Trainee lawyer was denied permanent contract when she became pregnant
33-year-old wins case against top City law firm, but her counsel warns of many similar cases
A trainee lawyer is in line for compensation from a top City law firm after winning her case for discrimination after she missed out on a job because she was pregnant.
An employment tribunal found that law firm Travers Smith denied Katie Tantum, 33, a permanent job because she became pregnant in the final stages of her £42,000-a-year contract.
A hearing will be held in June to determine what level of compensation Tantum, who is the daughter of a former MI6 Middle East director, should receive.
Nigel Mackay, who represented the Cambridge graduate for law firm Leigh Day, said: "We are delighted for Katie. It takes courage and tremendous resilience to stand up to your employer, even more so when that employer is a leading City law firm and you are only just embarking on your legal career.
"The evidence in this case was very clear – Katie's level of performance meant that she would have been offered a permanent role at Travers Smith but she was denied that role because she was pregnant."
The case was heard at the Central London Employment Tribunal in February, and the ruling sent out on Friday. Mackay said that Travers Smith, which specialises in corporate, financial and commercial law, was not alone in its attitude.
"Despite there being equal numbers of female and male law students taking up training places at City firms, women are still failing to progress to senior roles in anything like the numbers of their male colleagues," he said.
A spokesman for Travers Smith said: "We really did not expect this decision at all. We are very surprised and disappointed by it
"Throughout the proceedings, we thought our evidence was strong. We still believe that, although the employment tribunal has found otherwise on one aspect of this claim.
"We sincerely regret that one of our former trainees was left unhappy from her experience at the firm, and we will take on board the lessons to be learned."
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Judi Dench defends drama school in row over advertising boards
Oscar-winner attacks council decision to order Central School of Speech and Drama in London to remove hoardings that support charitable work
Dame Judi Dench has come to the defence of the drama school where she learned her Oscar-winning craft.
The London borough of Camden has banned two advertising hoardings outside the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama on supposedly aesthetic grounds.
The Central says that it receives up to £150,000 a year from advertisers using the sites, which it donates to theatre charities involving thousands of young people nationwide, and that there have been no complaints since they went up 27 years ago. An appeal to the secretary of state will be heard on Tuesday.
Dench, widely regarded as the finest actress of her generation, has written a passionate letter to the council in which she expresses dismay at the removal of "a vital source of revenue" to theatre and arts education.
Noting that Camden itself has withdrawn funding from various arts and social programmes, she writes: "To penalise this independent goodwill at such a time of recessionary hardship seems misguided."
She refers to "the considerable benefit" from the hoardings, singling out £50,000 given annually to the Shakespeare Schools Festival, which reaches 1,000 schools across Britain and involves 50,000 children – "many from deprived areas," including Camden. The hoardings have also provided funds for disadvantaged youths involved with the Roundhouse and a "black theatre" summer school.
The Central, in north-west London, is one of the UK's most prestigious drama schools. Its alumni include Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft. The hoardings also fund bursaries for future Oliviers.
Dench's letter mentions her family's long association with the Central, "one of the finest centres of drama training and research in the UK". She and family members, including her daughter, live in the area or are studying there. "Therefore," she says, "I feel that I can also comment on grounds of planning and local aesthetic value." Calling for Camden "to reconsider its action", she adds: "The alternative will diminish the borough's effectiveness as a centre for the arts, and narrow the scope for its young people to participate in the theatre."
Professor Gavin Henderson, the school's principal, said that the money from the hoardings was crucial. It helped to support the neighbouring Hampstead theatre's educational programmes after the council withdrew funding: "Camden council has … cut back on all their arts funding to a point where it's virtually nonexistent. But their planning department [has been] … looking at hoardings that they don't like aesthetically… [and] issued orders for these to come down."
The two electronic hoardings are displayed against a nondescript modern building owned by the Central and overlook a busy traffic route. Henderson is all the more surprised by the aesthetic argument, because Camden's real eye-sores go unnoticed: "The council is quite happy to have hugely unsightly rubbish and recycling bins located immediately beneath these hoardings, with vermin running in and out. Rats. None of that registers at all and that's in their domain, not ours."
Other objectors refer to Camden market, where the council permits "ugly" advertising eyesores to deface classic Victorian houses and shops.
