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!

Teacher, teaching a lesson on cancel culture, gets cancelled.

I despair

I think mansplaining is a very real (and very irritating!) phenomenon but I think in mansplaining there has to be a mismatch between the woman’s intelligence and the mans estimation of it which I don’t think there was here

Mansplaining doesn't have to be related to intelligence - it just be condescending, like a man explaining feminism to women.

I think in this case, had he done a small amount of research into the incidents he was presenting as a case study, he would have realised it was a highly sensitive topic and could easily get him in hot water depending on how the discussion went and who was in the room.

I get that he was trying to illustrate free speech and cancel culture, but it doesn't take much googling to realise that this is contentious issue and that people have had their jobs taken away for making gender critical statements. It strikes me as mansplaining and arrogant as he thought he knew what he was talking about, but as it turns out he missed the most significant part - that people have actually been cancelled and their lives negatively affected by speaking out. So whether he disagrees with that or not, if he knows it happening, why would he then be surprised when the exact same thing he's objecting to happens to him? He was literally teaching kids that this happens.

IMO the mansplaining is around the fact he seemed to think he'd be immune from the same fate as the women he's discussing because he's a man. Like it's just some interesting case study to him, whereas women are losing their livelihoods and having their safety compromised on a daily basis just for expressing gender critical views.

If he had actually taken on board what women are going through for speaking up before presenting a lesson he was clearly not clued-up enough to teach, then he probably wouldn't have been so blindsided by his pupils' or management's reactions.

I think that’s awful for your friend. I would speak to the union rep;
I would also advise them to contact Sex-matters.org
I also wonder what the governing body might think of this situation. I can hear several alarm bells ringing

I think in this case, had he done a small amount of research into the incidents he was presenting as a case study, he would have realised it was a highly sensitive topic and could easily get him in hot water depending on how the discussion went and who was in the room.

That's going to apply to pretty much any example of cancel culture he could have chosen.

That being said, I sometimes think that this type of problem illustrates that the students haven't been given enough background. What's the point of talking about cancel culture if they don't know anything about freedom of conscience or speech, if they haven't learned about the way ideas are considered in a liberal democracy, if they haven't seen historical examples of where speech was suppressed?

And not just suppressed, but where good people really believed that the ideas were dangerous. That's difficult now though because we generally only have baddies who are bad, and the good people who are good. There isn't much teaching that allows students to see through the eyes of people in the past who had very different ideas than their own and believed them in good faith.

So they think that as long as the good people win, there is no need for freedoms of those kinds, because the good people will always believe the good things.

This is the stuff of my nightmares. I'm lucky I teach in a school where the kids have their heads screwed on (non-white non-middle class - this world view seems to be the preserve of the white middle classes). What's also scary is the teaching unions won't necessarily be supportive. Is your friend NEU? It could be worth your friend getting in touch with Kiri Tunks. She is high up in the NEU and also a founder member of Women's Place.

Excellent post @LobsterNapkin. I think that is so true. I teach Animal Farm at KS3 which is a great way into these issues.

What a bad message the head has sent to those kids. That if they don’t like something someone says they can have a hissy fit and get them into trouble.

"Every student in his form agreed that she was a hateful bigot that shouldn’t be allowed to say those things."

Isn't this the worrying bit? That every single student had these views?

So who's taking on his PSCE duties for him, and does that mean he's getting extra non-contact time instead? Standing up for your principles, and getting extra time for marking sounds like a win-win to me.

I think in this case, had he done a small amount of research into the incidents he was presenting as a case study, he would have realised it was a highly sensitive topic and could easily get him in hot water depending on how the discussion went and who was in the room.

I don't think people necessarily realise how this often works. When I used to teach PHSCE, the materials for the lessons generally landed in pigeonholes on the morning of the day of the lesson. The content and materials were entirely decided by the person in charge of PHSCE for the whole school. Form teachers just had to pick up the materials and go and do their best with what they'd been given, on topics which were usually far removed from anything they'd been trained to teach.

I still teach PHSCE occasionally, as a cover teacher. In those cases I rarely know the students at all either, and am given the materials on arrival. Expecting teachers to be able to research these lessons in advance is not necessarily very realistic.

I actually think that, given he seriousness and sensitivity of many of the PHSCE topics, there should either be specialist teachers for it, or the topics should be included as part of the regular school subjects they best mesh with. This topic would probably be best as part of religious studies, which includes ethics, beliefs etc.

