Tuesday
Apr082014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill +++Michael Gove responds to Climate Control+++
Apr 8, 2014 Climate: other Education According to Breitbart London, Education Secretary Michael Gove has issued a statement in response to the Montford/Shade report on climate change education:
A spokesman for Michael Gove, has said that teachers who do not offer a balanced view on issues like climate change are breaking the law. The Department for Education's comments came after a report from The Global Warming Policy Foundation raised serious concerns about the lack of balance in British classrooms.
Reader Comments (35)
Well done the both of you.
After the schools, perhaps the Beeb could be instructed to offer a balanced view.
Well done for getting this noted. Even if Gove et al intend to do nothing beyond 'lip service', the problem has been noted.
I have a daughter, almost four, and there is no way that she is ever going to lose sleep over the nonsense promoted by the Khmer Verte.
Way back when on a long lost thread I retailed the story of my niece who didn't want to go to London with her Dad because, after much questioning and many tears, we discovered that she couldn't swim! She had absorbed the fantasy artwork of London half submerged and truly believed that was London now.
If we were to actually have some impact then I suggest that those on the board with some knowledge of the structures involved in Schools should inform those of us who don't how we can fight back using the same methods that the Khmer Verte have pioneered.
That was a quick response
Well done guys.
From the article:
And did this socialistic wonder policy decrease political interference in education, or greatly increase it?
Yet another own goal by the Stupid Party, ruthlessly exploited by the Evil Party.
“The Secretary of State read this report with concern"
It is to be hoped that MG will take such action as is necessary to ensure
balance is introduced, once he has checked the veracity of pettition.
Congratulations to all those concerned with this stirling report.
The Bish is becoming surprisingly influential.
Perhaps something he never expected ( but which I applaud).
Here's our man at Breitbart talking about his old friend and colleague back in January 2011:
As John Page points out that was a quick response and the Education Secretary is a busy man. Very well done all.
In how the UK got to this point let's not forget London hosting the 2011 UNESCO meeting where the report stated "Responding to climate change also starts in the classroom. Education is the way to shape new ways of thinking and forge new sustainable behaviour.
Fundamentally, education is about values." Lots of what is intended to create sustainability is coming in through character education or language about necessary ethics.
Another area to look at when trying to get a handle on the propagandizing going on in UK education and elsewhere is illustrated by Professor Guy Claxton and his 2006 Keynote Address to the British Educational Association's Annual Conference. Instead of knowledge, Claxton wants to encourage a tolerance in students for confusion. He stated that "those who have no tolerance for fogginess--who have been trained to think that confusion is a sign of stupidity, for instance--have therefore reduced their capacity to learn."
Having schools actively celebrate Muddled Minds and confusion as a desirable state to help get to Growth Mindsets simply encourages minds that have no idea what truth is or how to tell when provided models or theories have any connection to reality. Instead, Claxton pushes for schools to teach students to be "able to stay calm, focused and engaged when we don't know what to do." He goes on to state this disposition will be augmented through new "emotional and personal attitudes, beliefs and tolerances" that become new habits of mind and character traits for the students.
Coupled with brainwashing curriculum, this psychological social engineering is a terrible substitute for actual demonstrable knowledge.
...A spokesman for Michael Gove, has said that teachers who do not offer a balanced view on issues like climate change are breaking the law....
But we DO offer a balanced view!!!
We tell the classes that some scientists think that the collapse of civilisation and the death of all schoolchildren from fiery Climate Change rays and rampaging Polar Bears will happen THIS year, while others think it will happen NEXT year. That's perfectly balanced....
Hysterical response from the consensus in 3... 2... 1...
@esquirerobin
...those who have no tolerance for fogginess--who have been trained to think that confusion is a sign of stupidity, for instance--have therefore reduced their capacity to learn...
And of course he's right. At the limit, those who are totally stupid have an infinite 'capacity to learn', while those who are well-informed brainboxes have far less that they need to absorb.
The error comes in believing that the UK Educational System should be trying to output people who have a 'greater capacity to learn'. That suggests that the schooling systems should be emptying minds rather than filling them up...
This is where I came in.
When Justice Burton in 2007 ruled that the film “An Inconvenient Truth” shouldn't be shown without corrective material, my libertarian reaction was: “What right has a High Court Judge to say what should be taught in schools?”
But what the Guardian (my reliable source) wasn't reporting was that Justice Burton's criterion for truth was agreement with the IPCC reports. And Al Gore was way out.
For two weeks the Guardian and others suggested discreetly that Justice Burton was off base. Then Gore and the IPCC shared a Nobel Prize, and the minor fact that Gore had been lying to British schoolchildren was forgotten.