The Central has received further support from Dame Jenny Abramsky, chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund, former head of BBC Radio and a board member of the Shakespeare Schools Festival: "Government … is urging universities and arts organisations to do more to attract funding from the private sector in these times of grave economic restraint. These hoardings are an unusual and original example of a higher education and arts institution doing just that. They should be applauded."
Valerie Leach, Camden's cabinet member for planning, said: "Camden council is one of the biggest supporters in the country of our local voluntary sector. This delivers a range of arts projects. We have a duty … to protect … local areas from hoardings without any formal planning permission, such as this site."
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Web-connected libraries for Africa: the dream of digital knowledge for all
New venture Librii is seeking to set up self-sustaining libraries with internet access in poor and isolated communities
A decade ago, Brewster Kahle, philanthropist and founder of the Internet Archive, created the first digital bookmobile: a complete printing press in the back of a car. With a power source, satellite internet connection, printer and binder, the vehicle and its descendants subsequently printed thousands of public-domain books where they were needed most, such as in rural areas without internet connection, including schools and refugee camps across Africa.
In 2003, it was estimated that less than 1% of Africa's population had access to the internet. Since then, that figure has grown to just 15%. Private companies have been laying high-speed cables along the coasts, but it's slow to make progress inland: even where access is available, it is often low speed and unconnected to the facilities on the ground needed to make the most of it, particularly for education. (The vast majority of people in Africa who do access the internet do so via mobile phone.)
Now, with an initial funding of $50,000 from Kickstarter, library startup Librii is building its first "eHub" prototype: a shipping container filled with computers, printers and training materials, connected to a simple, low-cost study centre, which will let visitors access information, print books and other materials and, crucially, contribute back to the project and the web at large. Once the prototype is complete and tested, a partnership with the University of Ghana and Librarians Without Borders is intended to start shipping the embryonic libraries to Africa, following the frontiers of fibreoptic cable as they push into the continent. While Librii is an NGO, the libraries will be fully self-supporting after the first year, seeking local sponsorship and generating their own income. Recognising that local knowledge, architecture, infrastructure and education are all vital components in the project is what makes Librii's approach an exciting one.
James Bridleguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Daniel Dennett's seven tools for thinking
Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett is one of America's foremost thinkers. In this extract from his new book, he reveals some of the lessons life has taught him
1 USE YOUR MISTAKESWe have all heard the forlorn refrain: "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" This phrase has come to stand for the rueful reflection of an idiot, a sign of stupidity, but in fact we should appreciate it as a pillar of wisdom. Any being, any agent, who can truly say: "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" is standing on the threshold of brilliance. We human beings pride ourselves on our intelligence, and one of its hallmarks is that we can remember our previous thinking and reflect on it – on how it seemed, on why it was tempting in the first place and then about what went wrong.
I know of no evidence to suggest that any other species on the planet can actually think this thought. If they could, they would be almost as smart as we are. So when you make a mistake, you should learn to take a deep breath, grit your teeth and then examine your own recollections of the mistake as ruthlessly and as dispassionately as you can manage. It's not easy. The natural human reaction to making a mistake is embarrassment and anger (we are never angrier than when we are angry at ourselves) and you have to work hard to overcome these emotional reactions.
Try to acquire the weird practice of savouring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you and go on to the next big opportunity. But that is not enough: you should actively seek out opportunities just so you can then recover from them.
In science, you make your mistakes in public. You show them off so that everybody can learn from them. This way, you get the benefit of everybody else's experience, and not just your own idiosyncratic path through the space of mistakes. (Physicist Wolfgang Pauli famously expressed his contempt for the work of a colleague as "not even wrong". A clear falsehood shared with critics is better than vague mush.)
This, by the way, is another reason why we humans are so much smarter than every other species. It is not so much that our brains are bigger or more powerful, or even that we have the knack of reflecting on our own past errors, but that we share the benefits our individual brains have won by their individual histories of trial and error.
I am amazed at how many really smart people don't understand that you can make big mistakes in public and emerge none the worse for it. I know distinguished researchers who will go to preposterous lengths to avoid having to acknowledge that they were wrong about something. Actually, people love it when somebody admits to making a mistake. All kinds of people love pointing out mistakes.
Generous-spirited people appreciate your giving them the opportunity to help, and acknowledging it when they succeed in helping you; mean-spirited people enjoy showing you up. Let them! Either way we all win.
