There is demand. There is supply. There is planned ‘diversity’. If anyone told the teachers that multi-culturalism was dead, they forgot to listen. For they have come up with latest revision in government plans to revive language teaching: teach them gypsy. Since English Romanies talk in English or an Anglicised version of Romany (Romanglish?), will they teach the pure version which has very few speakers in this country.
In a move designed to promote tolerance towards gipsy communities, schools will be encouraged to teach the language, culture and traditions practised by about 45,000 people in Britain.
The Government-backed initiative comes just days after ministers told schools they had a legal duty to promote greater race relations by celebrating cultural diversity across the curriculum.
Since race and culture are not synonymous, and multiculturalism has promoted actions described as racist to increase, we can look on at another “legal duty” achieving the opposite outcome to that intended.
Ginny Harrison White, the president of the National Association of Teachers of Travellers, said the project would “go some way to increasing knowledge of gipsy communities and help break down barriers of prejudice”.
Gypsies will have the teaching of their language taken over by the state. Parents, interested in their children’s education, will choose more economically useful options. So Somali, the language of a failed state, will not be taken up with fervour either. And those who do partially learn, the blighted, will understand that they can insult gypsies better.
If you wanted to escape the crap system by educating your children yourself, the baleful eye of the state has turned your way.
The guidance says that education must be suitable for a child’s age, ability and any special needs. Resources and materials should be provided. In a further development, adults must play an active role in children’s education, rather than leaving them to complete work-sheets all day.
The guidance says that councils should intervene if they have concerns over standards of education. They can then ask parents to submit projects, assessment, books and field trip diaries to satisfy local authority inspectors.
Parents failing to meet official requirements may be taken to court and issued with a school attendance order – forcing children to attend a state school.
The draft proposals, which are out to consultation until the end of July, have been broadly welcomed by home education groups, who hailed the decision not to make registration compulsory.
With the thin end, home education will become a postcode lottery, and the level of intrusion will be dependent upon the attitude of the local authority inspectors. One can imagine that Departments of Education, which are ignorant or unsympathetic of home-schooling, will use their powers to ‘discover’ failures, force parents to send their children back to state sinkholes and stamp out a practice that they deem an ideological competitor. This is the road that could lead to registration and prohibition.
Perhaps it is to get us ready for the expected influx of Romanys from Eastern Europe.
Their own countries not wanting them, they may feel that they are more welcome here, especially if their children can get schooling in their native tongue.
The draft proposals, which are out to consultation until the end of July, have been broadly welcomed by home education groups, who hailed the decision not to make registration compulsory.
It comes to something when people are absurdly grateful that they have actually been allowed to retain some rights and freedoms. It suits the Statists to take away rights and freedoms in digestible increments. Do it at one go and you have a revolution. Do it in small incremental doses and the majority sleepwalk into it – Rather like lobsters.
It is reputed that, if you slowly raise the temperature of a cooking pot, lobsters don’t notice the gradual increase in temperature – and cook without complaint.
It is reputed that, if you slowly raise the temperature of a cooking pot, lobsters don’t notice the gradual increase in temperature – and cook without complaint.
I have cooked lobsters. Take my word for it, they notice.
I have heard the same story with respect to frogs, however I cannot comment on this, never having cooked a frog.
Removing rights from people though? Seems the expectation is now there, and the acceptance along with it.
A bunch of gypsies turned up on our local green yesterday – about two dozen of the buggers, including brats, horses and dags (d’yer like dags?)
If they want to promote tolerance, they might want to stop trashing our open spaces, having their brats shoplifting from the local traders and stop sponging off the poor bloody taxpayers.
The latest scam is to enrol their kids in the local school so the the police can’t move then on so quickly.
There’s a few Roma types round my neck of the woods. They are disreputable sorts up to all manner of no goodness. One came to the door with a crude cardboard sign saying “I’m Roma Give me money”, one attempted to sell me a “lucky rock” and another a”gold” ring (on two seperate occasions”. They all have “winning” smiles. I suspect they are the first group of migrants to pitch up in the UK for the dentistry.
Nick, if they’ve come here for the dentistry, I’m sure they won’t be staying long.
I think there are lessons Libertarians can learn from Gypsies on how to beat the Statists.