I've long thought that lazylinguist. It's an area that has a particular skill set and too often (most of the time) it gets given to form tutors without much additional training or guidance.

Yes, and it's all very well to say 'Well teachers are trained to manage debate and discussion, bring in other ideas etc etc'. Not if you're a maths teacher, I shouldn't think.

As with so many threads on the education board, people hold forth about what teachers should and shouldn't do, with no real idea of how schools operate or what actually works or is feasible in a roomful of teenagers or small children. That's why I hid the education board a little way into the first lockdown...

@2Two

I must say I would have serious concerns about a school which teaches children that it's OK to silence someone just because you don't agree with their views. There are some very serious free speech implications there.

Who else do they want to shut down? Is it only people within the trans debate, or is it anyone they want to characterise as a bigot? At what point do they draw the line?

This is also my concern as a parent.

I don't think people necessarily realise how this often works. When I used to teach PHSCE, the materials for the lessons generally landed in pigeonholes on the morning of the day of the lesson. The content and materials were entirely decided by the person in charge of PHSCE for the whole school. Form teachers just had to pick up the materials and go and do their best with what they'd been given, on topics which were usually far removed from anything they'd been trained to teach.

Well, if this is the case, then it's the school's fault for sending him into a lesson and mandating materials that he was unprepared to teach. If management put him in a position where he was forced to out himself as GC or express gender ideology-based views, and if they didn't make this clear beforehand or give him the opportunity to opt out on the basis of his own philosophical beliefs on the topic, then he should be going to his union (not sure whether any would be supportive of GC views yet, but that's another issue) and/or lawyering up.

If he got in trouble for expressing GC views in a situation he was forced into by the school, then if I were him I'd be taking legal advice as that is massively out of order in the part of the school.

I got the impression from the fact OP said management weren't happy with him that he had chosen to talk about gender ideology as a topic. However, if another staff member effectively put him up to it then that feels like discrimination on the basis of philosophical belief and tantamount to entrapment as he was forced to publicly out himself by his employer.

OP, who chose the topic of gender ideology? Your friend or someone else in charge of PHSE? I think that makes a huge difference to where your friend stands and how he should handle this.

If he did this to himself, then I have very little sympathy for the reasons I gave upthread. But if the topic was mandated by someone else then he should (note the should) be protected under the Equality Act 2010.

The school provided a PowerPoint with some of JK Rowling’s letter on, and some censored tweets of response as well as some suggested questions to initiate discussion.

I suppose it might be a matter of opinion whether it’s possible to discuss how appropriate “call out culture” is around a specific example without any discussion to the nature or nuance of that example.

To the poster up thread that suggested this was more of an issue with white, middle class students that might be part of the issue here as his previous job was in an extremely diverse working class area where he felt the students were much willing to consider alternative view points

Well, if this is the case, then it's the school's fault for sending him into a lesson and mandating materials that he was unprepared to teach.

Well yeees, but in practice this happens all the time. Every single time a supply teacher takes a lesson in a secondary school, for example (unless they are on long-term supply in their subject area).

I'm about to go and do exactly that this afternoon. I don't know what I'll be teaching or to whom. I'm an MFL teacher but I cover any lesson. This afternoon I believe it's humanities. Could be a topic involving potentially sensitive issues.

The point is, inevitably there will relatively often be teachers teachung outside of tgeir area of expertise, and potentially tricky questions can come up in a lot of different subjects. Teachers cannot be expected to research and prepare for, or indeed predict, all of them. The leadership team needs to have their backs, support them. Unless the teacher has said or done something genuinely inappropriate. It does not sound as though this teacher has.

But to address the point more generally - yes, conducting a discussion on a topic like this which has been given to you without your choice, with no preparation, and keeping that discussion civil and appropriate between the teenagers, and encouraging them to consider wider views while giving no hint of what your own views might be is quite a big ask.

I would be genuinely scared to teach that lesson, even though I am experienced, very interested in the subject and feel it's very important.

But to address the point more generally - yes, conducting a discussion on a topic like this which has been given to you without your choice, with no preparation, and keeping that discussion civil and appropriate between the teenagers, and encouraging them to consider wider views while giving no hint of what your own views might be is quite a big ask.

Yes, agreed.

The problem with this topic is that it's tantamount to discussing two religions in a faith school representing one of those faiths.