2 RESPECT YOUR OPPONENTJust how charitable are you supposed to be when criticising the views of an opponent? If there are obvious contradictions in the opponent's case, then you should point them out, forcefully. If there are somewhat hidden contradictions, you should carefully expose them to view – and then dump on them. But the search for hidden contradictions often crosses the line into nitpicking, sea-lawyering and outright parody. The thrill of the chase and the conviction that your opponent has to be harbouring a confusion somewhere encourages uncharitable interpretation, which gives you an easy target to attack.
But such easy targets are typically irrelevant to the real issues at stake and simply waste everybody's time and patience, even if they give amusement to your supporters. The best antidote I know for this tendency to caricature one's opponent is a list of rules promulgated many years ago by social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport.
How to compose a successful critical commentary:
1. Attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: "Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way."
2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
One immediate effect of following these rules is that your targets will be a receptive audience for your criticism: you have already shown that you understand their positions as well as they do, and have demonstrated good judgment (you agree with them on some important matters and have even been persuaded by something they said). Following Rapoport's rules is always, for me, something of a struggle…
3 THE "SURELY" KLAXON
When you're reading or skimming argumentative essays, especially by philosophers, here is a quick trick that may save you much time and effort, especially in this age of simple searching by computer: look for "surely" in the document and check each occurrence. Not always, not even most of the time, but often the word "surely" is as good as a blinking light locating a weak point in the argument.
Why? Because it marks the very edge of what the author is actually sure about and hopes readers will also be sure about. (If the author were really sure all the readers would agree, it wouldn't be worth mentioning.) Being at the edge, the author has had to make a judgment call about whether or not to attempt to demonstrate the point at issue, or provide evidence for it, and – because life is short – has decided in favour of bald assertion, with the presumably well-grounded anticipation of agreement. Just the sort of place to find an ill-examined "truism" that isn't true!
4 ANSWER RHETORICAL QUESTIONSJust as you should keep a sharp eye out for "surely", you should develop a sensitivity for rhetorical questions in any argument or polemic. Why? Because, like the use of "surely", they represent an author's eagerness to take a short cut. A rhetorical question has a question mark at the end, but it is not meant to be answered. That is, the author doesn't bother waiting for you to answer since the answer is so obvious that you'd be embarrassed to say it!
Here is a good habit to develop: whenever you see a rhetorical question, try – silently, to yourself – to give it an unobvious answer. If you find a good one, surprise your interlocutor by answering the question. I remember a Peanuts cartoon from years ago that nicely illustrates the tactic. Charlie Brown had just asked, rhetorically: "Who's to say what is right and wrong here?" and Lucy responded, in the next panel: "I will."
5 EMPLOY OCCAM'S RAZORAttributed to William of Ockham (or Ooccam), a 14th-century English logician and philosopher, this thinking tool is actually a much older rule of thumb. A Latin name for it is lex parsimoniae, the law of parsimony. It is usually put into English as the maxim "Do not multiply entities beyond necessity".
The idea is straightforward: don't concoct a complicated, extravagant theory if you've got a simpler one (containing fewer ingredients, fewer entities) that handles the phenomenon just as well. If exposure to extremely cold air can account for all the symptoms of frostbite, don't postulate unobserved "snow germs" or "Arctic microbes". Kepler's laws explain the orbits of the planets; we have no need to hypothesise pilots guiding the planets from control panels hidden under the surface. This much is uncontroversial, but extensions of the principle have not always met with agreement.
One of the least impressive attempts to apply Occam's razor to a gnarly problem is the claim (and provoked counterclaims) that postulating a God as creator of the universe is simpler, more parsimonious, than the alternatives. How could postulating something supernatural and incomprehensible be parsimonious? It strikes me as the height of extravagance, but perhaps there are clever ways of rebutting that suggestion.
I don't want to argue about it; Occam's razor is, after all, just a rule of thumb, a frequently useful suggestion. The prospect of turning it into a metaphysical principle or fundamental requirement of rationality that could bear the weight of proving or disproving the existence of God in one fell swoop is simply ludicrous. It would be like trying to disprove a theorem of quantum mechanics by showing that it contradicted the axiom "Don't put all your eggs in one basket".
