I remember how it was -- JR
Inquiry calls for universal preschool for three-year-olds to be rolled out in SA from 2026
This is just Leftist anti-family rubbish. Karl Marx would be pleased. There is no basis for it in science. The research shows that kids do better at home rather than in preschool. Preschool in fact holds the kids back, often permanently. Mothers are the best teachers in all but the most deprived homes. See the following for summaries of the evidence:
https://patriotpost.us/articles/96091-science-says-state-run-preschool-is-not-the-way-2023-03-30
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5525
What Gillard "genuinely believes" is of no importanceA royal commission investigating how best to launch an earlier start to education in South Australia has recommended all three-year-olds be entitled to 600 hours of preschool a year.
The Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care was launched last year to work out how best to deliver the SA Labor Party's election promise to give three-year-old children access to preschool from 2026.
Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was appointed to lead the $2.45 million commission, has made 33 recommendations in her interim report handed to the state government today.
Ms Gillard said three-year-olds should be offered the same universal entitlement to preschool currently offered to four-year-old children — 600 hours a year, or 15 hours a week for 40 weeks a year.
"I genuinely believe this report should be of interest to every South Australian, whether or not they have young children in their family or young children in contemplation in their families' future," she said.
"We have a moral obligation to every child to make sure every child has the best opportunity to grow and learn and thrive."
The commission recommends 15 hours a week be viewed as a minimum and is also contemplating greater entitlements to fund extra hours for children deemed most at risk of developmental delays.
"We also, as a state, have a shared economic interest in making sure that we set our children on the best pathway in life, because the research tells us crystal clear that intervention in the early years can make the biggest difference," Ms Gillard said.
"If we do not set children up well in the early years of life, if children present to school with developmental delays then it can be very hard to catch up and that disadvantage will continue to show in their adult life.
"It shows in life expectancy, in poorer health, in poorer economic outcomes, in greater welfare dependency and even potentially in involvement with crime."
The proposed approach will cost the state about $162 million a year.
The commission recommends three-year-old preschool be delivered in a mix of government and non-government settings, including in early learning centres and long day care.
The approach will need 32 new preschools to be built, at a cost of $111.2 million.
Ms Gillard said the approach would also build on the work currently being done by those who worked in early childhood education, often informally and unpaid, to link families with other support systems.
"That can be everything from recognising that a child might need to be connected to the professional services of a speech pathologist, to recommending to a family that if they need assistance with food, that is a Foodbank in the local community," she said.
"At the moment that kind of building of connections is being done as an act of goodwill of individuals, it's not built-in as a feature of practice all day every day and we want to make sure that it is."
Premier Peter Malinauskas said it would be the biggest reform to early childhood education the state had ever seen.
"What we're doing here isn't just nation-leading, but it's global-leading," he said.
"It's important we look at these recommendations with a holistic view, that we take the time to ask questions, and critically view our education system, so that any actions from this are the right ones for the next generation."
The commission, which is seeking feedback from the public on its report, found the rollout "could be completed by 2032", but is still looking into the issue of workforce supply.
The final report is scheduled to be released in August.
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Gender Curricula May Be Fueling A Dangerous Fad
Gender and sex education curricula in schools have become a highly contentious topic in recent years
The programs are becoming widespread, and while they may appear to be designed to respond to increasing gender dysphoria, mental health professionals are concerned that they may cause irreparable harm to children.
Curriculum implementation has been met with mixed reactions from parents, teachers, and policymakers.
While some argue that gender education promotes healthy relationships and informed decision-making, others contend that it is too graphic and highly inappropriate for children.
In her article in The Free Press, former case manager Jamie Reed blew the whistle on The Washington University Transgender Center (WUTC) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, which has experienced a dramatic influx of young people requesting gender affirmative care.
The increase in gender dysphoria among youth has drawn the public’s attention, Reed said. “There are more than 100 pediatric gender clinics across the U.S. I worked at one. What’s happening to children is morally and medically appalling.”
While the public is beginning to learn about the impact of gender dysphoria treatment, which often includes the use of hormones and surgeries, little is known about the impact of teaching gender identity in the academic environment and its effect on the mental health of children.