It's not fair to put a teacher into that position with no warning, and OP, given your update, I think your friend needs to argue this strongly (perhaps they might listen to him as he's male and not a silly woman). He shouldn't be made to teach pupils that a philosophical view he doesn't subscribe to is an actual fact, and he shouldn't have been forced into a position where he had to either teach them something he didn't believe was true or divulge his own philosophical views so publicly, which clearly put him into a vulnerable position where he is now being persecuted for his own personal beliefs.

The school should not have given slides out on this without briefing the teachers on the beliefs they were supposed to be teaching (this of course raises its own issues, but at least being briefed would have given the teacher a chance to opt out). If the school have trained him on their position on this during more general diversity training and had already trained him not to discuss women's sex-based rights as they shouldn't exist, then I guess they will argue that he had been trained.

Otherwise, they were wrong to assume that everyone would automatically know that critical thinking around sex and gender issues is considered transphobic nowadays and that discussing sex-based rights is now controversial.

Couldn't agree more with that whole post, @LonginesPrime. It's pretty worrying just being in schools with all this stuff going on atm tbh, without having to actually teach lessons about it.

I worry about what happens (as a supply teacher who doesn't know the students) if a student tells you they want to be referred to by a different name and pronouns than it says on the register. You don't know if this has been agreed by the parents (who kight complainif you do, or if you don't), or if other teachers are complying with the student's request or not. It's a minefield.

I don't think people necessarily realise how this often works. When I used to teach PHSCE, the materials for the lessons generally landed in pigeonholes on the morning of the day of the lesson. The content and materials were entirely decided by the person in charge of PHSCE for the whole school. Form teachers just had to pick up the materials and go and do their best with what they'd been given, on topics which were usually far removed from anything they'd been trained to teach

This is exactly how PSHE works in every school I've taught at. Generally the PSHE materials and lesson plans land in my inbox 5 minutes before the lesson starts.

Yes, and it's all very well to say 'Well teachers are trained to manage debate and discussion, bring in other ideas etc etc'. Not if you're a maths teacher, I shouldn't think
Agree with you. English, humanities and social sciences teachers will have a very different set of skills from STEM by nature of the subjects.

I'm fortunate that in my school the PSHE materials are available a half term in advance and the topics are shared for the whole year. They might change, but if I wanted to know what my year team will be covering in PSHE during summer 1, it's there.

From the OP's update it doesn't sound like the materials were particularly well structured. A controversial topic that gets very emotive, high profile examples given to students when they probably lack awareness of the issues, and a few discussion prompts has not been planned to maximise success got students or staff. People who plan PSHE should not plan lessons based on whether a confident, experienced teacher with am established form group could do lesson. It should be planned and structured so that any teacher has a clear pathway through the lesson.

I still think OP's friend has misjudged elements of the lesson, but with the updates I also think someone should look at the quality of PSHE planning.

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the school realise they were in the wrong to expect your friend to teach that lesson.

I think that's why they haven't actually disciplined him, but they have simply removed the responsibility of having to teach something they want taught differently.

I would view the school's action as discriminatory because they have taken away some of his professional responsibilities because of the philosophical beliefs he holds. This will likely be seen as a demotion in the eyes of his colleagues and students, which compounds the humiliation he has already suffered in having his personal philosophical beliefs outed and criticised as the result of his employers actions. Although he hasn't been disciplined, he is still being punished in a very public way for holding certain philosophical beliefs, and as you say, OP, other people will interpret his demotion as a sign that management deem him incompetent to teach certain subjects.

If I were your friend, OP, I'd ask the school to confirm to him in writing exactly which responsibilities are being removed from his job role and request that they clearly state the reasons for this demotion. Then I'd be going to my union/lawyer.

I think that's why they haven't actually disciplined him, but they have simply removed the responsibility of having to teach something they want taught differently.

I doubt that's the reason. It's not because they want it taught differently, it's because someone made a fuss and they want to be seen to have done something about it. It's not as if they are going to hire an expert PHSCE teacher or an expert on cancel culture to replace him. It will just be some other person who happens to be light on their timetable or a part-timer who can fit in an extra teaching period or something, or maybe a cover supervisor.

It's not clear to me why people think he "outed" himself as GC or anything else?

It sounds like he did what he was supposed to do, look at a controversial debate and examine how cancel culture works and why it's problematic. I'm not sure how that would be possible without pointing out that people have different points of view, that often there are important points made on both sides of a debate. Without talking about why it's important to try to see things from the perspective that you are not naturally drawn to.

What other example of cancel culture would have been less divisive?