‘Outdated’ values like equality and tolerance, and past ‘colourblind’ approaches, are being jettisoned. Individual teachers can believe whatever they wish, however they should not be activists in the classroom. Teachers have a responsibility to educate not indoctrinate, and if they can’t tell the difference between politics and education then they should not be teaching.

Grand Hall
11.30-12.45pm Challenging transgender ideology in the classroom.

Speaker: Jenny Cunningham, retired community paediatrician and author of SUE’s pamphlet Transgender ideology in Scottish schools: What is wrong with government guidance?

From the Government’s guidance for Scottish schools, ‘Supporting Transgender Pupils’ to its proposed legislation on ‘Ending Conversion Practices in Scotland’ – what have we to fear?

Currently, the Scottish Government is proposing a far-reaching statutory bill to place a ban on conversion therapy because, it is argued, many LGBT people are being forced into changing or suppressing their sexual orientation or gender identity. What are the links between the transgender guidance for schools and the recent report from the government’s Expert Advisory Group on Ending Conversion Practices? Rather than being underpinned by robust evidence, both appear to be motivated by a gender ideology that is being forced on schools, teachers, parents, and professionals by a small number of trans activists. The session will explore the wide-ranging implications of such an approach, as well as considering how to respond, individually and collectively, to the government’s current consultation on the bill to end conversion practices.

Glasgow Room
12.45-1.45pm Lunch. Sandwiches, snacks, and tea/coffee.

Lomond Room
1.45-3pm How do we tackle Scotland’s deteriorating educational standards?

Speakers include teachers and educationalists from across the UK.

A panic engulfed Scottish education in December as the latest (2022) results of the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) were released, followed by headlines such as ‘Time to change course on Scotland’s self-inflicted schooling decline’. The first minister, Humza Yousef, acknowledged that the results ‘were not good enough’ and that the education system should be on ‘an improving trajectory’. Coming amid a stalled reform programme and the failure to close the attainment gap, the PISA results reflect a listless system that is letting pupils down. What’s at the root of this decline in standards and what do improvements look like?

Grand Hall
1.45-3pm Screening of ‘The Lost Boys: searching for manhood’.

Discussants: Gary Powell, the film’s co-writer and UK production manager, and Jenny Cunningham, retired community paediatrician and author of SUE’s pamphlet Transgender ideology in Scottish schools: What’s wrong with government guidance?
Chaired by Joe Bryce, veteran gay rights activist and human rights advocate.

This powerful film is the account of five young men who have detransitioned. They bravely speak out about their harrowing experiences, in which they were encouraged to undergo gender transitioning with its life-changing hormonal and surgical treatments, while their significant mental health problems and social anxieties about their masculinity were ignored. Their testimonies are complemented by interviews with psychotherapist Joseph Burgo, psychiatrist Az Hakeem and comedian Graham Linehan.

Glasgow Room
3-3.30pm Coffee/tea and snacks.

Grand Hall
3.30-4.45pm Plenary: Education not Indoctrination; Where do we go from here?

A panel of parents and educators sum up the day and discuss the way forward.

Bumping up

The Scottish Union for Education (SUE) is holding a major conference in Glasgow this coming Saturday, 9 March, to raise concerns about the collapsing standards in education and the growing indoctrination taking place in schools.

Here, the chair of SUE, Stuart Waiton explains what is happening in Scotland’s schools and why it is time to do something about it.

According to the latest PISA education survey, standards of education in Scotland are falling and falling fast. Limited though these types of surveys are, this sense that Scottish schools are failing their children is becoming widespread.

Whether it is the growing problem of low-level indiscipline in schools, or concerns raised by teachers about the paucity of the curriculum and the declining levels of literacy, or stories from parents about activist teachers, Scottish schools appear to have been transformed over the past two decades.

At SUE, we receive weekly reports from parents about issues they face with their schools. We have heard from nursery-school teachers about the use of books aimed at three- and four-year-olds that promote transgender ideology. Inappropriate and sexualised materials in primary schools have been identified, leading one parent to note that her headteacher recently explained, ‘You’ll be pleased to know we’ve taken the clitoris off the curriculum’.