“The draft proposals…have been broadly welcomed by home education groups, who hailed the decision not to make registration compulsory.”
More useful idiots. Don’t they know a wedge when they see one?
How the state must love them! Now now froggies, it’s quite cool yet, you know, just relax and enjoy the water.
Gypsies sometimes seem lie the perfect state-free people, but in reality as anyone who has had to live near them will confirm, their culture is one of parasitic theft from non-gypsies no less profound than the most avaricious welfare spongers… the fact they do it themselves rather than intermediating the state to do their stealing for them does not make them any more admirable.
And so now the state wants to use them as an excuse to roll up home schoolers, eh?
According to Snopes, the frog story is untrue.
As for lobsters – I had heard that the most humane way to kill them is to keep them in the cold so that they become sluggish, then drop them directly into boiling water so they die instantly of shock. Although Gordon Ramsey seems to prefer to take a knife to their brains.
My reading of this post and comments is: the inability of the state, rationally to cope with the Gypsies lifestyle, and the impact on the rest of us, when it, the state, misguidedly tries to improve matters.
The problem is the state, not the Gypsies.
It is reputed that, if you slowly raise the temperature of a cooking pot, lobsters don’t notice the gradual increase in temperature – and cook without complaint.
“Sigh”. I said it was reputed and it is reputed, accurately or not. I didn’t say it was true of lobsters (or frogs), or suggest it was a good way to cook them.
It certainly seems to work well enough on voters though 😉
I used it as an apt illustration of how the gradual loss of liberty by small increments seems to go unnoticed, when the same loss in one step causes outrage.
Are you guys being daft on purpose?
ie, Are there 45000 Libertarian sympathisers in England?
Start a petition immediately to get 45,000 signatures.
Then, there should be at least one beacon school teaching Libertarian values.
And where that happens, we get the first openly Libertarian community.
This is one hell of an opportunity.
I’m in, but I doubt it’ll get anywhere; remember the roadcharging petition.
The number of signatures required varies with the perceived victimhood of those signing. Libertarian signatures are very light, so we’ll need lots, while Roma signatures are heavy so they need fewer (disabled roma signatures are heavier, and gay, disabled roma signatures descended from slaves are among the heaviest matter known).
signatures
Maybe in England but not in Alabama. They’d class you as a terrorist!
On home schooling: it seems that this approach says you can educate your children yourself, but only if you are siubject to inspection to see you do so in the same way as the state would. That rather defeats the point of home schooling, doesn’t it? Yet the groups were obliged to “welcome” some element of the consultation, because the alternative is the same with knobs on.
Self-criticism, I think the Maoist institution was. His successors are subtler.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/10/nschool10.xml
I think the Home Schoolers should be more frightened of the above.
Seeing as they already cant teach French, Spanish, German, Italian Latin etc. What hope for Romany?
Another thought occured to me. The DVD only cost Manchester University £15,000 in grant money.
How sophisticated a “language” is Romany anyway?
Does it have a word for Radio that isn’t radio. Cos Welsh doesn’t.
Dang!
Sorry Phillip. Just back from Italy with just 4 hours sleep and havent been near a computer or a paper for a week.
Should have read both links, knackered fool that I am!
The second point stands though.
£15,000 for a whole language?
Go ask Linguaphone what their production costs are like.
You cant even get a decent fitted kitchen for that kind of money.
I’ve an idea.
Why don’t we have lessons teaching the language of Britain’s largest oppressed minority?
I believe it is called ‘English’.
Guy Herbert is correct – what is the point of home education if what is taught (and how it is taught) is the same as in the government schools.
This is not just in Britain. Even in nations where the right to home school is in the constitution (such as Belgium) the state machine is now imposing its ideology by force and threats.
As for “celebrating diversity”, a nation divided into rival groups with radically different cultures (rather than united by a basic common culture) is hardly something to celebrate – or something that can survive in the long term.
Have gypsies in England been sedantarized like they have been elsewhere in Europe?
pietr
A libertarian school (whether one defines that as a school with no government funding or regulations – or, as the child freedom people would, as a school that also did not order the children about) would not need a “petition” to set up. Indeed there are such schools (at least in the sense of schools without government funding) already.
The existance of such a school (even of the full “child freedom” type or whatever) does not mean a “libertarian community” as the parents are still subject to all the governments taxes and regulations.