Many thanks to John Shade and Andrew Montford for opening this can of worms.
I"m quite sure it"s a typical politucal diversion. The unbiased science that needs to be taught, IS the one done by Lew, Mann, Creepypeace&Co
Hmmm.......
Let's hope Michael Gove has success in getting "balanced" advice to help to define a balanced view.
The BBC had a few problems with this. They have to remain on the alert to avoid a "false balanced" view.
This may not turn out to be as pretty as one might think at first glance. In Canada the teaching community is both enormously powerful and thoroughly brainwashed and would resist any attempt to restore sanity. Yes, we share the problem.
RE: Professor Guy Claxton and his 2006 Keynote Address to the British Educational Association's Annual Conference. Instead of knowledge, Claxton wants to encourage a tolerance in students for confusion
Was this guy a one time skit writer for Monty Python? This surely has to rank high in any competition for dumbest, most idiotic statement on the subject of education. It is one thing to get students not to fear uncertainty. I'd go so far as to teach them that confusion IN OTHERS is often a great time for accomplishing their own goals. With the caveat that to do so they will need to develop the sort of learning and reasoning skills which will limit their own confusion. If this is what Claxton meant, then ok. It certainly doesn't come across as his meaning.
Maybe he's suffering from a confused mind.
Spokesperson for Secretary of state for Education and I quote:
Unarguably.
"equipped with the scientific knowledge" a fine ambition [let us all hope that ambition comes to fruition] and when in the future said pupils are so equipped, that will raise them above the level of most, if not all of the IPCC.
I have said it before, there is not much in Gove's character which endears him to me but by God we should support what he is trying to do in our Schools - to instill critical thinking alongside academic rigour and force it back into the classroom's of Britain - just for that, Mr. Gove, is to be and rightly highly commended.
Well done also to, Andrew and John + GWPF - I salute you.
I also live in Canada and as Political Junkie stated the teachers unions in Canada are, to say the least, left wing, brainwashed in green culture, and would almost certainly resist what one can only hope will be Gove's intervention in the UK.
The memories of my own children's education was that they had an inherent ability to know "BS" when they heard it, either from my self and my wife or their teachers. Having five grandchildren I will do my utmost to ensure that they also learn critical thinking skills, even to the extent of supporting them against their parents wishes if appropriate.
Through life experience I have faith that freedom of thought will never be suppressed, however, I see the right to freedom of expression is under pressure in many developed countries. I hate and detest "PC speak'' with a passion and will walk a mile to avoid people who espouse it.
Well done on the report, the quick response from officialdom, even though it was only a spokesperson so far, is informative.
Mike Singleton, my intent isn't to highjack this very important topic to focus solely on a parochial Canadian perspective.
However, the enormous power of the teachers' unions in Canada might be of interest to a wider audience.
In Ontario, the teachers' unions don't quite yet have a 100% total power to elect governments that they want. But they do have the perceived (and I believe real) power to throw an existing government out by giving or withholding contributions and organizational support in cash and kind.
The interesting aspect of union behavior is that they have been willing to help elect less than supportive governments to punish regimes that failed to meet all of their inflated expectations. If you don't toe the line, you're out!
So could a student be rejected for teacher training if they have Climate Skeptic views?
Should the statement not be from the 'Department for Education for England' since Mr Gove's writ does not extend beyond England? Should not this not be reflected? Otherwise surely people are being misled. Why are not government departments not recognising this?
It is a form of child abuse and so the parents of traumatised children should go legal.
"..... teachers who do not offer a balanced view on issues like climate change are breaking the law ...."
All well and good to say it but will Gove demand changes to the many curricula that will need to be changed? And if he does will the people that actually do the compiling do it?
No, the only way to get a change (or a change in the law) is to win a complaint in court. Like most who respond here I would see this as a certainty, given the wealth of propaganda disguised as fact, let alone the outright failure of predictions, models and so on. However, using the legal system in this kind of case is akin to asking a stranger to toss a coin to settle an argument, especially so since the climate alarm side has in effect predicted every possible outcome.
Apr 8, 2014 at 8:36 PM | John Page
Indeed. And all the more amazing since it doesn't bear any sign of a Retwardian™ fingerprint (unlike the unexpectedly rapid response of the IPCC a few days ago!)
But that aside ... Congratulations, Andrew and John. An excellent and (unlike the many horror stories that have emanated from the UNEP and/or its "children", yet another derivative of the sleep-inducing Agenda 21) truly scary story.
It's not something I've investigated, but I don't doubt for a moment that there are other jurisdictions where children are subjected to similar state-initiated and/or sanctioned abuse and brainwashing.
