Story from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Andrew)
Excerpt:
Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults.
Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.
Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.
Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of ‘hate’ bullying.
The accusations will also be recorded in databases held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns.
[…]Many schools nationwide have already followed advice that they should record incidents of alleged racist, homophobic or anti-disability bullying.
One report last year by the Manifesto Club civil liberties think-tank said that 40,000 children each year are having racist charges added to their school records.
But ministers aim to make reporting of supposed ‘hate taunting’ a legal requirement for every school, primary as well as secondary, and every local authority across the country from the beginning of the new school year in September.
Incidents considered serious will have to be reported to local authorities. Children’s Secretary Ed Balls is set to introduce rules that, officials said, ‘will mean that schools will have to record and report serious or recurring incidents of bullying to their local authority.
I don’t think that it’s the government’s job to monitor and regulate playground interactions.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
A little ironic isn’t it that the guy in charge of this has the last name….Balls?
Maybe this guy has a grudge because he was on the receiving end when he was in school? Sorry I just couldn’t resist…!
LikeLike
I can’t believe this kind of policy-making passes for rational thinking these days. There is too much to try to get into in one comment space, so i’ll just deal with the first two that come to mind.
First, a general disgust for the term “homophobic”. Seriously now, what they are suggesting is that a 5-year old is afraid of a person who has chosen to practice a homosexual lifestyle? Really? A phobia is an irrational fear. So we need to put 5-year old children on a list because they have an irrational fear of a lifestyle? Using their own logic, the act of putting someone on a list for an irrational fear should be considered anti-disability bullying. The only question would be who is putting the school officials on the “hate registry”.
Second, the paragraph in the article that states, “Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough”, is on it’s face deciding for parents what is right for their children. “Simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough” implies the additional “whether the parents like it or not.” How is that not an example of the school board bullying parents?
This type of policy is complete lunacy and speaks to the truth that ideas have consequences. The worldview that says all ideas are equally valid and that society decides for itself what is right and wrong leads to this sort of elitism of people. On the Christian worldview there is an elite idea, namely each and every human is created in the image of God and that imago dei unites all mankind so namecalling intended for the purpose of demeaning the individual is not an attack just on the individual but on the image of God. Since the children cannot be taught that absolute moral principle we are left to create lists of unacceptible comments that must grow ever longer as society determines more and more words that will be considered “hateful” by an elite group of people (be it a school board or even a single presiding chairman).
Simple choice, either an egalitarianism of ideas and an elitism of people like we have in the completely secular society where “hate registers” and the like are the result of a might makes right concept of behavior, or an elitism of ideas and an egalitarianism of people like in the Christian world-and-life view where there are absolute standards for everyone to follow but a true equality of people. I for one plump for the latter.
By the way, great posts I just wonder how in the world you have enough time to post so much. I’m lucky to publish one a month it seems. Great job my friend.
LikeLike
What’s the problem exactly? Kids should be able to go to school without having racist homophobic or whatever abuse hurled at them. Maybe the implementation is heavy-handed but the sentiment is wholly on the money. This whining about secularism/big government killing everything is out of place.
LikeLike
I’m not surprised that you would say that given that your worldview cannot ground basic human rights like the right to free speech. You want to push your morality on others and you are willing to use the state’s power to do that, even when it violates their human rights. There’s a word for that… it starts with an f.
LikeLike
Gregory,
I don’t believe anyone is advocating name calling or denegration of other individuals. We are actually agreeing with you that the actions are indeed heavy-handed (to use your phrase, which is very apt in this situation). I was not whining about secularism or big government. Secularism is a reality and we all live in those times. My point is looking beyond the heavy-handed initiatives to the ideas that formed them.
Again, why would a teacher be instructed to put a child on a “hate register” for using words they don’t even understand? Why is simpy teaching them why all people have value and how we should treat others the way we would like to be treated not sufficient for a five-year-old? How the things get to where these heavy-handed tactics are now being employed? These are the questions I was attempting to address.
I would also ask again about the usage of the term “homophobic” for elementary age students. The children have an irrational fear of people who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle? If they don’t even understand the terms, how could they possibly have an irrational fear? How can this be considered “hate speech”?
I understand and agree that we should be training children of all ages to love other people, especially those of different cultures, colors, creeds. How, though, does putting a child’s name on a “hate registry” train him/her why using that language is not right for anyone to use?
Ideas have consequences, and although this policy may seem heavy-handed now, the idea behind the policy if left unchecked may lead to even more heavy-handed policies invoked by the Children’s Secretary. What will be next when just putting a child’s name on a list doesn’t curb the usage of the language? Suspension? Fines for the parents? Understanding the ideas behind the policy is important.
LikeLike