In June 2020 I taught groups of masked children who sat under a large poster of Nelson Mandela standing triumphant, fist in the air saying, “Let freedom reign”. The irony was not lost on me. Outside of the classroom I watched as children were screamed at when a ball they were kicking in the playground crossed over into another bubble. I passed kids on the stairs, some of whom had dropped their masks below their noses, hoping to inhale some air fresher than that which had been expelled after a cheese and onion pasty at lunch, and watched angry teachers yelling in their faces to pull their masks up “you might as well not wear it” shouted one particularly vexed PE teacher. Well quite.
On one occasion I found a small 11-year-old girl hunched in the corridor trying to use her inhaler whilst awkwardly messing about with her flimsy elasticated mask. I crouched beside her and offered her assistance. “You don’t have to wear it,” I told her. She knew that she was entitled to exemption (how kind) but said she had dissuaded her mum from requesting a lanyard that marked her out as different because it was just too embarrassing. So, there she slumped, struggling for breath.
Looking back, it is both laughable and horrifying to see what we did to our children.
Masks may be off. Bubbles may have gone. But there’s a new pandemic in town in the form of the LGBTQ+ pathogen which is killing common sense as it infects the minds of otherwise high functioning adults.
I have witnessed teachers walking and talking at the same time, using cutlery and even presenting exam data in a way that will impress Ofsted, many are not without wit, but when it comes to all things rainbow large swathes of the profession become stupefied.
We saw the result of such stupification this week when a secret recording of an interaction between a student and their teacher was made public. In it a student who questioned the validity of a classmate identifying as a cat was reprimanded and called “despicable” (feel free to read that twice).
“Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said. Never mind heaven, this teacher sounds like she’d struggle to enter a revolving door.
As families break down and women work increasingly outside the home it is all some parents can do to throw a packet of digestives in a rucksack and ship their kids out the door to school. At the same time teachers are under ever increasing pressure to be social worker, dietician, police officer, counsellor, first aider, relationships expert, hygienist, sex guru. Trust me when I tell you that teachers, ill-equipped to meet the multitude of demands on them, would turn to Satan if it meant clawing back three minutes spent queuing at a knackered photocopier. And, as it turns out, this is what they have done.
It’s all about offloading and outsourcing. Parents have outsourced education in its broadest sense to teachers, forgetting that they themselves are the primary educators. Teachers, desperate to get from playground duty to the H block before the final chime of the bell, outsource their responsibilities to charitable groups offering shiny new resources that do all the work for them. It’s a perfect play from those who have waited for an opportunity to groom your children; your Amelia, your Piotr, your Lucas, your Chioma. These are the people who will form what sort of adult your child will become. If we let them.
Schools should be sending home policies informing parents of what content is being delivered, but do they? And does anyone other than Caroline Farrow read them?
It’s becoming pretty clear that we need to step up our game. Like a new year’s resolution made in good faith but abandoned by February, we cannot afford to let our commitment slide. There is too much at stake. Don’t let the pervs get their hands on your kids.
Get the finest tooth-comb you can find and go through the policies. If there is anything unclear, reach out to the Family Education Trust. Demand that all lesson plans be published, demand the right to opt your kids out of any RSHE that you consider to be unsuitable, find other like-minded parents who can stand in solidarity with you – there may be things on which we disagree but Muslim, Jewish and Christian parents can strengthen one another on this. Don’t buy the line that refusal to accept what’s being offered is bigoted – it’s not, prove them wrong. Do not let a 26-year-old single childless teacher bully you into thinking that their level of education places them at an advantage over you. It doesn’t. Apply to be a governor at your local school – protect them from within.
If need be, pull your kid out of school and find a good home education network. Heck, take them for a walk, a chat, a trip around Sainsbury’s with you – it will do them more good than colouring in the armpits of a non-binary person in class.
Don’t ever forget that your kids do not belong to the state, they do not belong to Peter Tatchell, Andrew Moffat or Archbishop McMahon. They belong to God and are entrusted to your care.
Don’t be blindsided by sophistry. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, it makes a sound. If a teacher bullies your kid into accepting feline identity as one of 300+ genders and there is no one there to record it, it damages the soul. On this occasion we heard it. What about all the times we don’t?
As Dietrich von Hildebrand rightly said, it is better to be a beggar in freedom than to be forced into compromises against your conscience. Let’s be beggars in freedom together.
(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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