This has elements of the bizarre and as it involves a lamb and schoolchildren, it is bound to cause trouble.
For a start, allowing a "council" of primary school children to have the power to vote on a matter of real killing should immediately focus attention on the teacher[s] who set this up. This smacks of the very worst of PCism and its disconnect with sanity.
A primary age child, no matter what the exercise in democracy that is being carried out, should in no way have the real life right to determine whether a creature should live or die.
That is utter madness.
Sorry but the demise of Marcus the sheep is of less overall concern itself here because it would be hypocritical, given that we eat lamb, chicken, beef, pork or fish every day, to bemoan an animal death, especially for humanitarian reasons.
But to virtually put the knife into children's hands, the power of life and death, years before they have the emotional and intellectual maturity to decide on these things - and even then the issue of capital punishment is debatable - that is really quite disturbing.
What makes it worse in this case is that the children had named the animal, raised it as a pet and then the teacher put the idea into the kids' minds to kill it. Worse than that, they were "sending the sheep away" to be slaughtered, to spare them the necessity of seeing the blood and guts.
Therefore, the values they are being taught, that are being reinforced, are the computer game values of "it's fine to kill, to have the power of life and death because you never have to see the actual consequences". They're the values of "let's drop an atom bomb but we'll never see the consequences of our actions because we're in a sanitized cocoon".
It's teaching kids the disconnect between a decision, a behaviour and it's consequences. That is no better than teaching kids to be good little sociopaths for that's what sociopaths are characterized by - the inability to perceive anything wrong or the full implications of their actions. Those kids who voted that way - and don't tell me it was a "free" vote at 13-1 because I know teachers and the way kids are subtly manipulated [usually for good] and such an overwhelming vote was clearly the consequence of the way the case had been presented to them - that is simply wrong.
That is the disconnect between Nu-Labour's appalling social meddling, on the grounds that someone came up with a brilliant new idea in order to score brownie points, it is the disconnect which would see the pension funds robbed and gold sold off - no concept of consequence or consideration of possible unintended fallout for actions taken.
That is the lesson these kids have been taught when they should have been taught the exact opposite.
What was it Bliar said "education" Ditto Ditto,these teachers need to go back to school.
ReplyDeleteI find the whole story a disgrace. What on earth was the school thinking?
ReplyDeleteOne thing though James what is the connection between this and the CRB checks issue? It's a non sequitur
Angus - exactly.
ReplyDeleteJams - there's a very real connection and that is the PC mindset which comes out with this idea that certain things are quite OK when they're not OK at all and no one in their right minds would think they're OK.
Things like some of the schemes Nu-Labour has encouraged, like allowing councils to act like totalitarian governments in policing things like rubbish bins.
The connection with the CRBs is that such a proposal to criminalize ordinary people whom parents themselves can decide if they want conveying their children are now being interfered with by the gorvernment for the purpose of making money at £32 a time and placing people on data bases who should not be there in the first place.
The PC mindset sees no fallout form these things. It sees an issue and comes up with a short-term solution with long term implications, simply because the rights of the otehr side have not even entered into its head.
There are many people unhappy with this sort of mindset in Britain today.
Very good post.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that animals should be in stressful school environments pestered by throngs of children to begin with. What's wrong with field trips to actual farms?
What they were really teaching the children was lack of respect and compassion for animals[and that there is no difference between beloved pets and livestock].
I failed science in school because I would not disect dead frogs[for I was against the volume of frogs being killed for this largely irrelevent purpose].
I would have kidnapped Marcus had I been at that school.
I loved your line that they are teaching the kids to be good little sociopaths. So true.
You bring up a good point, Uber, about dissecting frogs. I never liked it and yet I took biology at university.
ReplyDelete"...the issue of capital punishment is debatable..."
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
But we're talking about a sheep, for heaven's sake.
Some children now know where meat comes from. You'd be astonished how many do not.
I can't see what the fuss is about.
Ah but that's the thing, WY - they don't get to know where it comes form any more than they did before. All they know is that, on their say-so, it went away. No trauma, no real lesson.
ReplyDeleteExcept one lesson - that they have the power to make decisions on a life from a cocoon, not unlike Brown and his gang.
Of course sheep are not human but neither are children adult.
Jamie's Great Escape... 'The programme featured Jamie staying with a family of farmers and hunters in Le Marche region of Italy. Not only did he kill the lamb for a family feast – but he was seen trying to shoot, but missing a wild boar while on a hunting trip. It later showed a three year old girl joining in as the family skinned and gutted the wild boar into her paddling pool.'
ReplyDelete'Blue Peter has apologised for airing scenes of the ritual slaughter of a goat.
The children's show showed footage of its demise including of the animal's agonised throes of death as part of coverage an Omanian village preparing for its Eid ul-Fitr festival.'
'Seven viewers complained after The F Word showed Ramsay carrying six turkeys into a slaughter van where they were strung up, stunned and killed.'
The manipulators are up to something... but I'm not sure what it is.
There's something in that, Harry but I'm not sure what it is.
ReplyDeleteFunny... neither am I.
ReplyDelete