A divisive anti-racist agenda has now been pushed into ‘every subject in the curriculum’, helping children to learn how they have ‘white privilege’ or how they as black children are oppressed by their white, privileged peers. Your kids may not get to do much maths, but they will be receiving anti-racist maths lessons, if they haven’t had them already!

Educational experts have been aware that the Curriculum for Excellence, set up in Scotland in 2010, was neither a curriculum nor about excellence. With no set guidelines of what knowledge children should be taught, this ‘skills’ and ‘wellbeing’ approach to schools has meant that the very nature of education has changed, become increasingly therapeutic, and overloaded with instrumental and political agendas that distract from the very purpose of schools.

If the proposals from the new Hayward Review are adopted, it will mean that this knowledge-lite form of education will be pushed into the later years of schools, too, potentially seeing the end of exams and the end of Higher qualifications. There would instead be a new diploma that is built around personal experiences and self-reflective ‘knowledge’ and a cross-disciplinary project, ideally developed around ‘correct’ issues, like social justice, immigration or global warming. How children are expected to develop a cross- or inter-disciplinary approach when they are not taught actual subjects and disciplines in the first place is anyone’s guess.

Writing for SUE, our parent support worker Kate Deeming has described much of the politicised education and campaigns in primary schools as a form of ‘disaster education’, where young children are burdened with adult political concerns about everything that is wrong with the world.

The Hayward Review may be rejected by the Scottish government. If it is, it will be the one good decision they have made regarding education. But with teacher trainers telling us that what it means to be a teacher is to be a social-justice activist, and when we find the Standard for Headteachers document likewise explaining that to be a headteacher means creating a ‘culture based on social justice’, we know that Scottish schools and the education system are in serious trouble.

The Scottish Union for Education was set up a year ago to help parents and teachers to challenge the philistine and activist nature of education. Scottish schools are being built around an ideology that has little or no interest in the great and important knowledge that has been developed over generations. Rather, it is past generations, including parents and grandparents, who are seen as a problem, as people who do not embody the ‘correct’ attitudes and ideas. Scottish schools are becoming places not of education but of indoctrination – this cannot be allowed to continue.

You don’t believe in white privilege?

No I don't have a faith based position on concepts like 'white privilege'.

Every human being has various forms of assets and deficits - some of which are beyond our control - intelligence, attractiveness, socioeconomic class, skin colour and so on.

White people are not inherently evil or racist. All human beings are capable of prejudice and bigotry. Racists come in all shades of skin colour. This is very apparent if someone has lived in different countries and cultures.

Thankfully the vast majority of people in the UK are not racist, and it's important to be reminded of what unites us all, rather than divides us. A person's skin colour does not tell us anything about who they really are - their values and behaviour are far more important.
These concepts are especially important in schools. Which is what groups like SUE and others are about.

I'm not a member of SUE but hopefully their conference will be of interest to parents in Scotland.

White privilege is in no way linked to white people being ‘evil’.

And while many aren’t racist, sometimes there are systemic and cultural norms which are inherently racist that we don’t question as it’s the ‘norm’. There’s nothing to be lost by challenging this.

Are you American? I don’t think there is a place for this in Scotland. We are a reasonably progressive nation on the whole and the concept of SUE sounds like it was written in the 1960s.

It does translate into white people being framed as evil - by implying that racism is something inherent and they can't help being racist even if they aren't actually being racist.

Some people might feel there are "systemic and cultural norms which are inherently racist" while others do not accept such a premise, but do agree that actual racism does still exist and needs to be tackled. They are free to push back on such ideas that they find divisive, offensive and counterproductive.

