I remember how it was -- JR
Friday, March 18, 2022
Tony Sewell is a good man betrayed by university
We have known for a long time that many of our universities are dominated by senior dons who pursue Leftist causes while worshipping piously at the shrine of wokery.
What is less widely realised is that these universities can be more mercenary than the most hard-hearted capitalists, and have sometimes established cordial relations with the world’s nastiest authoritarian regimes.
To some, it may seem a paradox that institutions that espouse supposedly enlightened thought, and vilify their traditionalist adversaries, should at the same time have dealings with reactionary and disagreeable people.
Yet I fear it is part of a common pattern.
The latest case concerns Tony Sewell, a distinguished black educationalist who has helped thousands of black children from poor backgrounds to get into universities.
It would be hard to think of a more admirable man.
However, Dr Sewell attracted the ire of various Left-wing luminaries after chairing an official report which concluded last year that Britain is not an institutionally racist country.
It added that our multi-racial society should in some ways be considered a model for other nations.
Among those seemingly driven into paroxysms of rage was a coven of dons at Nottingham University, where Tony Sewell obtained his doctorate in 1995.
He had had the temerity to reject the core Leftist belief that this country is riddled with racism.
It emerged earlier this week that Nottingham has withdrawn an offer of an honorary degree made to Dr Sewell.
The reason given was that the university doesn’t confer such degrees on figures ‘who become the subject of political controversy’.
This is utterly disingenuous. In the first place, Dr Sewell can hardly be said to be ‘the subject of political controversy’. He has merely enraged a few Left-wing Labour MPs and some bigoted academics.
But Nottingham University’s explanation is especially obnoxious in view of its honouring of a number of questionable recipients who are unworthy of holding Dr Sewell’s mortar board.
For example, an honorary degree was given by Nottingham to Liu Xiaoming, a former Chinese ambassador to the UK, who has dismissed videos showing Uighur re-education camps in the western Xinjiang region of China as ‘fake news’.
The red gown of an honorary doctor was draped around the shoulders of Fu Ying,another former Chinese ambassador to London, who has also questioned claims of human rights abuses against the Uighur people.
But let it not be said that Nottingham University confines its favours to unedifying representatives of the Chinese Communist Party.
Also honoured was Najib Razak, a former prime minister of Malaysia, who was jailed for 12 years in 2020 after embezzling £537million from a state-owned investment firm.
They do know how to pick them in Nottingham, don’t they?
I submit that the above named characters, and others whom I haven’t the space to enumerate here, are politically controversial figures in a way the good and decent Dr Sewell plainly isn’t.
The difference, of course, is that there are sound commercial reasons for honouring powerful Chinese and rich Malays.
Indeed, Nottingham University has campuses in both China and Malaysia.
Stephen Odell, who sits on the council of Nottingham University, has earned almost £150,000 from a firm called Evraz, which is linked to the Kremlin and is suspected of supplying steel to build Russian tanks.
Mr Odell resigned from the board of Evraz only last week.
What an intellectually tangled university Nottingham must be!
It snubs a fine British man who has helped thousands of poor black people to attend university while honouring the unsavoury representatives of foreign regimes that happen also to be rich.
This is the paradox at the heart of many of our modern universities. What is particularly objectionable is the conjunction of progressive thought with low, self-interested motives.
Look at Jesus College, Cambridge, which in 2018 accepted £200,000 from an agency linked to the Chinese Communist Party for its Global Issues Dialogue Centre.
In 2019, it accepted £155,000 from the Chinese technology company Huawei.
And yet this same Jesus College, so careless in accepting arguably tainted money, is trying to move heaven and earth to get rid of a plaque to Tobias Rustat, a 17th-century royal courtier and benefactor with links to slavery.
How painless to embrace the fashionable cause of removing a monument put up to a man who died more than 300 years ago.
How painful to return today’s hefty cheque to Beijing.
Study, too, the case of Edinburgh University. In 2020, after student protests, it renamed the David Hume Tower on account of the beliefs on race held by the great 18th-century philosopher which it believed ‘rightly cause distress today’.
David Hume is in no position to complain. A very easy thing to cancel him.
Nonetheless, Edinburgh conveniently forgot its principles when it awarded Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal a distinction after his foundation bankrolled an Islamic study centre at the university with an endowment of £8million.
It didn’t matter that a year before the Saudi Arabian Prince had offered 100 luxury cars to pilots in his country who had bombed Yemen.
