Monday, September 11, 2006

U.K.: School sports not quite dead yet

Post lifted from Majority Rights

By and large, there are few more certain ways to make your MP’s eyes glaze over (yes, yes, I know it’s usually the other way round) than to ask him a question in some way connected to school sports. It just isn’t done in polite society, and besides the MP will most probably be under specific instructions not to say a thing about both the Government’s and the Opposition parties’ papable contempt for all physical endeavour. The few old fashioned Tories who once cared about such things are dead, either literally or politically, and if not are either kept on a leash or treated as amusing relics of a distant past.

The result of such neglect has been disastrous. If you read Private Eye (sadly mostly unavailable online), you will know about the sheer number of state school sports fields sold off. Those few that do keep theirs nonetheless keep them simply as mementos of a dying era, all actual exercise having been abandoned in order to prevent anyone’s feelings getting hurt or to engage in whatever latest nonsense has been dreamt up by the Labour meddlers, such as ‘cooperative’ Sports Days. In essence, sport and political correctness (and the therapy culture) simply don’t mix, and as the latter are the modern day religion of our leaders sport just has to go.

In such a climate, even the slightest turn-around is encouraging, and so with that in mind this should be considered:

Children across the UK are to be given the chance to compete in their own version of the Olympics.

The government hopes the UK School Games will help unearth British talent for the London Olympics in 2012.


Granted, this is still just bread and circuses, something to make sure that London’s 2012 Olympics do not end in the embarrassment that we, quite frankly, deserve. There is also every chance that this’ll turn into yet another showcase for how much Africans contribute to the UK. I’ll be convinced otherwise if and when I hear a govenrment employee make full clear why sport is to be encouraged.

First of all, and this shouldn’t be beyond even one of our hollow NuLabour/NuTory types, it should be made clear that a healthy lifestyle must inevitably involve exercise, and that such a lifestyle reduces the burden on the NHS, reduces working days lost to illness, etc, etc, etc. Going further, we might also add that a healthy population is less likely to fall prey to various potentially dangerous fads and enthusiasms. That a healthy mind requires a healthy body was medical orthodoxy until Hitler’s advocacy of this idea discredited it in the minds of certain people (who probably don’t get enough exercise).

Indeed, it is simply obvious why sport is beneficial. Only an organisation utterly incapable of looking beyond the next few years would not encourage its members to participate in it. Step forward egalitarian democracy, the God that Failed.

The question of sport in schools may seem trivial by comparison to others facing us, but it is controlled by the same dynamics which control our heedless immigration, social and economic policies. As such, it is fairly obvious why the impeccably populist Messiah that Failed, Tone Blair, should wish to ignore entirely its long term benefits. He’s still a Keynesian at heart, at least in the sense of believing that ‘in the long run, we’re all dead’, and until that pernicious doctrine is shown up for the destructive agent that it is, no long term future of any sort can be secured for us.





DISCOUNT FOR PREPAID UNIVERSITY FEES ROUTINE IN AUSTRALIA BUT RARE AND CONTROVERSIAL IN BRITAIN

The Government's pledge that top-up fees would not disadvantage those from low-income families was under threat last night after one university announced that it would offer a discount to students who could pay for their entire degree in advance. Students at the University of Gloucestershire will be entitled to a 20 per cent discount on their fees if they can pay the entire 9,000 pounds for their three-year degree when they start.

The offer will not be available to those who need state help. The university said that there were other "generous, means-tested" bursaries on offer to families as part of its "innovative pricing policy". In addition students who did not pay up-front but instructed the Student Loan Company to pay the university o3,000 per year would be entitled to a 10 per cent rebate as they completed each year of study. The university said it had had "a couple of inquiries" about the scheme.

Gemma Tumelty, president of the National Union of Students, said: "It seems ridiculous that somebody who is rich enough will end up paying less for their education."

Source







Leftist propaganda in Australian school textbook

A high school textbook that teaches Victorian VCE students that the United States and Israel have been linked to "state terrorism" has sparked outrage and a demand from the Federal Government that it be immediately withdrawn from classrooms. The book, used by about half of Victoria's 700 politics students, is being criticised for playing down the threat of terrorism and containing flawed thinking and ideology.

A furious federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, has called on the Victorian Government to withdraw the book. "It is inconceivable that information is being taught in schools which claims Australia is 'reaping the harvest' of our foreign policies and our 'Western imperialism'," she said. "Of greatest concern is the claim in the textbook that the Howard Government is deliberately using the threat of terrorism to keep Australians fearful and thus supportive of Government policies and actions. "The person who wrote this text should talk to the families of those killed in Bali and explain to them that there is no need to be fearful of terrorism."

But the Bracks Government said the book was not a set text or officially endorsed by the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority (VCAA) or the Education Department. "You can't withdraw a text that is not compulsory to start with, so the Bishop thing is a furphy," said Tim Mitchell, a spokesman for Education Minister Lynne Kosky. "The decision about the use of textbooks in classrooms, and the treatment of issues in classrooms, is a matter best left to teachers and school principals, not politicians," he said.

The textbook, Power and National Politics, published by the Victorian Association of Social Studies Teachers, is one of two texts being used in schools for the new national politics subject. The author is Northcote High School teacher Paul Gilby, 35, who says he is "very concerned and distressed" at the furore surrounding his work. He said he had written the book quickly last year for a new course, but that he had tried to present all viewpoints in good faith and felt the book was being subjected to "a very decontextualised attack". He rejected the claim he played down terrorism, but acknowledged that the terrorism section was "problematic" and said it was being revised, along with other parts of the book, for the second edition for next year. Mr Gilby, who is not teaching national politics this year, was a member of the VCAA review panel that developed the international politics course.

The 166-page book contains a one-page sub-section headed "Fear of terrorism" in the section dealing with Australian foreign policy. It adopts as its definition of terrorism: "Any action taken with the aim of achieving a political or military purpose through the use of violence against civilians can be considered terrorism." This definition is challenged by the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council's analyst, Ted Lapkin, who says it crucially lacks the element of "intention" to harm civilians. The book says terrorism is not new "and is not necessarily increasing" and that students need a historical perspective "to gain insight into the current media response to the terrorist situation".

The book asserts that "throughout history, most terrorist acts have been carried out by nation states. "The United States itself was accused of committing acts of state terrorism in Nicaragua in the 1980s. "Other examples of state-run terrorist campaigns have taken place in Russia (in Chechnya most recently), Turkey (in Kurdistan), Israel (in Palestine), Indonesia (in Aceh, West Papua and East Timor most recently)."

Seeking to address the context of terrorism, the book acknowledges there is no simple solution. But it then goes on to elaborate only one theory - that the US and its allies are "reaping the harvest" of their foreign policies and Western imperialism. The book directs students' attention to critics of the Howard Government who accuse it of using anti-terrorism policies to keep people in fear of terrorism and therefore supportive of Government actions and policies.

The executive director of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Colin Rubenstein, said the section was "rife with partisan bias and errors of fact". "The claim made about the greater danger of 'state terrorism' is the product of ideology, not scholarship," he said. State Opposition shadow education spokesman Martin Dixon backed calls for the book to be withdrawn.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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