There are other orgs and individuals across the UK and elsewhere who are also critical of these kinds of ideologies.

https://dontdivideus.com/school-voices/

https://www.theequianoproject.com/

Tomiwa Owolade
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/15/racism-in-britain-is-not-a-black-and-white-issue-it-is-far-more-complicated

Inaya Folarin Iman
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-2023/asking-the-right-questions-about-race/

Rakib Ehsan
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/04/americas-racial-politics-has-no-place-in-british-schools/

Ayishat Akanbi

Remi Adekoya
https://unherd.com/2021/03/antiracism-is-too-middle-class/

Coleman Hughes
https://www.ted.com/talks/coleman_hughes_a_case_for_color_blindness

Plenty more, but a good introduction for lurkers. 😊

And no, I am not American, but much of what passes for "anti-racism" these days is very much an American export.

I’m going to leave you to it.

The very fact that the issue of racism is so complicated and can be influenced by current American goings-on is exactly why it needs to be up for discussion.

I will not be returning to this batshittery.

Thank you. All the best. 😊

Yes- I've had a look online and there are links to Us For Them, far right Christian groups in America etc.

Ooh. I did think the aggressive promotion was very Us4them-like

So funny how some types get so rattled at the idea of treating people as equals. 😂

You’re clearly subsceptible to cults OP.
It’s not unusual for someone to leave one and inadvertently end up in another.
I’d recommend that you get some counselling.

Oh hello! You are back! I thought you were leaving this thread? Thank you for keeping this topic bumped up ♥️

Rattled?

Or amused?

OP please share the 'divisive, offensive ' materials from schools you are referring to.

If, indeed, that is what you meant?

Best wishes to SUE today on their event. Hope there's a good turnout and some productive conversations. 😊

I went looking for some info to help Escapetothesun above.

I found a link on some resources as recommended by the Scottish government:
https://education.gov.scot/resources/promoting-race-equality-and-anti-racist-education/

The resources are meant for: All practitioners (ELC, primary and secondary schools).

Under 'Related Content', there are a couple of links. I thought the second one sounded interesting - Anti-racism toolkit for teachers.

https://scotdec.org.uk/resources/anti-racist-toolkit-for-teachers/

No idea who scotdec are .... apparently they are "Working with schools and educators to champion active and participatory Global Citizenship Education."

Seems like another one of these orgs that go around hustling their material to various governmental departments and sectors. If you scroll to the bottom, they are funded by the People's Postcode Lottery and (what a surprise) the Scottish Government.
It's so weird how so many of these groups depend on the Scottish government for funding... And then the same groups are the ones recommended by the Scottish government... Bit incestuous 🤔

Anyway let's download the document...

Looks like it was written by one person - I naively assumed a small committee of experts would be involved. Nevermind... Maybe this author is well qualified. What are their credentials?

Titilayo Farukuoye is an organiser, anti-racist educator, youth worker and writer based in Glasgow. Titilayo is passionate about issues of identity, social justice, and the climate. Continuously building their decolonial practice, Titilayo aspires to dismantle oppressive structures and to transcend race and gender constructs. Titilayo organises in Black and PoC led communities like The Anti-Racist Educator collective, the Scottish BAME Writers Network and Intercultural Youth Scotland, among others.
Titilayo has led anti-racist campaigns and initiatives nationally and received international recognition for their journalistic work.

Hang on... No actual experience and involvement in teaching, schools, child development and learning? Or maybe even a degree in social policy or something of that sort? 😳 lots of activist buzzwords.... Definitely motivated by a certain set of ideological beliefs. Yikes...

Ok but maybe the material itself will be balanced and informative. Let's see....

Before you start, it is vital to understand that anti-racism is a praxis, a verb that has to be actively pursued, it is a decision
we have to make anew, every step of the way. Anti-racism is not about perfection or completing a number of tests. You won’t be awarded an anti-racism certificate at the end. Instead, anti-racism is about learning, unlearning, reflection and the ability to recognise oppressive structures, to take on feedback and experiences from people who are racialised as Black and as People of Colour (PoC) and our ability to take new input on board, translate it into improving our praxis and to envision new and non-oppressive ways of being.