Wokery is embraced by university authorities to advertise their virtue.
But when millions of pounds are at stake, any pretence of proper moral conduct is at once cynically suspended.
If the students at Liverpool University want to rechristen an accommodation block named after the great 19th century Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone (whose father was a slave trader), by all means let them.
But given that 29 per cent of the university’s income comes from Chinese students, we must never say a word against Beijing!
Greed is, in fact, the curse of our modern universities. It has other manifestations, such as the grotesque salaries which vice-chancellors (the senior dons who run the show) are paid.
The average annual salary of such people is £269,000, with a handful of them pocketing more than £500,000.
So skewed are the values of these grandees that some leading universities continued to teach pupils via Zoom long after Covid restrictions had been lifted while still charging them maximum fees of £9,250 a year.
Another ruse to rake in extra money has been to boost undergraduate numbers, though the consequence is sometimes lecture rooms so crowded that students are forced to sit on the floor, as well as seminars as big as school classes.
Many of the 24 supposedly elite Russell Group universities have expanded at an alarming rate.
Exeter has seen an increase of 61 per cent in the number of its undergraduates between 2009/10 and 2019/20.
Liverpool and University College London have grown by 59 per cent over the same period.
I feel very sorry for the students, and it is hard to believe that the universities — and the Government that has renabled them to behave in this selfish and venal way — won’t one day face a backlash.
But I reckon Tony Sewell is well out of it. He should rejoice at his rejection by these hypocrites.
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Jacinda Ardern introduces a new school history curriculum calling on teachers to reflect on their 'white guilt' - as critics say she's DELIBERATELY dividing New Zealanders on race
New Zealand will introduce a new history curriculum in schools, encouraging teachers and students to think more critically about British colonialism and its ongoing impact on Māori communities.
Beginning next year, the plan riled up fringe libertarian groups who accused Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of pushing 'left-wing narratives' and evoking 'white guilt'.
But the Labour government argues New Zealand's history has been shaped by 'the use of power, relationships and connections' between Māori and European settlers and must be taught to children in full.
'The new curriculum content has been created to be flexible allowing local, national and global context that span the full range of New Zealander's experience to be included,' Ms Ardern said.
'It will help us celebrate our unique place in the world and highlight what has made New Zealand the country we are today.
'This is an important milestone and I know it will help bring our nation's histories to life in our communities.'
Education minister Chris Hipkins said it was vital young Kiwis understood 'history as a continuous thread, with contemporary issues directly linked to major events of the past'.
'Our diversity is our strength, but only when we build connections to each other. We can move forward together, stronger when we understand the many paths our ancestors walked to bring us to today,' he said.
But not everybody in The Land of the Long White Cloud shares this sentiment.
ACT's Education spokesperson Chris Baillie said the curriculum 'divides history into villains and victims, contains significant gaps, and pushes a narrow set of highly political stories from our past'.
'Today, Labour is trying to make New Zealand an unequal society on purpose. It believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here. We should be learning the history of our multi-ethnic society,' he claimed.
'The curriculum pushes a number of left-wing narratives, including about the welfare state, 'cultural appropriation', and a partnership between the Crown and Māori.'
Mr Baillie took aim at the three 'big ideas' put forward by the curriculum.
The first 'big idea', that Māori history is the 'continuous history' of New Zealand, excludes the many people who have travelled from the furthest points of the globe, brought their histories and cultures with them and worked to give themselves, their families and this county and better future,' he said.
'The second, that colonisation 'continue[s] to influence all aspects of New Zealand society', is depressing and wrong and neglects the elements of our society that are untouched by colonisation.
'The final big idea, that power has been the primary driver of our history, creates a narrative of oppressors and oppressed, and leaves out the many forces that have propelled our past, including scientific discoveries, technological innovations, business, and artistic creativity.'
The curriculum centres around three 'big ideas' that took three years to drum out.
First, that 'Māori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand'.
Second, that 'colonisation and settlement have been central to Aotearoa New Zealand's histories for the past 200 years'.
And finally that 'the course of Aotearoa New Zealand's histories has been shaped by the use of power.
'Relationships and connections between people and across boundaries have shaped the course of Aotearoa New Zealand's histories'.
In practical terms, resources for teachers suggest things like they should 'not drape The Treaty of Waitangi with the Union Jack of England, but rather with your Māori cloak, which is of this country'.
