I hope Bobby G. will forgive me for so blatantly plagiarising one of his links, but he just today posted a story so (forgive me) retarded, so abysmally stupid, that even I can scarcely believe that the mind that came up with this can possibly be called an expert on ANYTHING. Please, read on: (Courtesy, BTW, of the London Telegraph)
Dress witches in pink and avoid white paper to prevent racism in nuseries, expert says
Teachers should censor the toy box to replace witches' black hats with a pink ones and dress fairies in darker shades, according to a consultant who has issued advice to local authorities.
From the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz to Meg, the good witch from the Meg and Mog children's books, witches have always dressed in black.
But their traditional attire has now come in for criticism from equality experts who claim it could send a negative message to toddlers in nursery and lead to racism. (WTF??)
Instead, teachers should censor the toy box and replace the pointy black hat with a pink one, while dressing fairies, generally resplendent in pale pastels, in darker shades.
Another staple of the classroom - white paper - has also been questioned by Anne O'Connor, an early years consultant who advises local authorities on equality and diversity.
Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in "the full range of flesh tones", reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher.
Finally, staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer "black" or "brown". (here again is that Liberal "let your truth be fluid" mindset that allows them to lie about damn near anything.)
The measures, outlined in a series of guides in Nursery World magazine, are aimed at avoiding racial bias in toddlers as young as two.
According to the guides, very young children may begin to express negative and discriminatory views about skin colour and appearance that nursery staff must help them "unlearn".
If children develop positive associations with dark colours, the greater the likelihood that the attitude will be generalised to people, it says.
The advice is based on an “anti-bias” approach to education which developed in the United States as part of multiculturalism. (yeah, sure, blame it on us!)
It challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism and ageism through the whole curriculum and teaches children about tolerance and respect and to critically analyse what they are taught and think.
Ms O'Connor, who has worked with Newham and Tower Hamlets councils and recently devised equality material for Lancashire council's childcare service, said the approach, based on an "anti-bias" model of education, developed children's empathy and helped early years teachers to explore their own conditioning and possible prejudices.
"This is an incredibly complex subject that can easily become simplified and inaccurately portrayed," she said. (Because only a simple minded idiot could come up with it!)
"There is a tendency in education to say 'here are normal people and here are different people and we have to be kind to those different people', whether it's race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or faith.
"People who are feeling defensive can say 'well there's nothing wrong with white paper', but in reality there could be if you don't see yourself reflected in the things around you. “As an early years teacher, the minute you start thinking, 'well actually, if I give everyone green paper, what happens’, you have a teaching potential. (and we all start being sympathetic to large, raging, gamma-spawned behemoths.)
“People might criticise this as political correctness gone mad. (MIGHT?? Do ya THINK??)But it is because of political correctness we have moved on enormously. If you think that we now take it for granted that our buildings and public highways are adapted so people in wheelchairs and with pushchairs can move around. Years ago if you were in a wheelchair, then tough luck. We have completely moved and we wouldn’t have done that without the equality movement.”
Margaret Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Parents Outloud campaigning group disagrees. She said: “I’m sure these early years experts know their field but they seem to be obsessed about colour and determined to make everyone else obsessed about it too.
“Not allowing toy witches to wear black seems to me nonsense and in the same vein as those people who have a problem with 'Bar Bar Black Sheep’ or 'The Three Little Pigs’. (Not to mention how biased it might be against Wiccans. How'bout it, witches and warlocks? How do YOU feel about this??)
Children just see a sheep in a field, whether it be black, grey, white or beige. I have worked with children for 41 years and I don’t believe I have ever met a two year old who was in any way racist or prejudiced.”
However, recent research by Professor Lord Winston provides evidence that children as young as four can hold racist views. In an experiment carried out for the BBC’s Child of our Time series, children were presented with a series of images of faces of men, women, boys or girls. Only one of the faces in each sequence was white.
Children were asked to pick out the face of the person they wanted as their friend and the person they thought would be most likely to get in to trouble.
Almost all white children in the survey associated positive qualities exclusively with photographs of white children or adults. More than half of the black children made the same associations. (That's not prejudice- that's WATCHING THE NEWS.)
Okay, aside from the comments I've already strewn throughout the article, Here's some more thoughts. If all this is true, how does Ms. O'Connor think white kids feel about toilet paper? Should we be fed food coloring to avoid unpleasant associations between people of color and #2? Ms. O'Connor, did you ever think that we use white paper so we can SEE WHAT WE'RE WRITING? If we are supposed to be for diversity, why is it important for anyone to "see yourself reflected in the things around you"?
I have in fairness tried to find out a little more about Ms. O'Connor and her employers, but other than their claim that they are read by anybody with a nanny license in the UK, I learned precious little. I'm a bit taken aback, as I assumed such a renowned expert for such an influential magazine would have something more out there about them besides their being read by every nanny in England. Ah, but they do have easy- and unrelenting- access to their subscription site, which as we learned from AttackWatch.com is all a Liberal action site really requires.
And in fairness, I invite Ms. O'Connor and Nursery World to rebut, comment, or otherwise tell their side of the story. I promise to publish without editing any comments they'd like to share with us. How about it, Ms. O'Connor? I'd dearly love to hear what your qualifications are. Either post a comment, or e-mail me and I'll give you a respectful and highly trumpeted guest post!
CWM:
ReplyDeleteGod, I love when you "storm the temple and overturn those tables"...LOL!
You've expounded on this marvelously better than I could.
I'll bet if you dig deeper as to what's being "studied" in classrooms, you'd find enough of the wrong stuff to make your eyes bleed.
Now, apparently teaching isn't enough...we have to "supply" kids with items that exude diversity...for diversity sake alone.
Makes me wonder why ALL those young black kids from MY era preferred white dolls when given a choice?
There is an "age of innocence" that is all-too-quickly surpassed (it's getting LOWER, in fact), and I think to have any "expert" meddle into THAT realm will cause a lot more HARM than good.
Prejudice, like racism and bigotry is an "ACQUIRED skill", and not a genetic inheritence.
Blame lack of parenting along with incessant social & media exposure for that.
You made some exceptional points, as well.
Kudos.
Stay safe up there.
You and Bobby G. can post your various rants on your blogs and then comment on the other's all you want. I'm sure it gives you a nice warm feeling when you agree with each other and have this 'us against the world' thing going on.
ReplyDeleteIf your goal is to improve things in your community and country you're taking the wrong approach. However, if your goal is to raise everyone's temper and widen the divide you and Bobby G. are right on target. What is your goal?
My goal is simple, and posted on the side of my blog- "seeking a means of expression in a tsunami of information". IOW, my soapbox. Tell me, o nameless one, what do you do to make the world better? Do you agree with writing on brown paper because using white might make someone prejudiced?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I do feel like it's me & Bobby against the world, because there is so much idiocy of this type going on out there. What would you have me do in this case? Carry the battle to them? I did, in the only way I could, by linking it to their facebook page.
What would you have done? I don't know jack about you, other than you like to lurk anonymously and chastise others for speaking out against stupidity? Tell me, what is it you do? Let the forum judge whether you are a part of the solution or not. Until then, you suffer from an extreme lack of credibility IMHO.