The latest efforts to restrict the freedom of bloggers come not from authoritarian governments or oversensitive lobby groups, but university administrators. Increasing numbers of academics are being disciplined for criticising their bosses, or other colleagues, on blogs like Bullying of Academics in Higher Education, other online forums or even in emails. As Dennis Hayes of Academics for Academic Freedom tells this week's Times Higher Education Supplement, 'Despite continually promoting the supposed benefits of new technology, in reality universities fear it. Blogs, simple emails or discussion groups and podcasts are new forms in which academics and students can explore ideas freely without permission from any authority. [University managements] view academic freedom of speech as something that happens in the classroom and not something that is to be tolerated elsewhere.' In truth, academic freedom cannot be limited to classrooms, but depends on the more general freedom to speak freely in a variety of contexts, blogs included.
Dolan Cummings
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
Unmaking history
April Fool’s day has come and gone, but at least one crazy story remains real: schools are dropping History lessons on the Holocaust and the Crusades for fear of offending Muslim pupils. A Department for Skills and Education report revealed that a school in northern England avoided the Holocaust for fear of confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial’ among some pupils, while another avoided the Crusades because ‘their balanced treatment of the topic would have directly challenged what was being taught in some local mosques’.
This is the politics of multiculturalism taken to its most relativistic and dangerous limits. The pernicious notion that all cultures and beliefs are equal and should be elevated above criticism in order to promote social harmony naturally translates into a degraded relativism where there is no one truth whose foundations cannot be assailed on cultural grounds. Because some -in practice, probably very few indeed- Muslim pupils are peddled propaganda at home or at the mosque, everyone learning history at these schools is denied the opportunity to learn about these important historical events is not only reprehensible, but also potentially dangerous, as those children who are fed lies will never see them challenged in an open environment.
The stupidity of such practices, particularly at a time when bleating about ‘Holocaust denial’ has reached epic proportions, is astounding. Here we have schools practically guaranteeing ignorance about the Holocaust, and thereby creating fertile ground for denial to take root, simply because of their own cowardice in trying to avoid a clash of cultures in the classroom. Education should be challenging. It should open up new worlds for students and, yes, shock them out of narrow-minded prejudices and encourage them to engage critically with what they encounter. Otherwise, what is the point? We might as well leave kids at home and let them simply parrot whatever they overhear. Or invite religious organisations to take over education wholesale. Ah, but I forget: that policy is already being implemented.
Lee Jones
This is the politics of multiculturalism taken to its most relativistic and dangerous limits. The pernicious notion that all cultures and beliefs are equal and should be elevated above criticism in order to promote social harmony naturally translates into a degraded relativism where there is no one truth whose foundations cannot be assailed on cultural grounds. Because some -in practice, probably very few indeed- Muslim pupils are peddled propaganda at home or at the mosque, everyone learning history at these schools is denied the opportunity to learn about these important historical events is not only reprehensible, but also potentially dangerous, as those children who are fed lies will never see them challenged in an open environment.
The stupidity of such practices, particularly at a time when bleating about ‘Holocaust denial’ has reached epic proportions, is astounding. Here we have schools practically guaranteeing ignorance about the Holocaust, and thereby creating fertile ground for denial to take root, simply because of their own cowardice in trying to avoid a clash of cultures in the classroom. Education should be challenging. It should open up new worlds for students and, yes, shock them out of narrow-minded prejudices and encourage them to engage critically with what they encounter. Otherwise, what is the point? We might as well leave kids at home and let them simply parrot whatever they overhear. Or invite religious organisations to take over education wholesale. Ah, but I forget: that policy is already being implemented.
Lee Jones
Speech police
That it is ridiculous to try to ban the use of the word ‘gay’ in the sense of ‘naff’ or ‘rubbish’ has already been amply demonstrated. Any attempt to impose such a ban not only fails to address the issues surrounding its use in a properly homophobic sense -thereby doing nothing to tackle real homophobia in society- but it also imposes a creed of appropriateness on people's behaviour. The response to the use of the term is more concerned with creating an atmosphere of ‘ooh, you can’t say that!’ than actually defeating any underlying prejudice, which is actually more often imagined than real.
These speech codes are usually policed by self-righteous, hand-wringing ‘liberals’ in human resources departments, local councils or student unions. But if you want evidence that the codes are becoming more rigorously enforced, look no further than an incredible incident in Cheshire on Saturday, when no fewer than four police officers turned up to reprimand a 10-year-old child for using the word ‘gay’ in an email to his friend. The friend’s parents reported this to the police, who tracked down the dangerous perpetrator with the help of his school – which is appropriate, since the boys in blue now seem to be very concerned about playground banter. Reportedly, 10-year-old George is now terrified of being thrown in jail, though the police insist their response was ‘proportionate’. Still, he won’t be saying ‘gay’ again any time soon, eh?
Lee Jones
These speech codes are usually policed by self-righteous, hand-wringing ‘liberals’ in human resources departments, local councils or student unions. But if you want evidence that the codes are becoming more rigorously enforced, look no further than an incredible incident in Cheshire on Saturday, when no fewer than four police officers turned up to reprimand a 10-year-old child for using the word ‘gay’ in an email to his friend. The friend’s parents reported this to the police, who tracked down the dangerous perpetrator with the help of his school – which is appropriate, since the boys in blue now seem to be very concerned about playground banter. Reportedly, 10-year-old George is now terrified of being thrown in jail, though the police insist their response was ‘proportionate’. Still, he won’t be saying ‘gay’ again any time soon, eh?
Lee Jones
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