Children and Politics

I totally agree with you Chestnut but there seems to be a national propensity of forcing one's political views onto others now. There doesn't seem to be any depth too low to sink to, including using young children to push their opinions onto.

All teaching is based on personal opinion, though. How else can it be done? What led to the first world war? Was X Y or Z a good King/PM/War leader? Is a sonnet a pure form of poetry or a restrictive one? The answers to these questions are all personal opinions, but worthy of consideration, surely?

In the end, the point of education is (or should be) that children learn how to work out the answers to these things on their own, but they need to be aware that there are different points of view, and crucially what is the difference between a prejudice and an educated opinion.

As always, it is dangerous to have a knee-jerk reaction without knowing the detail. Was there a discussion about the comments? Were they presented as facts or as the basis for debate? Was another point of view given?

8 year olds can have a debate with an adult in their classroom ?

Not appropriate, what was the Head Teacher thinking?

If I were a parent of a child at that particular school I would be emailing every member of the Board of Governors, council members and my MP and Education Secretary.

Political education should be impartial at whatever age it is taught.

Schools ACTIVELY teach texts in my subject (English) which promote socialism. At the dictat of Michael Gove, when he was minister for education.

I've always believed that children should be taught the facts, then told that some people think this and some people think that. Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister, some people think he's good for the country and some don't. Maybe tell them why people think like that. But to blatantly say he's a very very bad man is way out of order. There has to be balance not extreme opinion one way or the other.

No idea why this man would be going into a school

Hopefully they will invite one with opposing views

Sense of balance is
very important

Children should not have any political education they are much to easily indoctrinated by adults with extreme views. When they do get older and topics like climate change are debated, a balanced view must be given, it’s far too easy to only give one side of a topic.

Michael Gove promoting socialism seems odd. Reverse psychology perhaps?

Teaching violence to susceptible teenagers is the main reason we moved out of London! My DD1 was told to write an essay about putting Mrs Thatcher On a bonfire. There were lots of gang fights and eventually a boy was stabbed to death and his killer ended up in prison. Another boy was chased into an empty building and died when he fell down a lift shaft.

Stormzy. What a role model.
Songs like this..

Yeah, yo

[Chorus]
Call me Gunshot Mike or Mr Skeng
Check one-two, man skitzed again
Dickhead yout in a dickhead crew
Getting gassed up by your dickhead friends

[Verse 1]
It's like dem man woke up pissed again
If I buck these pricks again
I got goons and you got goons
But the difference is your shit pretends
And..

Hopefully at 8 years old the children will let his comments wash over them and move on to the next lesson. I once had a parent come in to complain their 5 year old was distressed about a story I read the class with an ugly troll in it. The child himself was totally unperturbed so I don't think the Boris wolf comment will stick for long in the child's head.
Come to think of it, Boris did look a bit like a crazy wolf in the shot of his love actually advert!

Good grief

Chestnut, as the opening poster on this thread could you post a link to this "happening" as you state you "just heard" in that opening post?

I am sure that many would wish to know where this news is propagating from for people to hear.
Many thanks.

Perhaps Stormzy could take an English class. His command of our language looks impressive!
?

In a family where all topics are discussed, even with 8-year-olds, political opinion is bound to come into it. I agree with Chestnut that various points of view should be covered.

Random people going into schools are different. When my son was at school in the 1980s an MP gave an anti-abortion talk. This was not a catholic or religious school. I was pretty appalled, but my son was about 16 so capable of working out the arguments for and against. All the same, it shouldn’t have happened.

Grandad google is your friend, just Stormzy and school generated this article and youtube video.
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7805051/Stormzy-visits-former-primary-school-seven-year-olds-grill-star-bad-language.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK&__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true

And here:
www.theguardian.com/music/2019/dec/18/piers-morgan-attacks-stormzy-telling-schoolkids-pm-is-bad-man

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/19/stormzy-piers-morgan-row-boris-johnson-comments/

So if you invite a successful ex-pupil back to talk to the children and they ask him questions is he supposed to lie? It seems to me an excellent idea that might help some youngsters realise they csn be successful. I loved his answer to a question about how he became successful. "Worked hard at something I love"

That's obviously how he got his goons.

well trisher he seemed quite happy to lie about swearing, or knowing bad words.

Judging by those lyrics he is not a decent role model for young people, especially that young. It's very sad that young children are being exposed to such vile content. When I was that age we listened to Sparky's Magic Piano and Nellie the Elephant.

Well, if this artical is in the Daily Mail then every single word must be the absolute truth. ?

Sounds more like to me that this is a successful old boy who has been invited back to the school and was having a joke and a lark about with the kids when he was addressing them.

My company is often invited into schools and colleges when they are studying Britains industrial history. As we are always speaking on the terrible industrial injuries that went along with that history we always have a policy of "keep it light" and when possible humourous.

Often a difficult balance to try and achieve, but possible if you think it through thoroughly.

Grandad1943 - It's in all the papers not just the Daily Mail so check your facts before posting.
If that is their best example of a successful old boy then heaven help them. What kind of school is that.

Freedom of speech gone mad---like everything else.