Defended JK Rowling; banned from PHSCE

[Worriedthisisactuallyhappenin]

I have name changed for this as outing and have been vague about my connection to it but I am quite involved in the situation and don’t know what advice to give.

A person I know is a teacher in an all girls school and as part of being a form tutor does PSHCE with them. Last week they were looking at cancel/call out culture and looked at the examples of JK Rowling’s discussions around trans/women’s rights. Every student in his form agreed that she was a hateful bigot that shouldn’t be allowed to say those things. They then looked at some (censored) examples of the things that were said in response to her, and the students again all agreed that they were an appropriate response to “hate speech” though a few thought they shouldn’t have been so rude. The person I know tried to encourage a bit of critical thinking and encouraged them to think how loss of female only spaces could impact people eg. rape victims, women of certain religions, and to think about who decides what is considered hate speech and how JK’s message could be considered that while the responses to her weren’t.

Since then they have been called into a meeting with the head and asked to hear their side of the story as students had complained that they were defending a transphobic bigot. Having heard their side of the story they have been told they are no longer able to teach PHSCE as it’s “obviously not working”

I don’t really know what I’m looking for, maybe just reassurance that there are still other people out there that would be worried by this!

Schools are hot beds of the woke left

Sweeping statement. I live in the rural NW of England. There are some very woke teenagers in local schools and probably a few woke teachers, but not the majority. Headteachers and senior leaders will be clued-up about being careful on these matters, but it doesn't mean they are true believers.

There are some very woke teenagers in local schools and probably a few woke teachers, but not the majority

Evidently the majority were opposed to any discussion at the school the op was referring to. If there were any dissenters then they wouldn’t have dared speak out.

@RedToothBrush

Tell them to take a copy of JKR statement to the meeting.

Ask if the person has read it.

Then ask which bit is problematic and why.

And is there anything that JKR has said that is of value.

I would completely throw it back at them.

And refer to checking source at route as a valuable part of fact assessing and forming an opinion.

They haven't read what JKR has said. Just about every one who spouts about it does so on hearsay not having read it for themselves.

Excellent post

Whatever side of the debate someone is on, it is worrying that the head teacher put a stop to this being discussed. I think the teacher was right to open up a debate about this topic, as he should do about any topic. Children need to have the opportunity to consider and make up their own minds about things. The head teacher is doing them a disservice by preventing this from happening.

Evidently the majority were opposed to any discussion at the school the op was referring to.

Yes, clearly. I was just disagreeing with Xenia's sweeping claim that schools in general are hotbeds of the woke left.

Aren't they just too young - I knew nothing about what was in the news at that age and with social media wont they know even less except for what is in their bubble. I also was a fanatical Scottish independence supporter (despite not knowing any relevant facts) - now have more sense

I'd be going back to the head and, like a PP said, asking for a detailed breakdown of where the teacher could do better and use that as a non confrontational way to explore how the Head giving in to the teacher is perpetuating cancel culture.

@Andante57

Sounds like the children were enjoying their position of power and getting the teacher into trouble.

This. Some entitled little brats who are too big for their boots.

Sorry, giving in to the STUDENTS, is perpetuating cancel culture fgs.

Aren't they just too young - I knew nothing about what was in the news at that age and with social media wont they know even less except for what is in their bubble.

Too young to discuss it maturely and understand different viewpoints? Quite possibly. Too young to have heard quite a bit about it and formed a view? Definitely not. It will be in their bubble. Kids talk about this a lot, even in my rural neck of the woods. A kid in the year below the class mentioned in the OP asked me recently (and with a disingenuous smirk) "Miss, is it true you can be trans race?", clearly wanting to see how I'd deal with a controversial question. I just replied "No. Can you get on with your (cover) work please."

Sounds like the children were enjoying their position of power and getting the teacher into trouble.

This. Some entitled little brats who are too big for their boots.

Kids who seek to do this are not necessarily brats tbf. They are often troubled, angry kids lashing out at anyone in authority. I'm not defending their actions, but it's not always out of sheer gleeful malice or arrogance.

Sweeping statement. I live in the rural NW of England. There are some very woke teenagers in local schools and probably a few woke teachers, but not the majority. Headteachers and senior leaders will be clued-up about being careful on these matters, but it doesn't mean they are true believers
Different area of the country, but my experience is similar. The ones who are very vocal and convinced they are on the right side of history of every hot topic are the minority. Most have a more nuanced view of issues.

They are often troubled, angry kids lashing out at anyone in authority

I’m sure that is true but then if the head teacher is aware of this then shouldn’t she take that into account as the reason they were lashing out, before putting the teacher on the mat?

My friend is quite upset that they’re being viewed as bigoted when they felt they held a very middle of the road view about people’s rights to express themselves and other people’s right to disagree.

I’m not surprised! No wonder university students act like the Taliban when they’ve been taught at school not to tolerate other viewpoints. In a couse on ‘social and citizenship education’, no less!

