Item Homeschooling Parents Would Rather ‘Go to Jail’ Than Send Daughter to State School
The parents of a homeschooled child have said they would be willing to go to prison rather than submit to Westminster Council’s demand to interview their daughter or send her to a state-run school.
Edward Hardy and his wife Eileen Tracy, both education professionals, were told that the family must meet with a home education advisor, submit an “endorsement by an educator”, or send their 12-year-old daughter Lilian to school by March 7th, reports The Telegraph.The parents declined the inspection, and offered a sample of Lilian’s work, feeling that should be enough as the Department of Education’s guidelines state that “Local authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis”.
The State is a jealous god.
Item Britain’s first university well-being tsar hands out ‘happy badges’ to students
Students feeling anxious in the approach to exam season will be given “happy badges” by Britain’s first university “happiness tsar”.
The University of Buckingham said the system will be led by Cherry Coombe, whose role is to “help improve the working and learning environment” by promoting mental well-being.
The badges, which look like traditional prefect badges but have the word “happiness” written in gold, have so far been awarded to students who took part in a local parade through Buckingham and to staff whose actions “improved the work environment”.
The parade float, put together by students, was themed on the BBC drama Doctor Foster, and saw students dress in scrubs. Ms Coombe said that the badges were awarded to students to “formalise the notion of being successful as a resilient person”.
Formalise. Say it slow. Formalise.
The Office of Student Life has placed religious group Harvard College Faith and Action on “administrative probation” for a year after the organization pressured a female member of its student leadership to resign in September following her decision to date a woman.
College spokesperson Aaron M. Goldman announced the move to put HCFA on probation in an emailed statement sent to The Crimson Wednesday afternoon.
“After a thorough review and finding that HCFA had conducted itself in a manner grossly inconsistent with the expectations clearly outlined in [the Office of Student Life’s] Student Organization Resource and Policy Guide, OSL has placed HCFA on a one year administrative probation,” Goldman wrote in the statement.
Goldman did not specify how HCFA, the largest Christian fellowship on campus, had violated Office of Student Life “expectations.” In an emailed statement Wednesday, HCFA co-presidents Scott Ely ’18 and Molly L. Richmond ’18 were slightly more specific.
From Trinitarian to Unitarian to Nadaitarian.
Item Who Are the Rich, White Men Institutionalizing Transgender Ideology?
I found exceedingly rich, white men with enormous cultural influence are funding the transgender lobby and various transgender organizations. These include but are not limited to Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender); George Soros; Martine Rothblatt (a male who identifies as transgender and transhumanist); Tim Gill (a gay man); Drummond Pike; Warren and Peter Buffett; Jon Stryker (a gay man); Mark Bonham (a gay man); and Ric Weiland (a deceased gay man whose philanthropy is still LGBT-oriented). Most of these billionaires fund the transgender lobby and organizations through their own organizations, including corporations.
Separating transgender issues from LGBT infrastructure is not an easy task. All the wealthiest donors have been funding LGB institutions before they became LGBT-oriented, and only in some instances are monies earmarked specifically for transgender issues. Some of these billionaires fund the LGBT through their myriad companies, multiplying their contributions many times over in ways that are also difficult to track.
These funders often go through anonymous funding organizations such as Tides Foundation, founded and operated by Pike. Large corporations, philanthropists, and organizations can send enormous sums of money to the Tides Foundation, specify the direction the funds are to go, and have the funds get to their destination anonymously. Tides Foundation creates a legal firewall and tax shelter for foundations and funds political campaigns, often using legally dubious tactics.
The tide is threatening to engulf us all.
God isn’t jealous but there’s a lot of it about, evidently, the old green eye everywhere! This sceptre’d Isle has seen much of it throughout it’s history. That’s not about to change.
Never mind infamous Westminster council, there’s a garden teapot for nesting robins which took my attention.
The US is pretty much toast. The coward in Washington bent over and grabbed his ankles yesterday. The Union is dea.
It’s interesting that these parents, educators themselves, don’t want their daughter attending state run schools. It’s also perverse that they need their tutoring program approved by an educator other than themselves. In the USA so called “public” schools believe in what’s termed mainstreaming, or simply dumping everyone into the same classes, which is how you get sixteen year old secondary students with reading levels typical of eight year olds. In a sane approach to learning wouldn’t the illiterates have been diverted to learn manual arts to prepare for eventual trades programs? Of course not since political expediency demands that we pretend that nobody is too thick to dream of attending university. This reminds me of the barber I worked with [after quitting teaching] who was fond of claiming “I’m just as professional as any doctor”. Yes of course, except for not being able to read! Although he had a GED [general equivalency diploma] he had to take the five part exam orally because of his dyslexia, or natural aversion to reading.
On that last item, I believe the current best practice is to write it as (((white men))). Certainly looks like it should be done that way for sever of those names ,) …
Marc M,
It is not perverse it makes perfect sense that home schooling parents, who have always been a peculiar bunch of weirdos whether or not they are teachers, were supervised and kept in check by the curriculum and education inspectors. The same ones who monitor truancy, expulsion and so on. The fox is guarding the chicken coop. As he always tries to do.
It is interesting that we conservatives tolerate . . . no, make that actively advocate . . . socialized education. We understand the necessity of competition and accountability as the best way to harness human nature to optimal benefit for all members of society in all other matters. But somehow education has been allowed to continue as an island of near-pure socialism. When the inadequacy of our education system becomes too painfully obvious to ignore, our solution is always a bigger dose of socialism. When it come to educating our children, we are idiots.
An analogy now occurs to me. We love our lawns uniform and bright green. We fertilize and water, then periodically mow down any blades that rise above the others. Most weeds can’t survive this regimen, and those that can are pulled out by the roots. We lawn owners look out over our lawns with pride – we see beauty in the uniformity.
But left to it’s own devices, our lawn would follow a very different path. Weeds would quickly take over, as they are far more efficient in using the existing resources. In the absence of artificial fertilizing and watering and mowing, the boutique grasses would be replaced by hardier varieties that can compete in their niche. Some weeds would grow very tall, standing well above the other plants, but as a whole the system works well for all the plants. For it is working as Nature, or Nature’s God, intended.
Stretching the analogy a bit further, it’s interesting that liberal environmentalists despise a manicured lawn, but love a manicured society.