Teachers demand schools stop promoting British values over cultural supremacy fears

I find your misrepresentation and demonisation of teachers absolutely vile. You have completely distorted and politicised their argument and clearly do not understand how this scheme has been implemented. The implementation of this 'Prevent' scheme has been a joke. Nobody even knows what "British values" is supposed to mean in the first place, there has been practically no guidance given to teachers on how they're supposed to be promoting "British values" and above all, teachers know how to do their job better than bureaucrats in government who haven't had any experience of teaching in their lives. Teachers are already trained in safeguarding, the only thing this new policy has done is introduced a culture of suspicion as this article shows (by the way, I can't believe that you have the audacity to tell teachers that they have a "ridiculous political bias" and then use that excuse of journalism from the Daily Mail to support your point).

Teachers are, generally speaking, brilliant at their jobs. This top-down intervention from government over the past few years has ruined the teaching profession. The environment that teachers have to deal with in state schools these days is toxic, the amount of bureaucracy they're having to deal with is dangerously infringing their ability to do what their job is supposed to entail - teaching. And yet, despite these conditions, teachers continue to deal with low pay and disgraceful working conditions because they care about what they do. And yet people like you feel you have the right to attack them yet again for caring about the welfare of children, under the banner of "they're all a bunch of crazy lefties". It sickens me.

Ok so I have some objections to this.

The first is that nobody has mentioned the 'Prevent' scheme. Could you then please describe how exactly teachers have had their arguments 'completely distorted'. My comments. and those of others in this thread, are a reaction to the words of Mr Denson, which I don't believe you are disputing.

The second...you say

'Nobody even knows what "British values" is supposed to mean in the first place, there has been practically no guidance given to teachers on how they're supposed to be promoting "British values" and above all, teachers know how to do their job better than bureaucrats in government who haven't had any experience of teaching in their lives'

I can accept there may have been no guidance. In which case, it is perfectly acceptable to be politically neutral and not decide to teach these things.

The objections of myself and others is that teachers' have gone the other way, and are teaching students things which some people consider unacceptable. I can accept issues of safeguarding, and letting teachers do their jobs, but this does not explain the words and actions of people like Mr Denson.

Finally, let me remind you those people in government, while not having much experience in teaching, have been elected. We are seriously tampering when we allow unelected officials to decide what should/shouldn't be taught.

British culture is supreme because we are in Britain.

Nothing that is vomited from the mouths of the NUT ever surprises me.

A headline that screams "Militant teachers demand schools stop promoting "British values" as it makes children from other cultures feel inferior" is so completely distorted I don't know where to begin. Firstly, the use of the word militant - there's absolutely nothing militant about these teachers. Secondly, nobody is demanding that schools stop promoting British values (putting aside, for a moment, the fact that nobody seems to know what that means), what they're opposing is having these vague obligations shoved in their faces from above by the authorities which is a huge insult against their ability to teach and adds yet an additional layer of bureaucracy on them. Secondly, whilst I don't disagree with the argument that it could alienate against other cultures, that's not the core of the argument against it. The point is that teachers are more than capable of teaching their students to be responsible British citizens without having these ridiculous laws being imposed on them.

The point is, it's not just "perfectly acceptable to be politically neutral and not decide to teach these things", I don't think you quite understand what's actually going on. This is now part of the criteria that teachers are being assessed on in observations. It's one of the criteria that's now required for teachers to be rated positively by OFSTED. Teachers are being forced to include "British values" in their lessons, nothing is optional about this.

Regarding your last argument, I don't understand the relevance. Firstly, nobody ever voted for these particular policies. Most of the current Tory education policy wasn't in their manifesto. Secondly, the fact that they've technically been elected (or rather, appointed by someone who was elected by less than a quarter of the population) doesn't change the fact that they clearly haven't got a clue what they're doing. The fact that the overwhelming majority of teachers - the specialists in teaching who know far more about teaching than a bunch of politicians who have zero education experience - think these policies are insane shows just how irresponsible and reckless the DoE is being.

I find the teaching "profession" (can hardly type that without laughing) vile on the whole.

The things that Mr Denson objects to, like the teachings on democracy, the law, our rights, are built into the bedrock of our society. Without teaching these things, how will you ever hope to be a proper citizen of this country.

What he says also contain some dangerous lies. I see that he gets very close to confounding being against taking in refugees with racism.

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As someone who's school and sixth form were talking about "British Values" last year, we all found it ludicrous. When we asked our teachers what it even meant, they said it was about respecting other people's beliefs, about being tolerant and accepting of different races, genders, sexualities etc, about not discriminating based on these, and so on.

(NOTE: They have nothing to do with laws or the history of Britain, or at least that wasn't what they were told to teach. It was purely about tolerance and not discriminating.)

We pointed out that surely these weren't specifically British values, and should probably be referred to as "How Not To Be A Dick" instead, and the teachers just laughed and agreed and said that unfortunately they had to teach them exactly as the curriculum had said, with all the references to "British culture" and "British values" included, because Ofsted would check.

I don't disagree with teaching kids about that stuff, but I do disagree with calling them "British values", as if most other countries didn't also subscribe to those rules. Obviously not ALL countries are tolerant etc, but it's stupid to think of them as specifically British traits.

From the Canadian perspective, the level of self-flagellation and distaste the Brits often have regarding their own culture is shocking. It's sad, almost. Here, for example, the maple leaf is found proudly on damn near everything (both literally and figuratively speaking). Yet you guys worry that displaying your national flag - or having any patriotic pride whatsoever - will 'offend' the immigrants and promote nationalist fascism. It's insane. It's pathetic.

We should teach this things, but also not pretend they are unique to britain. Is Britain the only democracy in the world? This is just more colonialism, when we assume our culture is better than others. Lets not alienate other cultures. Tolerance is the key.

Why would you be against taking in refugees, if it weren't for racist or xenophobic reasons? We are a rich nation, they are in desperate need. We can spare the resources

Non white values are inferior to European values

This is especially pertinent, as most that come here come from countries that are so culturally unlike our own (and this is not xenophobic or racist, but a fact).