Guidelines also encourage teachers and students to watch the documentary series by RNZ called The Land of the Long White Cloud which 'tells the stories of New Zealanders who are reflecting on their colonial heritage and white guilt, and the ways they push through to find a more healthy Pākehā identity'.
Andrew Judd, a former white mayor of New Plymouth, appeared on the program and famously made the statement: 'We are the problem, always have been'.
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Australia: English teachers told to focus on grammar, punctuation as writing declines
English departments will be chiefly responsible for teaching grammar, sentence structure and punctuation, under a draft new syllabus, after the decades-long approach of sharing the job among teachers from all subjects contributed to a steep decline in writing standards.
The draft NSW English syllabus for years 3 to 10 will intensify focus on literacy skills amid concerns writing has been neglected in high schools, leaving even the brightest students struggling with crucial skills such as writing clear sentences and expressing ideas.
But the English Teachers Association (ETA) said the changes - to be released for consultation on Friday - would hand them an unnecessary burden because literacy skills differed from subject to subject.
“Returning sentence structure and all of that kind of stuff purely to English I think is unfortunate,” said Eva Gold, executive officer at the ETA.
The changes follow a NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) review, revealed by the Herald, that found writing had been neglected in the state’s high schools and in 2019 year 9 students were the equivalent of five months behind their peers in 2011.
A survey of more than 4000 teachers found many - especially science teachers, but also two in five English teachers - felt they lacked the skills and confidence to teach writing.
Among the reforms in the draft years 7 to 10 syllabus, students will be taught ways to interpret unfamiliar words and use grammar to clarify complex ideas. They will also read a wider range of texts, including non-fiction and essays. They could include George Orwell’s Why I Write, which is an HSC text.
The new syllabus will also address concerns about reading. After the kindergarten to year 2 syllabus focused on phonics, the year 3 to 6 one will increase emphasis on vocabulary - key to reading comprehension - and require teachers to ensure students in years 3 and 4 can read fluently and decipher new words quickly.
The focus on reading skills also aims to foster enjoyment of reading.
Peter Knapp, an expert in teaching writing, said sharing responsibility for teaching writing between different subjects was introduced 30 years ago, and was never enacted properly. Science did not think to teach sentence structure, and English did not think to teach scientific report-writing.
“The reality is that no one is doing it,” he said.
Maureen Abrahams, the head of English at Asquith Girls High School, said students often have brilliant ideas but cannot express them because of limited writing skills. She said English would still focus on literature, but welcomed the new responsibility for literacy. “I feel with writing and literacy, there are deep connections to English as a subject,” she said.
But Ms Gold said writing styles differed between subjects and English teachers should not have to teach skills better left to other faculties. Science, for example, used the passive voice, which was avoided in English. “We like students’ writing to be active, to be vibrant, and not to be detached or removed unless we are asking for it,” she said.
“Often students who perform only in a mediocre way [do so] because they are not confident of the language of their discipline, and it’s not up to English to teach that.”
Head of humanities and English teacher at Northholm Grammar, Rebecca Birch, said she understood the new approach. “This is knowledge and understanding that until now we have assumed students come with when they arrive in high school, but obviously a lot of students don’t,” she said.
However, many English teachers were themselves never taught skills such as grammar at either school or university, and NESA would need to address a skills shortage. “Three years of studying literature won’t cut it under this new syllabus, so universities need to step up in their offerings,” she said.
NESA will also release a draft years 3 to 10 maths syllabus, in which some times tables will be introduced in year 3 and the rest in year 4. There is controversy over times tables, with the federal government saying Australia’s national curriculum - to which NSW is aligned - should follow Singapore’s lead and introduce them in year 2, and have students master them in year 3.
The new high school curriculum will also scrap a three-tiered approach to maths in years 9 and 10, in which there are syllabuses of varying difficulty, and instead have core subjects that equip students for HSC standard maths, and more difficult options that prepare students for harder subjects.
A NESA spokesperson said the recommendations are being integrated across the new NSW curriculum.
“The new content will embed, more explicitly, writing skills across all subjects. To equip teachers delivering the new curriculum, NESA is providing teachers with enhanced support materials which will include teaching advice,” the spokesperson said.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said draft English and maths syllabuses - to become mandatory in 2024 - would create room for deeper learning, put more focus on reasoning and problem-solving in maths, and better prepare students for HSC courses.
“Our focus is on lifting standards in reading, writing and numeracy so providing all students with a great education and the benefits that brings,” she said.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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