ben moretti on Wed, 28 Jan 2004 07:03:11 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> PM renews public schools attack |
# don't you love reactionaries? our erstwhile pm # is busy attacking public education with a # tautological statement that they are simultaneously # politically correct *and* values free! didn't bush # and reagan do the same thing? this is all very # usa culture war circa 1992 from what i remember # --ben http://au.news.yahoo.com//030715/2/kv7p.html Wednesday January 28, 08:42 AM PM renews public schools attack Prime Minister John Howard has renewed his criticism of the values taught in public schools, saying they are too politically correct and values-free. Mr Howard told Sydney's 2GB radio his comments reflected the opinions of parents he had met who felt public schools were out of sync with their approaches to discipline and education. Teachers' unions in particular were trying to impose their own values on students, he said. "The teacher unions a year ago encouraged teachers to discuss the war on Iraq in the classroom - that was code for attacking the government's position," he said. "I'm not saying they should have been promoting the government's position - what I'm saying is they have a particular responsibility not to use the classroom for that kind of thing." Mr Howard also gave the example of the Queensland education department's moves to replace Christmas traditions with a more neutral end-of-year holiday celebration. It was a mistake to try to show tolerance to minorities in the community by abandoning majority practices, he said. "You respect minorities in the community by being sensitive to their values and their rights, but you don't achieve that sensitivity and respect by abandoning your own beliefs and your own practices," Mr Howard said. "This attempt to bland down any kind of observance of traditional approaches in our country I think is something that people generally reject." ===== ben moretti http://www.geocities.com/benmoretti http://personals.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Personals New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net