Are you being daft on purpose?
…will be encouraged to teach the language, culture and traditions practised by about 45,000 people in Britain.
I think the “language, culture, and traditions” practiced by Britain’s gypsies is already alive and well in our state schools.
Alisa, I think you mean ‘sedEntarized’, being required to sit still. My dictionary doesn’t know ‘sedAntarized’. Or did you mean another word entirely?
Random Joke!
Q. How many libertarians would it take to change one light bulb?
A. None- one well-informed libertarian should be able to light up a whole room by themselves!
a school that also did not order the children about
Nah, this would not be libertarian, just chaotic.
Libertarianism does not discount the necessity of teaching the value of discipline, nor does it need to avoid imposing it on children.
Sorry, objecting to the idea of adults being treated as children in no way implies an objection to treating children as children. Only an idiot would advocate treating children as adults.
Paul,
Aren’t private UK schools still inspected by and therefore operate under DfE rules?
nick g,
That joke’s punchline is usually rendered, “None. the invisble hand will take care of it”.
I think it wise to treat children as adults as much as possible. How much is possible depends on the particular child and my own leadership abilities. If because of the situation, I have to use force or manipulation, I consider myself failing. It is true that in a group or classroom situation this is much harder, but I think my maxim still applies.
A further speculation on my part is that because of the way education and society is organized today many people, throughout their adult lives, accept and even welcome being treated as children, perhaps because of the application of military style discipline in school or even from their parents.
Finally, I am unsure of the what role the imposing of discipline on children, has in adult self discipline and personal responsibility. I do not rule it out, but think example much more important.
Nick: mea culpa.
So what’s the answer?
I think it wise to treat children as adults as much as possible.
Indeed. Until quite recently – well into the 20th century, though there are hints of the new salamandrism in the 19th – the ambition of most parents and most children was that the children should grow up as quickly as possible to become completed people. A child was a defective, unformed, specimen of humanity, and childhood a necessary but not desirable state. Part of the point of education was to build the man or woman from the child.
Now childhood is sentimentalised and exalted, with the boundary drawn ever more rigidly by age, children imprisoned behind it, while nominal adults are continually more infantilised by supervision and tending provided by the state.
No, I’m being daft because I gulped down the first few paragraphs without digesting.
Aren’t they giving the state schools the right to choose specialist curricula segments then?
Oh well.
Who wants to live forever anyway?
Nick M. – you are quite correct, private schools operate under a lot of regulations. And the government is imposing more and more.
Of course I do not support these regulations.
pietr – I certainly do not want to live for ever. My time is over, give me a painless 100% certain pill (i.e. no chance of waking up in hospital feeling like….) and I will take it this evening.
But do not do be too quick to give up on life – your situation may be (almost certainly is) quite different to mine.
As long as you are young and/or have an income life is worth living.
Or have knowledge that other people want to learn. Your life may be quite a disappointment to you, but I find your life is quite rewarding to me on a regular basis.
I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it. Your style of teaching reminds me of that program ‘Connections’. I not only learn from it, a very high proportion of what you teach, stays taught. You teach me things I didn’t know and tie them together in ways I didn’t imagine so I can understand how the things I see today are not random but predictable consequences of earlier acts.
If the essays and comments you present can become even half as enjoyable for you to write as they are for some (most?) of the rest of us to read, you would find reward and raison d’etre as a teacher. You just don’t see your students face to face.
You just don’t see your students face to face.
Probably for the best. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have commentated with no pants on.
Don’t sweat it Paul.It would take more than a few measly spluttering British to see me off.
I was quoting Brian Blessed in ‘Flash Gordon'(1980), just before he joins in the general attack on Ming’s Rocketship Ajax.
Like turning a frown upside down, suicidal thoughts(never had any)should be targetted back to the cause.
Which means, murderousness when you realise it is the bastards who made you feel bad, not you.
http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com is the most logical libertarian way of treating children.
On Home Education: the coverage in the Guardian and the Telegraph is really inaccurate. I recommend reading (and commenting to the DfES) on the consultation itself, which is here
The consultation states the law on Home Education as it stands. Britain has some of the most liberal laws there are; it’s a question of preserving them. Presumably lots of LEA types will be writing to the DfES saying “this document is an outrage!”