6 DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME ON RUBBISHSturgeon's law is usually expressed thus: 90% of everything is crap. So 90% of experiments in molecular biology, 90% of poetry, 90% of philosophy books, 90% of peer-reviewed articles in mathematics – and so forth – is crap. Is that true? Well, maybe it's an exaggeration, but let's agree that there is a lot of mediocre work done in every field. (Some curmudgeons say it's more like 99%, but let's not get into that game.)
A good moral to draw from this observation is that when you want to criticise a field, a genre, a discipline, an art form …don't waste your time and ours hooting at the crap! Go after the good stuff or leave it alone. This advice is often ignored by ideologues intent on destroying the reputation of analytic philosophy, sociology, cultural anthropology, macroeconomics, plastic surgery, improvisational theatre, television sitcoms, philosophical theology, massage therapy, you name it.
Let's stipulate at the outset that there is a great deal of deplorable, second-rate stuff out there, of all sorts. Now, in order not to waste your time and try our patience, make sure you concentrate on the best stuff you can find, the flagship examples extolled by the leaders of the field, the prize-winning entries, not the dregs. Notice that this is closely related to Rapoport's rules: unless you are a comedian whose main purpose is to make people laugh at ludicrous buffoonery, spare us the caricature.
7 BEWARE OF DEEPITIESA deepity (a term coined by the daughter of my late friend, computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum) is a proposition that seems both important and true – and profound – but that achieves this effect by being ambiguous. On one reading, it is manifestly false, but it would be earth-shaking if it were true; on the other reading, it is true but trivial. The unwary listener picks up the glimmer of truth from the second reading, and the devastating importance from the first reading, and thinks, Wow! That's a deepity.
Here is an example (better sit down: this is heavy stuff): Love is just a word.
Oh wow! Cosmic. Mind-blowing, right? Wrong. On one reading, it is manifestly false. I'm not sure what love is – maybe an emotion or emotional attachment, maybe an interpersonal relationship, maybe the highest state a human mind can achieve – but we all know it isn't a word. You can't find love in the dictionary!
We can bring out the other reading by availing ourselves of a convention philosophers care mightily about: when we talk about a word, we put it in quotation marks, thus: "love" is just a word. "Cheeseburger" is just a word. "Word" is just a word. But this isn't fair, you say. Whoever said that love is just a word meant something else, surely. No doubt, but they didn't say it.
Not all deepities are quite so easily analysed. Richard Dawkins recently alerted me to a fine deepity by Rowan Williams, the then archbishop of Canterbury, who described his faith as "a silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark".
I leave the analysis of this as an exercise for you.
This is an edited extract from Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett, published by Allen Lane (£20)
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Heads send Michael Gove to bottom of the class
Britain's headteachers withdrew their support from Michael Gove, overwhelmingly backing a vote of no confidence in his school reforms and then heckling him as he addressed them. Mr Gove's reception by 500 headteachers at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) conference in Birmingham was the most hostile he has received in his three years as Education Secretary.
Sussex academy pays £100,000 to use 'patented' US school curriculum
Aurora Academies Trust is challenged over use of patented 'Paragon curriculum' that has been criticised by Ofsted
An academy running four schools is paying its US parent company £100,000 a year to use its patented global curriculum, which has been criticised by Ofsted for lacking a "local" focus.
Aurora Academies Trust insists that the Paragon curriculum is transforming the fortunes of the primary schools in East Sussex. But unions and local Labour activists question whether the licensing deal represents the first step in plans to allow private companies to run schools for profit. Tory modernisers are said to be keen on the idea.
Aurora's progress will be studied closely by education experts. It has "lead sponsor" status with the Department for Education, meaning it is consulted on policy decisions and is likely to run more schools in the future.
Aurora's decision last autumn to take over the four schools – King Offa and Glenleigh Park in Bexhill and Heron Park and Oakwood in Eastbourne – came after education secretary Michael Gove criticised the local authority for "failing actively to pursue sponsored academy solutions".
Aurora was established by Mosaica Education UK, a subsidiary of Mosaica Education Inc, an American company which describes itself as a "global leader in education reform" and runs schools in 12 US states, the United Arab Emirates and India.
Aurora pays Mosaica £100 per pupil per year in royalties to use its curriculum. There are about 1,000 children at the four schools, meaning Mosaica receives about £100,000 a year from the arrangement.
Aurora insists Mosaica does not profit from the deal. But Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teaching union, questioned the transparency of the arrangement.