Amazing. I suppose if your income depends on keeping racism alive, it helps to keep definitions and goals as vague and flexible as possible. You can bring out new and updated training materials every couple of years so certain types of white people can lap it up.
I wonder if Titilayo's exhortation that white people should "take on feedback and experiences from people who are racialised as Black and as People of Colour (PoC)" includes those of us who don't agree with Titilayo's ideological views?

There's more .. dearie me.... Not sure I want to spend anymore of my Saturday morning on this.... But there's this gem!!!

Racial Trauma
People racialised as non-white experience racism every day. This is a fact. If you don’t know this or have not noticed it, it is because you are not experiencing it.

Wow. Apparently I experience racism every day!! FACT!
The lovely white couple who live next door to me - bet they are racist. That sweet, old white man who lives on the other side of me - yeah bet he's racist too. The sleepy, little Scottish village I live in - hoachin with racists, man. Like when I walk to the bus stop, I can feel their racist eyes watching me. Actually this house I live in was built in the sixties and we all know the sixties was full of racism (although not as much racism as we have now). So my house was probably built by a bunch of racist construction workers. I can't even escape this racial trauma in my own home. 😢

Jokes aside - reading this is making me angry. Offensive and patronising shite. Making sweeping statements with zero evidence that people who are not white face racism every day. The only way this is feasible is if a large proportion of white people were racist.

While it is vital to create spaces where Black and PoC people can share experiences and reflect on what racism is and the effects it has on us, please note that your classroom, might not be a safe space for a person of colour to do so. This is independent to how knowledgeable on the subject or good of an ally you might have been (or are) to other people. No one should ever be forced to share their experiences of race and racism with you for your or anybody's learning experience.

So apparently people who are not white experience racism every day but you aren't allowed to talk about it, or ask for evidence or find ways to gather further information. That's convenient!
White people are so powerful and superior that those of us who aren't white are really scared to talk about our experiences in front them. 🙄 Aye, right.

There's a whole worksheet section on 'white fragility' inspired by Robin DiAngelo (who seems like a racist herself judging by the content of her books). Hilarious that a white woman's book is being used to tout concepts like 'white fragility' while happily promoting the racist idea that people who are not white are so fragile that they crumble at the thought of having to speak up about their experiences in front of white people. Makes a mockery of people who experience real violence and trauma - racial or otherwise.

At least as an adult who has lived in different countries and cultures, I can laugh off these patronising caricatures.
But children are being fed this nonsense at schools by teachers spurred on by zealous actitivts. Imagine being a black or brown child and being taught that we experience racism every day? Being indoctrinated to become paranoid and question the motives of others around you. It's toxic and divisive and teaches children to view themselves as hapless victims or encourage them to turn into bullies able to silence any white child by claiming victimhood, and no you're not allowed to ask me how I've been victimised because only racists and bigots ask for evidence.

None of this fosters long term tolerance, understanding and mutual dialogue. It entrenches people into simplistic categories of oppressor and oppressed and breeds resentment.

Do you understand what Global Citizenship is?

Also, you clearly don't understand trauma informed practice nor that this is a document for educators.

In the same way that if a child has experienced sexual or violent trauma, they should not be re traumatised through being asked to share their experiences in a classroom setting.

I am a trauma informed practitioner, working with children and young people who have been through varying degrees of trauma.

I also work with another cohort of young people who have experienced huge trauma and are now experiencing racism in the local community. Physical violence, fake rumours , made up crimes being reported to the police, threats and other issues. Some have had to move for their own safety.

All I can say is I am glad you're not working with young people.

Also, you're still to send on the 'divisive , offensive materials ' being used to teach children.

Looking at the bigger picture, it is important that children understand the role of Scotland in the slave trade and the genocide of the Native Americans, learn about the civil rights movement and the Bristol bus protests closer to home.

Do you agree? History taught in schools was previously was very one sided , now it is more factual.

Anti racism education is needed. Only someone who is out of touch with reality would think otherwise.

Thanks for this, OP. I missed it all entirely. Schools seem to be in danger of sliding into promulgating certain political viewpoints. Which, of course, they're not supposed to do.