Yes, she should. But I expect complaints about sensitive issues like this make leadership very jumpy indeed. They'd want to be seen to act, and to dispel any idea that they would let staff get away with 'wrong views'. Safer to let the teacher take the fall, unfortunately. Maybe relying on the assumption that he'd quite like not to have to teach PHSCE, even if he's pissed off about the reason, who knows?

Really sorry, not RTFT but I’m really disappointed to hear posters saying this teacher is ‘playing with fire’.

It was ‘No Debate’ that helped get us in this mess in the first place.

Schools and teachers are well versed in dealing with sensitive topics and this should be no different. Students should be taught critical thinking and to respect views that differ from their own (if those views aren’t racist/homophobic etc obvs).

The Maya Forstarter case has thankfully made gender critical beliefs worthy of respect in a democratic society. Schools should be upholding this.

If I remember back to my time doing PSHE/ citizenship, it was pretty hairy at times.

Always very controversial topics because I thought the whole point was to develop resilience, tolerance and an understanding of alternative viewpoints/ alternative ways of life.

Honestly some of the topics were crazy - chat about ethics of 'test tube babies' and IVF funding/ non essential healthcare. Talk about religion vs cultural norms ie. men shaking womens hands. Rights to gay marriage and whether vicars should have to marry or christians should have to make gay cakes etc.

It was riotous at times, discussing stuff that the majority would find teeth grittingly awkward - so I think the JK bar (which 90% of the General public agree with) is actually much higher than where it was 10-15 years ago.

Honestly some of the topics were crazy - chat about ethics of 'test tube babies' and IVF funding/ non essential healthcare. Talk about religion vs cultural norms ie. men shaking womens hands. Rights to gay marriage and whether vicars should have to marry or christians should have to make gay cakes etc

Could they be discussed and debated freely today?
Probably not.

@lazylinguist

As far as I know he didn’t try to derail it to a full on discussion of same sex spaces just encouraged them to consider why people might not consider JKR’s views as indefensible as they did.

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If he had been giving his own views about trans rights and single sex spaces, that would be a completely different matter. And that is what some posters seem to have inferred (with no evidence).

I agree…I thought i was missing something

It’s honestly pathetic that we have teachers teaching subjects they’re too scared to even discuss.
A generation of children will grow up without ever having their own opinions or viewpoints challenged.
It’s going to be so damaging.

Could they be discussed and debated freely today?
Probably not.

I dont know tbh. They are still split/contentious issues if you were to privately field responses.

Would anyone be brave enough to debate them outside a private circle? Who knows - but thats the point I was trying to make. PSHE has always been pretty controversial.

The SLT are failing their students and their staff here.

They are allowing the students to dictate what can and cannot be discussed. The students are in Year 9, can you imagine how entrenched their views are going to be by year 11 if they contact to approach each controversial topic the same way? So much power for such young minds.

If I was your friend, I would get advice from the union (free speech one) and get another meeting with the Head. This could have an impact on his relationship (class management etc) with the class and other classes, as news travels fast. It's not good enough to say you are not teaching it again, the SLT should provide support to improve his teaching.

I think they should have been asked to look at online bullying before considering that topic. Those examples such as "You should be raped/killed/maimed" etc would be seen as shocking if you didn't know what they were in response to. They could have looked at Curtis Woodhouse who turned up on the doorstep of his Twitter troll here and looked at whether people would say cruel things when they weren't anonymous and risked confrontation.

That would have had more of an impact then if they said that people should be punished for making such threats and then they were shown the identical threats again JKR.

Also I would have asked them to go through JK's letter to highlight exactly what it was that they opposed. I've read it several times and can only think those opposing it haven't read it properly.

"whether or not someone can read a room of teenagers well enough to know when they could be causing offence."

When did it become the norm for teachers, to tread on eggshells when they are teaching a class of teenagers? As far as I can see the teacher did nothing wrong, he was simply encouraging discussion about JKR and women's rights. It is obvious from the reaction of the pupils, that some kind of "social contagion", maybe peer pressure, that the overriding view is that JKR is deeply "transphobic", when in fact she is not. As a teacher, he is responsible for making sure the pupils are not spreading malicious rumours, which are based on no evidence.
It is also clear that the school has acted incorrectly for removing the teacher from this subject, an act which will be taken as a sign of power and triumph for the pupils and which, could possibly result in the pupils taking an even more negative stance towards this teacher.

@senua

I don’t know how you got mansplaining from the op's post. A male teacher in an all girls' school tried to teach his class about why he was right and they were wrong. And didn't convince a single one of them. In fact, incensed them so much that they reported him.

As I say, he is to be applauded for his beliefs. But he went about everything the wrong way, as all the teachers on here have attested, and has possibly made things worse.

Neither you, nor I were there in that classroom but it doesn't read to me that he told them what to think, just asked them to consider different viewpoints.