Sunday, October 30, 2016



‘Jackie’ says she was pressured to give Rolling Stone discredited rape story

THE former University of Virginia student who claimed she was gang raped at a fraternity house in a since-discredited Rolling Stone article testified Monday that she was “naive” and felt pressured into participating in the story.

“I remember she said there was no way to pull out,” the woman, identified only as “Jackie”, said of journalist Sabrina Erdely in a taped deposition from April, the audio of which was played at the defamation trial against Rolling Stone.

“I don’t remember specifically but I remember feeling scared and unsure what to do,” she added.

Jackie’s account of being raped by seven fraternity members was featured prominently in Erdely’s incendiary Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus”, was retracted by the magazine after the student’s story was called into question.

A former UVA associate dean, Nicole Eramo, is suing the magazine for $US7.85 million ($10.3 million), saying the article painted her as the “chief villain” who turned a blind eye to Jackie’s rape allegations.

Jackie testified that she could recall “feeling upset” when Erdely informed her that her story was going to be the focus of the article. “I was uncomfortable with that,” she said.

“I was 19 or 20 years old and did not understand ‘on the record’ or ‘off’,” she added. “I was naive.”

A few weeks before the story was scheduled to run, she wanted to back out. “I felt overwhelmed and, um, stressed and scared,” Jackie explained. “I felt like I was getting a lot of pressure from a lot of people.”

She insisted that what she told Erdely was true. “I stand by my account to Rolling Stone,” Jackie said. “I believed it to be true at the time. I was assaulted.”

But she admitted, “Some of the details of my assault are hazy now. I have PTSD.”

Jackie said she couldn’t recall many things that happened between 2011 and 2014. “There have always been things I remember and some things I don’t know if I really remember,” she said, when asked if she had post-traumatic stress for all of 2014.

As for how she felt about Eramo, Jackie said, “She did what an advocate is supposed to do and helped me.”

She also felt that Erdely “wanted to help” by writing her story.   “I thought she wanted to help,” Jackie said. “She wanted to write an article that, her intention was good.”

Jackie said that she told them conflicting accounts of her alleged rape because her “comfort level” was different with each of them. “I don’t remember exactly what I told Dean Eramo and what I told Ms Erdely,” she said.

During the deposition, Jackie was also grilled about text message conversations she’d sent to Erdely that were supposedly from a pal.

When asked point blank if she’d ever created text messages or faked conversations for Rolling Stone, Jackie didn’t deny it, saying instead she didn’t know or couldn’t remember.

SOURCE 







The Green-Left has ruined a good school system by adding a "Community School" option

This is a lightly edited Google Translation from the German.  The basic message is that a "progressive" alternative school system in one left-leaning German State (Baden-Württemberg) has led to a decline in skills among the students

The achievements of Baden-Württemberg students in English and German have decreased significantly. Responsible is school reform

There was no need to introduce a "Community school" in the land of the economic miracle. But the party ideologists did. Within a short time, the students' performance was downhill.

Shortly before the regional election in March, the then green-red state government in Stuttgart had its central project investigated: the community school. The election result was considered as confirmation and sold.

It was actually only that, according to the basic conditions and good teachers at the work, the pupils can benefit greatly from the new school form. A rush. It was not investigated, which is not the least important at school: efficiency.

And with it it goes steeply downhill in the southwest. The results of the IQB formation trend 2015 are a swat for the country. Their ninth-graders lose weight strongly against the students in other countries.

From a top position in the subjects German and English six years ago, Baden-Württemberg falls back in the middle, in the competence field "Listening" in German even to the third last place.

Severe is how fast this descent takes place. Normally, education researchers are talking about the consequences of school reforms only after ten to 15 years.

Now one could blame the community students, who are - maybe - just not good enough. But they did not participate in the study again. Thus, the students are responsible for the established forms Gymnasium, Realschule, Werkrealschule and Hauptschule. What does that mean?

In Baden-Wuerttemberg, school reform was done under a green umbrella, mainly from an ideological motive. There was no need to introduce a "Community school".

In addition, this school form was given all the attention. It got more teaching positions, more money and - that is probably the decisive point - the right to a future. The others, up to the Gymnasium, had to live with being only tolerated, in the worst case to become  fused with other schools.

This psychological moment is not to be underestimated, it has quickly eaten into the minds of those who are concerned with it: the teachers. It has conquered the lessons and now found its precipitation in a performance comparison, which should not only be a warning to the politicians in the south-west.

SOURCE 







Melbourne high school teacher says she would refuse to teach ‘lewd’ safe schools and respectful relationships program

A MELBOURNE high school teacher says she would refuse to teach “lewd” material in the Victorian government’s mandatory respectful relationships program to be introduced in all state schools next year.

Moira Deeming, a teacher and mother-of-three, said she was shocked by the content and would rather be fired from her job than teach such “sleazy, unnecessary drivel” to her students.

Ms Deeming, 33, said educating children as young as 12 about porn and getting them to have classroom discussions about masturbation and sex was not appropriate and would not help to stop gender-based violence and discrimination as the program intended.

Under the program, children as young as prep are also being introduced to same-sex relationships through children’s books, including Tango Makes Three, a tale about two male penguins who adopt a baby penguin.

The book has been banned in Singapore and after parent outrage was scrapped from some school libraries in the UK and the US. It also featured in the most complained about books in America over five consecutive years for “promoting a homosexual agenda”.

“I feel that this program is bullying male students and stigmatising and stereotyping them — the absolute opposite to what it is supposed to do,” she told the Sunday Herald Sun. “It really does build up stereotypes. It doesn’t tear them down.

“If I was asked to teach it, I couldn’t let it out of my mouth. I’d have to be fired.”

Debate has raged about the content, particularly how students are taught about “male privilege” and that masculinity is associated with higher rates of violence against women, since the government made public the classroom resources of its Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program earlier this month.

The $21.8 million program, a recommendation from the royal commission into family violence, also offers explicit videos to students entering secondary school giving sexual advice in an upbeat way, including that “you don’t have to have an ‘inney’ and an ‘outey’. You can have two inneys or two outeys” to have sex.

Also in the teaching tools for prep students, teachers are recommended to get further information and activities from the learning resource All of Us from the controversial Safe Schools program, which is aimed at much older students in secondary school to teach and increase students’ understanding and awareness of gender diversity, sexual diversity and intersex topics.

In this, one classroom activity suggests dividing the students in half and asking one side to imagine they are 16 and in a same-sex relationship; and the other half in a heterosexual relationship, before asking a series of questions, including would they feel comfortable telling their parents about their relationship.

Ms Deeming, who is a member of the Liberal party, has joined concerned parents and politicians to call on the Andrews Government to review the age appropriateness of the program’s content.

In the upper house this week, Democratic Labor Party MP Rachel Carling-Jenkins said the program focused on a “misguided feminist and gender ideology”, alienating and shaming boys by portraying masculinity as bad and women as always being victims.

Metropolitan Region Upper House MP Inga Peulich told parliament it was a “light version” of Safe Schools that targeted younger children.

Safe Schools is only mandatory in high school, while respectful relationships will be rolled out to all year levels from prep to Year 12.

“Victorian parents are concerned about the age appropriateness of the content being presented,” Ms Peulich said.

Opposition education spokesman Nick Wakeling called the program “radical” and said the biggest concern is that parents had not been consulted or given consent.

“Parents want their kids to fundamentally learn how to read, write and count. Parents wouldn’t have expected content on transgender as part of a family violence program,” he said.

But Education Minister James Merlino stood by the program in its entirety and called on those opposing it to “stop playing politics” so violence against women could be stopped.

SOURCE


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