"This is taxpayers' money, which should be targeted directly at children's education in the classroom," she said. "What is most shocking is that no accountability mechanism exists to prevent this, nor is there any form of quality assurance."
Parents of Aurora pupils will consider the money well spent if it produces good results. Mosaica claims that its schools produce superior academic results by "utilising a unique school design which combines a proprietary curriculum, Paragon, with state-of-the-art technology".
However, a study of Mosaica's achievement scores by the American Federation of Teachers union, suggested that the company's self-evaluations inflated student scores, claims that are denied by the company.
Under the humanities-based curriculum, students "learn about character, ethics, empathy and self-esteem, implicitly by studying the world's great heroes, both canonical and unsung, and by stepping into the shoes of great historical figures, both real and imaginary".
The approach appears at odds with Gove's views of how history should be taught in the national curriculum. He wants pupils to learn more about British history, complaining that one teenager in five believes Winston Churchill was a fictional character, a statistic drawn from a survey carried out by Premier Inn.
He has also been critical of teachers using imaginary figures to help understand history, recently denouncing the use of Mr Men characters to teach 15- and 16-year-olds about the second world war.
Several parents have praised the Paragon curriculum for giving their children a "more international perspective". A recent Ofsted inspection found that the King Offa school, which had been in special measures, "is making reasonable progress in raising standards". But it noted, "that teachers are not sufficiently confident in adapting teaching materials to the needs of their pupils. Moreover, the curriculum currently lacks a distinctively local element." A study conducted by Arizona State University suggested that many US charter schools that had been run by Mosaica end up severing their links with the company.
Last year, a school in New Orleans took legal action to break its contract with Mosaica. The organisation that took over the school complained that the curriculum was not aligned to state standards, resulting in students failing tests. The school won the lawsuit, but had to pay Mosaica $100,000 to break the contract.
Tim McCarthy, chief executive of Aurora, said that US charter schools regularly switched education providers. He said that Aurora was making significant progress: "We're looking at some little green shoots. We've got a school out of special measures within seven months and we're getting fantastic engagement with pupils and parents."
McCarthy said that Aurora was now tailoring its curriculum to include local history, such as the Norman invasion. "It's a living, breathing resource that is always changing," he said of the curriculum. "The thought that this is something off the shelf is wrong."
He said that "all of the money from the schools is put into running the schools" and that Aurora provided teachers with 90 hours of professional development training.
But Paul Courtel, a local Labour activist, questioned whether Aurora and Mosaica were playing the long game: "I think the substantive financial gain to Mosaica would be the introduction of 'for profit' free schools in the event that the Conservatives are re-elected, with an overall parliamentary majority, in 2015."
Jamie Dowardguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Minister heckled by head teachers
Michael Gove responds to 'fanatical personal trainer' comments
Headteachers pass vote of no confidence in education policies
Union delegates declare that Michael Gove's policies are not in the best interests of children, parents or schools
Headteachers have passed a vote of no confidence in the government's education policies, declaring that Michael Gove's policies are not in the best interests of children.
Delegates at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) conference in Birmingham raised concerns about the new national curriculum, major test and exam reforms and schools being forced into becoming academies.
Tim Gallagher, proposing the motion, said: "Enough is enough. This motion's intention is to send the strongest message possible to this government that many of their education policies are failing our children, their parents and the very fabric of our school communities."
The NAHT is the first headteachers' union to pass a vote of no confidence in the government's education reforms.
The UK's three biggest teachers' unions, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the NASUWT passed similar votes at their Easter conferences. The NUT and the NASUWT are planning regional strikes in the north-west next month in a continuing row over pay, pensions and workload, with the prospect of a national strike later this year.
Bernadette Hunter, the NAHT president, told Gove, who attended the conference, that the morale of headteachers was low.
"You cannot fail to be aware that the morale of the profession is at an all-time low. Many are angry at what is happening to the education system. Those of us in education, leaders and learners, have never had it so bad. It is within your power to put this right," she said as she introduced him to the conference.
NEW Gove told the conference: "If Ofsted causes you stress, then I'm grateful for your candour, but we are going to have to part company. What I have heard is repeated statements that the profession faces stress, and insufficient evidence about what can be done about it."
"What I haven't heard over the last hour is a determination to be constructive, critical yes, but not constructive." ENDS
Earlier, Hunter described Gove as being like "a fanatical personal trainer" in urging schools to jump higher and run faster.
