Give me the child until he is … Labor Exposes the Long Play!
You all know falling below OECD spending on ECE is code for we aren’t keeping up “our” part of the Agenda 2030 SDG4 dealeo right?
So what they tell us…
*Current spending on childcare is “a missed opportunity” and only facilitates parents who work
*All 3yo children should have access to 15 hours-a-week of education, not just care
*Australia lags behind other OECD countries in terms of investment in early childhood education
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-01/australian-3yo-kids-to-get-early-childhood-education/9380268
The UNs Perspective
from “The contribution of early childhood education to a sustainable society”
First our societies urgently require new kinds of education that can help prevent further degradation of our planet, and that foster caring and responsible citizens genuinely concerned with and capable of contributing to a just and peaceful world....
On February 28 last year I turned up to the University of Sydney Camperdown/Darlington Campus, carrying around two corflutes. Printed on them were the phrases, “I’m trans and proud to be a Conservative”, “There are only two genders”, “Defend freedom of speech”, and “Political correctness is un-Australian”. I nervously held them in full display as I walked around the campus.
Indeed, it was busy and crowded O-Week, and I just wanted to let the new (and old) students know that it’s okay to think for yourself, and have your own opinion. After all, don’t we go to uni to learn to think critically? Of course, it’s unfortunate that they would also have to bear in mind that there are potential consequences for freely expressing contrarian speech, thanks to today’s political climate.
I experienced some of these consequences as I walked around in silent protest. Reading about the hostile political climate on campus in Western countries is one thing, but to experience the hostility first hand. I copped the following verbal abuses, amongst others:
“I don’t care that you’re trans, you’re transphobic”.
“Get the @#$% off campus”.
“Your opinions suck, and you’re an asshole”.
Turning the Supertanker
Around
Across the cultural landscape, we find traditional values in all cultures are under attack. It’s actually not just the Judeo-Christian way of life; it’s all traditional values in almost all cultures.
Gender-fluidity is now the catch phrase for a movement that seeks to undermine and even ban all traditional views of the roles of men and women.
Today, I look at a notice in my local municipality magazine promoting an exhibition soon to open: “She that came before me”. The phrase conjures up all sorts of thoughts and images in my mind, none the least how in some parts of the world, using the pronoun “she” might be frowned upon, or even celebrating the achievements of women in the past could be seen as politically incorrect.
Safe Schools’ Sleazy
Trojan horse
1The Australian’s latest major Safe Schools revelations have exposed the farce of Pamela Blackman’s new sexual health curriculum Transmission. It hijacks the legitimate educational issue of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), to disguise the transmission of her extreme sexual ideology to school students. Blackman, whose name already appears on a variety of “sex education resources endorsed by the Victorian government,” instructs teachers to invade student privacy and debase their own profession by asking lewd questions of no educational value. The curriculum – which includes a short film, website, and worksheets – reveals her failure to understand that actual teachers and parents (as opposed to lecturers and researchers in ivory towers) know and care more than she does, about what is appropriate for students, classroom discussions and educational resources. Neither teachers, such as myself, nor students, should be subjected to this sleazy, unnecessary drivel. State governments must intervene to protect students and ban the use of this unhelpful resource.
Purporting to be about sexual health, STIs, and avoiding the transmission of them, Transmission is really a Trojan horse designed to promote and encourage Blackman’s hyper sexualised view of school student’s sex-lives. The film is somewhat informative about HIV, but the curriculum as a whole offers little towards avoiding STIs, preferring to focus on regular testing and treatment. As Blackman’s own research (2011) confirmed, current sex education revolves around traditional ways to avoid STIs such as abstinence, “reproduction, birth control, HIV/STIs, safe sex… [and] forming healthy relationships,” but her new normal for “sexual well-being” revolves around casual, emotionless, experimental and pornified sex. (‘Normal’ scenarios presented include a Single 15-year-old who contracts chlamydia after a couple of meaningless sexual encounters; there are no scenarios presented where the discussion can begin prior to contracting an STI). Scenarios seem to exclude the possibility of saying ‘no’ to certain sexual encounters, misleadingly portraying high-risk sexual behaviour in young people as low-consequence, commonplace and even inevitable.