Bishop Hill Compulsory indoctrination in schools
As John Shade and I noted in our Climate Control report, the latest edition of the National Curriculum has removed all mention of "sustainable development", a concept that formed the very basis of the previous edition. The government's decision to rein back on the indoctrination of children in schools has understandably angered some within the green movement, including Joan Walley, the chairman of the Commons' Environmental Audit Committee:
Labour should commit to including sustainable development in the national curriculum, a senior backbencher has said.
The call from Joan Walley, who chairs the Commons' environmental audit committee, comes as the opposition party draws up its policy on green issues ahead of next year's general election.
However, it seems that in the university sector, the momentum is in the other direction:
Walley has been working with Keele University, where chancellor and green champion Jonathan Porritt is introducing a sustainable development core discipline in each subject.
"But what's the point of having that at university if it's not seamless back through college and back through secondary school?" she told Politics.co.uk.
Time to rein back the funding.
Reader Comments (29)
"Sustainability" is a Humpty-Dumpty word that means whatever the user wants it to mean.
It seems to mean that you can do anything you want just as long as you feel bad about it in a very public way. Mea culpa, mea greenissima culpa. Flying long haul? OK so long as you agonise a lot before and after. Clear-felling a forest? OK if its for the cause.
That South African guy in the FT nailed it: these people don't want to *do* anything - they just like talking liberal talk.
Sustainable is one of those words that people in suits bandy around while having no actual definition of what they mean. A hundred years ago the population we now have could not have been sustained. Technology has filled the gap between need and capacity. Many would say we have more than we need and it is that which is unsustainable, but one man’s waste of energy and resources is another’s desired product and another’s employment. What level are we trying to attain, beyond which things are unsustainable? Those who pontificate on sustainability will never define it because they know that they’ll be on the wrong side of the line.
Here’s a question ‘how much energy and resources are wasted on issues like sustainability where nobody, least of all those involved, intend to change?’
It's not the end - nor the beginning of the end - but it is the end of the beginning.
Yesterday we had "peak Guardian" ...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/08/white-men-environmental-movement-leadership
Worth reading some of the comments even if you cannot stomach the diversity-babble in the piece
h/t to guido
'pale and male. That doesn't look like progress' ~ Jack Hughes
I don't know exactly why, but the Gold Coast (? need a memory check) trafficking in white slaves a few centuries ago, suddenly came to mind.
I think this is hot air from Walley. Chancellor Jonathan Porritt's position as chancellor at Keele University (ceremonial role only) doesn't empower him to introduce anything into any course that is taught at the university.
Here is what the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) has to say about sustainability:
So some of this is good - anything that is subsidised fails to be economically sustainable, ie all renewable energy schemes are not sustainable. If the final words "and mitigate and adapt to climate change including moving to a low carbon economy" were removed, then it would be reasonably acceptable.
O/T but the mighty Dellers is on the Daily politics today.
Instead of running (or not) classes on 'sustainability' schools might do well to dust off the Use of English course that some schools taught about 40 years ago. The point of this was to teach what every word did in a sentence, whats its role was. Thus unnecessary words could be eliminated, and meaning could only be clear. Small boys amused themselves by becoming ace spotters of bullshit (which obfuscation, exaggeration, half-truthery etc was not called in those days). Common discourse these days seeks not to achieve clarity but to mimic the advertising man's disingenuous way with words. Perhaps public figures sentences should be parsed, so we can ask ourselves, "what does this mean?" Too often, I suspect, the answer will be "nothing" - a sentence has become just a decorative arrangement of words designed to induce pleasant feelings.
bill
Indeed. +1 (or more, if available)
The 'sustainable development' movement will degrade universities, just as climate alarmism has in my opinion. This video of Paul Valdes is an illustration of what it looks like on this downhill slope, a slope on which emotive, egotistical, self-important alarmists are at home on their bandwagons as they pick up speed. Because it is 'big and important', 'incredibly' so, to borrow a few words from the video. Although personally I use the word 'incredible' with its original definition.
Correspondence following the publication of the Climate Control report led me this book by Stanley Fish 'Save the World on Your Own Time' . He argues that academics should focus on academic disciplines and objectives, and leave the proselytising, if they wish to pursue it, for their spare time. He says the tasks of teaching, for example, are hard and challenging enough, that not to devote the relevant time to them alone is an irresponsible thing to do. But some cannot resist the temptation. Here is a quote from the book that helps explain why it can appeal to some. This passage follows a brief summary of what Fish sees as the basic obligations of the teacher in a university:
When it comes to decisions on funding for academic institutions and individuals, a definition of what constitutes academic work would be a useful criterion to have in mind. Fish provides guidance on that. Attempts to insert 'sustainability' in all subjects, would I imagine, risk violating his view of what academics should be teaching. Good grounds for refusing or reducing funding. Let those who wish to evangelise do so in their own time.
I reckon a school/college/Uni could cover the CC subject in a couple of fairly short lessons...in amongst Physics perhaps? So, here's the weather and there's a record of weather over a very short time compared to the existence of the planet. That plus some geo records describes climate arising from historic information. Here we have the water planet no less.
The drivers or lack of might be discussed, but in no way should it be presented by indoctrination. And no exams FFS.