And, while I'm here ... pardon my pedantry, but if you will permit me to pick one tiny nit ... I couldn't help noticing your "Note 54 Op cit." I think you meant to write Ibid because you have given no indication of the Op you are citing ;-)
what I am seeing with Junior is that stuff like "climate change" is pervasive, yes, but then fundamentally rejected for the same reason.
"Climate change" is "The Man" and any self-respecting fan of Jack Black knows that you don't join the Man, you fight the Man.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332379/quotes
[on sticking it to "The Man"] Yes! But, you can't just say it, man. You've gotta feel it in your blood and guts! If you wanna rock, you gotta break the rules. You gotta get mad at the man! And right now, I'm the man. That's right, I'm the man, and who's got the guts to tell me off? Huh? Who's gonna tell me off?
Mentioning Guy Claxton again he is pushing what he calls the 4 Rs in UK classrooms in order to achieve what he calls an Epistemic Climate Change. The brainwashing in UK schools cannot be addressed without also recognizing these so-called Learning-Power Dispositions of Resilence (Feeling or the emotional aspects of learning), Resourcefulness (Thinking or the cognitive aspcts of learning from someone who cherishes muddled minds), Reflectiveness (Managing or the strategic aspects of learning), and Reciprocity (Relating or the social aspects of learning).
I first called attention to this alarming shift in connection with what the RSA is pushing as part of its Social Brain Project. It ties into what I am seeing in the US, Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong as well.
My son is only now looking into the whole question of climate change aged 23. He is confused because he was taught it at school as gospel - we're all going to fry and it's all our fault - and did not dare challenge it. He went to a fee paying school [I only mention this because someone else said so and was puzzled that they were also being taught in the same vein] but still take exam board GCSEs which Andrew and John have discussed in their report. Unless private schools opt for the IGCSE, which I think more and more are doing as they are more rigorous than GCSEs, then schools have to follow the curriculum.
I recall a conversation with one of his biology teachers while watching a hockey match when I mentioned that I was sceptical of the science; he agreed, but dared not declare that publicly as his Head of Department - PhD in Biology - was rabidly warmist and they had already had a massive argument about it in the staff room so he, probably sensibly for his career, decided to remain silent on the subject thereafter. The HoD has now retired - I wonder whether the teaching has changed............. probably not, unless and until the curriculum changes.
Rooting out the greenie infiltration will take years, not just in education, but in local government, national government, everywhere. With the 'outsourcing' of contracts, whereby local authorities are 'facilitators' and 'commissioners of services' merely allows the greenies to take more control, especially when 'environmental' and 'sustainable' implications have to be taken into account. I hope to see an end to this in my lifetime, but somehow I doubt it.
Re the extension of this matter to the Beeb...
As I posted elsewhere, after the publishing of the IPCC's 'doomsday' 5th Assessment, one tv viewer wrote to 'Newswatch' to complain that there was TOO MUCH input from 'deniers' - 'Fact should take precedence over opinion...'
Well - stone the crows (or put them through a wind turbine, perhaps) - isn't this precisely the argument which we make all the time..? Climate models (and the political interpretation of them) is 'opinion'; what you get when you look out of the window is 'fact'..!
It will be interesting to see how this relates to the new exam curriculum:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26955452
But we are worried that there is a discrepancy between what the Secretary of State wants and what is going on in Schools.
Two words:- Common Purpose
Global warming causes earth quakes and is worse than nuclear war.
Kids must be petrified at school
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/image23.png
That's the poster for the skeptics cause. ?ts that insane it shouldn't be near gcse revision
I am a retired solicitor living in Australia. Our schools are also infected with the environmental lunacy.It gains a toehold through the now compulsory teaching of "sustainability" across all subjects in the national curriculum,much as I now see the position in Britain.I have near relatives who are teachers.Anecdotally,at least some of the teachers and children are privately contemptuous of the propaganda,but there is a natural disinclination to challenge the status quo, particularly where academic results are in issue.
Our national curriculum is being reviewed at present by the Liberal Government .I will write to the two reviewers to highlight the GWPF Report.
The report and Gove's comments are now in the Daily Mail, the first of the mainstream papers to pick it up, I think.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2601179/Heads-breaking-law-preach-eco-agenda-warns-Gove-Education-Secretarys-concern-report-accuses-activist-teachers.html
I am concerned that Michael Gove was totally unaware of the green brainwashing in schools. It shows he takes no direct interest in what is taught and relies on reports that have been 'adjusted' before reaching him.
Maybe he can right 2 wrongs with his response to this paper.