The Rampant Spread Of Gender Confusion In Youth
Dr. Alex Smith, a psychologist in the Greater Philadelphia area, works closely with school-aged children. Smith is concerned that gender confusion is becoming widespread, particularly through social media.
Using a pseudonym due to concern of reprisal, Smith told The Epoch Times that children are highly influenced by the popularity of social media celebrities and influencers who are adept at spreading gender confusion. When a child realizes the attention they can get, they’re encouraged to talk about gender, especially when it appears that “changing their gender makes them cool,” Smith said.
Dr. Shannae Anderson, a psychologist from Thousand Oaks, California, told The Epoch Times, “This may be a fad, similar to the ’80s with eating disorders and ’90s with ‘cutting.’ Now, it’s identifying as LGBTQ+.”
Children often have unlimited access to social media on which they can spend an excessive amount of their time. Since its inception in 2017, TikTok has become a popular space for children in the United States, with 32.5 percent of its users being between the ages of 10 and 19.
TikTok provides image filters that can alter the appearance of someone’s face, allowing them to have a more masculine or feminine appearance in the blink of an eye. This has made it particularly popular with school-aged children who may identify as “queer” or “questioning.” (pdf)
Smith explained that on social media, children can be highly influenced by users spreading gender dysphoria. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, biased content can cause a child to behave in a way they may perceive will help them gain acceptance.
School materials being presented to children that focus on gender and sexuality may also be contributing to the confusion.
“As a gay parent, I am concerned,” Marci Strange wrote on the website Gays Against Groomers. Strange asked why schools are sexualizing our children. She pointed to a California “Healthy Kids Survey” that asked students, “Are you straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or something else?” Another page asks if kids are different from the sex they were assigned at birth.
“Unless parents ‘opt-out,’ it can confuse and make suggestions kids may never consider,” said Strange.
A child’s desire for acceptance and popularity is no mystery to parents and school staff. Children may take drastic measures to fit in, even at their own expense. In the context of gender, children may choose to behave differently than they otherwise would to gain attention and recognition.
Dr. Barbara Ellis, a psychologist from the Greater Philadelphia area said that in middle school, children become less dependent on their family and begin to transfer more of their social interactions from family to their peers. They have a “great need to be accepted,” she said.
As children enter adolescence, identity exploration and behavioral experimentation takes off.
Because the adolescent brain is undergoing profound reconstruction and is not fully developed until age 25, we’re dealing with kids who do not have solid brain architecture, Anderson said.
This can result in dramatic shifts in their personality and behavior, said Anderson. Further, she explained that these trends often end with the behavior resolving as children mature.
https://principia-scientific.com/gender-curricula-may-be-fueling-a-dangerous-fad/
******************************************************Teen suspended for opposing trans ideology files human rights complaint: 'Shockingly discriminatory'
A lawyer for a Canadian teenager who was suspended from his Catholic high school after opposing transgender ideology has filed a human rights complaint alleging religious discrimination.
Attorney James Kitchen with Liberty Coalition Canada filed the application to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal earlier this month on behalf of his client Josh Alexander, 17, a junior who was first suspended from St. Joseph’s High School in Renfrew, Ontario, and issued a trespass notice in November.
Alexander drew the ire of school leadership when he organized a student walkout at the public Catholic high school against biological males in girls' bathrooms, according to the complaint. He also reportedly argued in class that God created two unchangeable genders.
The complaint recounts that students erupted during a math class when Alexander argued against the school's bathroom policy. When he claimed that men have penises and women have vaginas, his classmates reportedly called him a "misogynist," a "racist," and a "homophobic transphobe," while the teacher allegedly "nodded and gestured at the students yelling at Josh, indicating his approval of the students’ name-calling."
Alexander was ultimately suspended and told that his continued attendance would be detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of transgender students, the complaint says. His suspension was technically lifted in January but has effectively continued after the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board "excluded" him for the rest of the school year.
Principal Derek Lennox would allow him to return to school only if the teen stopped using the "dead name," or given name, of transgender students and avoided attending classes with two transgender students, according to the complaint. When he attempted to return to school on Feb. 6, he was arrested for allegedly violating the exclusion order.