If any interest persists then that should be continued in free time to the extent required by the individual.
To get into the long grass about evidence and research techniques simply induces slow brain death. In education we are seeking brain agility primarily. Common sense...theres a thing?
@John Shade - thanks for the Fish quote.
He is dead right that the teacher should should concentrate on teaching the subject and not try to serve up a huge side-order of something else.
This is one of my big concerns - that instead of a pointless discussion about whether plastic bags are public enemy number one, the teacher *could* be teaching about carbon bonding on the blackboard then the children *could* be making plastics in test tubes in the lab behind. It's a waste of the qualified teacher and the equipped lab when they are doing this waffle.
My university threw out all the old printers and copiers abour a year ago and bought in a new system of printers, called the "sustainable print service".
One of the funnier comments in the Grauniad:
It is not wrong to think about sustainability, it is part of planning strategy.
- What is wrong is to say "things that are green are magically sustainable". Greens are adept at highjacking issue and taking control, so it's all too easy to turn a course into a green religion propaganda vehicle. However if challenging is applied green dogma falls apart. It is not acceptable to black and white think "solar PV is magic, organic is better etc." rather full colur analysis must be applied.
- Trolls annoying you ? Well, take it as permission to do something annoying to them : have a bonfire, go and do a massive shop at Tesco, deliberately choose unfair trade food etc.
.. feel sorry for them aswell.
"have a bonfire"
We're in the process of demolishing a large Leylandii hedge and enjoying the resultant bonfires (I only wish I could store the heat).
The alternative would appear to be about 100 journeys to the local tip, where it would composted, generating the same amount of CO2, plus the vehicle emissions involved in transporting it, and less the potash that I use on my garden. Perhaps Jonathon Porritt would like to comment..?
Someone suggested adding a CC module to university physics courses. As currently stated, AGW theory would have survived about 5 minutes on the physics course I did at King's (London) in the 80s. Minds you, King's does have a large theology dept, perhaps they could help.
As others have intimated, “sustainable development” is… well, oxymoronic is almost what I mean, as is dichotomous, but both imply that the two words relate in some way to each other, whereas they really have nothing at all to do with each other. The only link would be that “sustaining development” is to actually continue developing, which is effectively the complete opposite of what is meant by “sustainable development”.
While I agree that there are no true synonyms in English, let us apply some alternatives, courtesy of MS Word: bearable development? withstandable development? tolerable development? endurable development? How about weatherable development? All are absurd, and the phrase “sustainable development” should be discarded with them.
I had some experience of teaching science in secondary school and had to do a brief university "professional development" course to switch from maths to science. The chasm between the university course and the chalkface is huge. Essentially, the teenage children have realised that AGW is a fraud whereas many of the university lecturers still believe it to be real. However, the children have clearly been brainwashed at primary school into a belief that AGW is real, that the Earth has a cancer which is humans, that polar bears are cuddly and endangered by humans, that we are all being poisoned by "chemicals" or given cancer by power cables, but that by sending a milk bottle top to Blue Peter we shall abolish Evil and Save The Planet. Where this turns really nasty is when as a teacher you are threatened by the university with sanctions should you dare to question The Message, or suggest a subversve approach which couples getting the mark in the exam for the "right" answer with a deeper understanding of how the racketeering works. A starting point I met in one non-state school was to move AGW to History, so that it could be placed alongside Tulip Mania for a better context, or as part of Religious Studies. The last works well because the UK Courts have decreed that, for the purposes of employment legislation and education, a belief in AGW constitutes a religious observance, a racial identity or a sexual orientation and, if Al Gore is mentioned, then so must a sceptic.
RR
How about 'efficacious development'..?
Link
SB
"the UK Courts have decreed that, for the purposes of employment legislation and education, a belief in AGW constitutes a religious observance, a racial identity or a sexual orientation"
Have they? That sounds encouraging!
May 9, 2014 at 10:33 AM | Unregistered Commenter bill
This so true. I get this vibe virtually every time I visit a UN website. For example, take a close look at this from http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org
Doesn't that sound impressive and official?
I am saddened to see yet another step in the degradation of Keele University.
I was quite proud of the place when I graduated from there. These days, its pretty much unrecognizable in all sort of different ways.
Which of the green thug groups was porrit a spokesman for? Greenpiss or FoE?
James P
UK court cases:
Al Gore film (An Inconvenient Truth)
Climate change is religion
James P (2:01 PM): a course studying Lily the Pink and others of Scaffold’s witty ditties would probably be of more value than many of the enviro-courses – after all, what actually is the Aintree Iron that we should be so thankful for?
Bill at 10:33 May 9 says:-
" - a sentence has become just a decorative arrangement of words designed to induce pleasant feelings."
JP would tend to agree:-
" We simply have to change the ‘mood music’ in terms of the way people feel about sustainability, "
http://www.jonathonporritt.com/
Why can't they let a university subject just be "the" subject.
And thanks Jack Hughes, that is the perfect description of what the word "sustainable" is for.
Some of us said at the time that having a government mandated school curriculum was stupid and dangerous. Lord knows what they put in Mrs Thatcher's tea to get her to agree to the idea.