I meant to post about this when the issue was first
introduced, but I was busy soaking up the French sun before I return to rainy
ol’ England.
So as a result of spats between certain government
officials, children should now be taught “British values” in school… but what
values are these? Are we not a democracy, so shouldn’t we all have a say in
what these British values are? I don’t remember being asked what my values as a
British citizen are, do you?
Oh, so we mean teaching tolerance and equality!
Well, I’m glad that’s cleared up, maybe if we’re teaching
tolerance we’ll have OFSTED stop running around telling qualified teachers how
to teach and pupils how to learn. But of course, that’s too much of a dream…
In all honesty, I just can’t get my head around how Gove
axes literature that teaches tolerance from the syllabus because it’s “foreign”
and students don’t study enough “British” literature, and then he says children
need to understand the British value of tolerance. This sounds a little
hypocritical to me.
In all honesty, if we’re going to start looking at
tolerance, we need to look at the facts. How is it that less than 10% of hate
crimes are taken seriously by the police, if we’re such a tolerant nation? How
is it that UKIP just got majority votes in the European Election, despite their
sexist, racist, and homophobic remarks, if we’re so welcoming to anyone who isn’t
a straight white male? I do understand that only 33% of the UK voted, but that
means that 67% of Brits are complacent about such issues.
So if we really want to promote “British values” how about this:
Instead of barging into schools with high Muslim populations
and telling them not to become terrorists (yeah, come on. We all know what this
is really about. Don’t sugar coat it!), we start dealing with the REAL problem,
which is that majority of British children are geographically, culturally, and
politically unaware.
When I arrived in France and started meeting other students
from all over the planet, I became aware of how ignorant I was. It’s true!
There were plenty of countries that were previous British colonies that I had
no idea about. Embarrassing. How is it that we’re so “tolerant” when we know
nothing about anyone, despite the fact that we marched into their countries,
raped their women and murdered their men, ravaged their lands and made slaves
of their children?
Oh! I know why! It’s because these parts of history aren’t
taught very well, and because the books that talk about this kind of thing have
been axed from the syllabus. Silly me. There I was thinking that maybe a
tolerant country would teach the mistakes of its past and hold firm links with
its ex-colonies and European partners to ensure that equality really did exist.
My mistake.
The fact of the matter is that this “British values” malarkey
is the latest in a very, very long string of BS presented by our current
government. If we want to enforce tolerance, we need to start presenting people
(not just children) with opportunities to open their minds. For example,
literature that challenges racism, sexism, homophobia.
An emphasis on languages, with the specific focus on USING
these language skills and what it means to be able to communicate with
different countries and cultures. Languages shouldn’t be a case of “should I learn
a language?” but rather “WHICH language should I learn?” with the option of
learning a range of languages (and not only European languages) and with
government funding into student exchange programmes.
I’m sure there are plenty of excuses not to organise
something like this, but similar schemes seem to work well in Germany and
Canada… (Just sayin’.)
I’m sure teaching children more about the actual countries
in the world, along with their cultures, would also be more useful that all
that time I spent in maths class learning all that SIN COS TAN stuff that I don’t
even remember – but you know, we use that in everyday life and that’s why we
prioritise it over subjects like Religious Education and Modern Languages.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion… I mean, I could be
completely wrong, and 67% of the population could’ve merely forgotten about the
EP elections, and 90% of hate crime reports could have just resolved themselves
magically whilst collecting dust in a deep dark corner of the police report
system, and Gove could be coming down with an early onset of Alzheimer’s and
not realise the mixed signals he’s sending, and I could be the only person in
Britain who doesn’t know our “dark history” in detail, and maybe I’m just a
dreamer. Just a dreamer.
But I doubt it.
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