The school board has declined to hear Alexander's appeal regarding the suspension, arguing that he has not withdrawn from parental control, according to a letter sent to Kitchen in January. The lawyer argues that the school board made its decision despite being provided affidavit evidence to the contrary.
Kitchen also filed an application at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to compel the school board to hear his client's appeal.
"Kicking Josh out of school for expressing his Christian beliefs regarding sexuality and gender is unlawful religious discrimination," Liberty Coalition Canada said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. "The application details the shockingly discriminatory conduct of teachers and students at St. Joseph’s, as well as Principal Lennox’s retaliatory decisions to suspend and exclude Josh for expressing his beliefs and organizing a student walk-out to protest St. Joseph’s policy of permitting biological males to enter and use the girls’ washrooms."
"Among other things, Josh is seeking from the HRTO a declaration that the School Board discriminated against him on the basis of his Christian beliefs," the coalition added. The school did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The complaint points out that Alexander describes himself as a Christian and has protested transgender ideology because of his faith.
"Josh believes he is called by the Lord Jesus Christ to proclaim the truth which includes telling those around him about the Lord’s design for gender and to openly oppose the School Board’s policy of permitting males to enter the girls’ washrooms," the complaint said. "Josh believes he would commit a sin if he disregarded the Lord’s calling on his life and remained silent."
Kitchen told Fox News Digital in February that he believes freedom of religion and freedom of expression are in steep decline in Canada, but noted that religious liberty is evaporating more quickly. He said many Canadians do not understand the gravity of the threat their government increasingly poses to religious freedom, which he said is "essentially dead" after withering "for about 10 or 15 years."
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University ‘blocks’ academic from her own gender wars research over ‘dangerous’ data
Auniversity has “confiscated” the findings of an academic studying Britain’s gender wars in a row over her “dangerous” research data, The Telegraph can reveal.
Dr Laura Favaro began the first ever taxpayer-funded study into whether social scientists at universities feel censored over their views on transgender issues in March 2020 at City, University of London.
But it has descended into chaos, with the study’s author allegedly hounded out of the university, stripped of the findings she collected and barred from publishing them amid claims of transphobia.
Dr Favaro is now bringing an employment tribunal claim against City for harassment, victimisation and whistleblowing detriment, and claims she was discriminated against for her protected philosophical belief in the reality of biological sex.
The postdoctoral researcher was invited to move from Spain to City’s Department of Sociology to conduct the study, which received £18,000 from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the equalities watchdog, and £10,000 from the British Academy. She produced a summary report on her findings for the EHRC that still has not been published.
Hundreds of documents
Her study involved 50 individual interviews with academics in gender studies who identified as feminists, a representative survey of social scientists with 650 responses and hundreds of documents and tweets.
Scholars told her that they had threats of violence in the gender debate, hostility from colleagues, and others said they felt their careers “can’t survive that sort of backlash”, and that they have to have “secret conversations” to avoid reprisal and because “we are all so afraid”.
Her final work has not been published, as it was derailed by complaints about an article for Times Higher Education in which she warned that “a culture of discrimination, silencing and fear has taken hold”.
Following this, she says, her line managers told her that the study had “become an institutionally sensitive issue” and that “City considers my data to be dangerous” and is “frightened of making it public”.
A research participant who “did not like the findings” and academics sympathetic to trans issues were among those who complained. One, Dr Sahra Taylor, a City lecturer, claimed it was an “attack piece on trans people [and] our existences” that has “clearly caused harm to many interviewed”.
City found following an investigation that there was “no evidence” that the research breached any ethics criteria.
But City allegedly locked the email account Dr Favaro used to communicate with survey respondents, and demanded that she hand over all of her interview and survey data and delete any copies of it, before making her redundant on March 31, despite her claiming she has a permanent contract. Dr Favaro also claims City rejected her offer to give a talk on her findings.
It means she cannot publish her survey or deposit it in the UK Data Archive, as she had hoped to, and feels her career is now in ruins.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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