Most pertinent: under UK law, parents are responsible for the education of their children. Most choose to put their children into schools, but they are still legally responsible.
Home Educators do NOT have to follow the National Curriculum or indeed any curriculum. As the law stands, they do NOT have to inform the LEAs of what their children are learning. If children have never been to school, parents do not have to register them with an LEA, so they can stay under the radar entirely. LEAs can only interfere if they have grounds for believing the child is not receiving an education (and being home educated is not, in law, itself grounds for concern). Parents do not have to allow the LEA inspectors into their homes, show them written work or anything – the consultation codument as it stands is quite clear that there are all sorts of way of satisfying the LEA thatan education is taking place without intruding into the private life of that family.
I really recommend you read the consultation and comment on it – the HE community could do with the vocal support of you libertarians to preserve the law as it stands.
[a contrast with Germany, for example, where a home educated girl was recently taken into care because her parents had committed the crime of… not sending her to school…]
Well I am contradicting myself as now I have been elected to the local council I do have an income (of sorts) – and, who knows, I may even be paid for those months of commercial leaflet delivery that I did.
Of course being elected under the banner of a party (the Conservative party) whose national leadership I dislike and whose local policy I oppose (there does not seem to be much national policy to take a position on) is not exactly something to be proud of.
On Monday there is a vote as to who is to be the new leader of Kettering council.
Both candidates are in favour of the same money wasting policies (they have been open and honest about this, so there is nothing for me to whine about on that score – it was all in the local “manifesto”).
I will still go to the meeting (I need the walk) even though I may well miss “Heros” on television (if anyone had told me, when I was young, that I would even consider the importance of a television show over a political meeting I would have thought they were joking). I will then listen all that is said – make a statement in opposition to local policy (if this is allowed) abstain in the vote, and walk home.
As with most politics (at least politics in opposition to the increase in the size and scope of statism) – it is a matter of putting one’s fist in a bucket of water, pulling out the fist and looking at the hole one has not made.
Of course my problems are rather unimportant compared to those of others.
For example, take those people, such as Midwestener, who (after the murders at Virginia Tech) thought that people might finally be allowed to defend themselves on State college property in Virginia (i.e. the ban on firearms be removed).
But no – there has been yet more “gun control” instead.
Every event is used as an reason to increase statism – (in education as well as everything else – remember “No Child Left Behind” as a response to falling educational standards, and I am sure a few cases of child abuse could be found to attack home schooling with) never to reduce it.
Even people the “liberals” hate (such as Bill O’ Reilly) tend to go along with the elite when something serious happens.
Child abuse used to attack home schooling: just google Eunice Spry.
If the voters like you, that’s all that matters. The national party organizations have a checkbook, but the votes are in the precincts. Maybe there is different, but here party affiliation doesn’t typically mean much more than astrological sign.
At least, I assume that you can legally vote from knowing right from wrong, and not according to a party platform.
As for Bill O’Really?, he’s an elitist chump. I listened to his comments on concealed weapons a few weeks ago. His attitude was “I annoy people, so I should be armed. Nobody else in NYC other than me needs a gun though.”
Yes Sunfish.
I am allowed to vote against the platform (especially as no one consulted me about it – no vote or anything like that).
As for Bill O’Reilly, actually I like the man. It is just that he is not a conservative (in the Edmund Burke [who opposed “gun control” and restrictions on drugs as well as opposing welfare schemes and the crimes of French Revolutionaries], Barry Goldwater sense – as in John Wayne’s definition of a “Republic” in “The Alamo” a place where people can say what they like, buy and sell how they wish, and be drunk or sober as they choose). To be fair to him he has always said “I am not a conservative” – it is just assumed that he is, because the “liberals” hate him so much.
Paul, I wish I could put it as clearly as Mid has done. Every comment thread, first thing I look for your comment. I often wondered how you manage to remember so much information. I now think it’s the connections that Mid mentioned, i.e. you remember things because you organize them in a way that is relevant to their real significance in history, as it pertains to our present and our future. I think this is also why “what you teach sticks”. Your gift is interpreting the details, while keeping the big picture in sight. This is the essence of studying history. In fact, there is no better reason to study it. You should be teaching history and writing history books. I’d certainly pay good money for both.