She said Gove ignored the damage he was causing to the education system as he bullied headteachers into turning schools into academies.
Hunter, who represents most primary school headteachers, also attacked inspectors, saying they reduced rather than enhanced educational standards.
"The reality is that Ofsted is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was," she said. "It costs an enormous amount of money, demoralises schools and staff and does nothing to improve the quality of education.
"It is leading to many good heads taking early retirement and many young teachers reluctant to work in more challenging schools, let alone taken leadership in those establishments.
"We're not afraid of proper and rigorous accountability but the current regime is damaging schools, not making them better."
Before her speech Hunter told the BBC that headteachers were also unhappy about the "constant churn of educational change" and negative rhetoric from the government.
"We know that UK schools are amongst the best in the world," she said. "They are highly regarded by other countries, but to hear the Department for Education you would think we have a failing system."
The NAHT conference also heard claims that brokers employed by the DfE had been pressuring schools, particularly those that face the biggest challenges, into becoming academies. More than half of secondary schools in England are now academies, but the vast majority of primary schools retain their links with local authorities. Many academy schools are part of chains, while others are run individually.
"What we cannot tolerate is the completely unacceptable bullying of heads and governors to turn their schools into academies, to meet a political target set by the secretary of state," Hunter said.
A DfE spokeswoman said: "We are clear that the best way forward for an underperforming school is to become an academy with the support of a strong sponsor. Academy sponsors have already turned around hundreds of struggling schools across the country, and academy results are improving far faster than the national average.
"Academy brokers help us to identify the best possible sponsor to turn around failing schools and ensure pupils are given every chance to fulfil their potential. We expect the highest levels of professional conduct from academy brokers and any allegations of misconduct are fully investigated."
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Michael Gove is like a 'fanatical personal trainer' says teaching chief
'Not in the best interests of children': Headteachers vote no confidence in Michael Gove's reforms
Christians aren't being persecuted in American schools | TF Charlton
Unfounded fears have driven some Christian groups to co-opt the language of discrimination for their reactionary policies
Christians make up 78% of the American population, 90% of Congress, and 100% of presidents thus far. But to hear some conservative Christians tell it, they are a persecuted minority. Newt Gingrich recently claimed that LGBT rights have caused Catholic adoption services to be "outlawed" in Washington DC and Massachusetts. In a loaded speech on the House floor last week, Representative Steve King accused President Obama of racial favoritism and "[eroding] western Judeo-Christendom", unfavorably comparing his congratulatory call to Jason Collins, the newly out NBA player, with strangely unspecified slights against Tim Tebow, "who will kneel and pray to God on the football field."
Fears of marginalization because of Christian faith, even persecution, have deep roots in white American evangelical culture, dating back to the Scopes Trial and before. As with Representative King's comments, they're often steeped in white racial anxiety and resentment. This persecution complex is also taught – actively promoted and reinforced through fearmongering aimed at youth.
One example: "The Thaw", a modest viral hit produced by Reach America, a "Christian youth leadership program" based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. In the video, about 20 local teens – all white except but one – list ways in which Christians are systematically "frozen out of the public sphere" and public schools. Christian students are expected to "check [their] religion at the door," forbidden to pray, or to "write about God" in school. They hazard bullying and "rude and disrespectful" treatment, "dirty jokes" from fellow students, and "pornography" disguised as "sex education". The curious notion that Tim Tebow has been punished for his public faith comes up here, as well.
The teenagers wax nostalgic for an America where "school prayer and pledge to the flag was welcomed [sic]," before God was taken "out of … history books" and the country was "stolen" by "people who do not love our God". They call on students to join an "army … with Christ [as] commander", to reverse this political and religious decline.
In stark contrast to this dour picture, Idaho reporter Maureen Dolan writes that two high schools near where The Thaw was made have active prayer groups that meet on school grounds. At Lake City High, principal Deanne Clifford prays with students. At Coeur d'Alene High, local churches "regularly" send "representatives … as 'approved visitors' [who join] the students for lunch in the cafeteria".
It's this cognitive dissonance that's most striking, and disturbing, about "The Thaw". The language of bullying and social isolation of students who don't fit in, increasingly a concern for many parents and schools, is harnessed for a defense of the imagined good old (viz segregated) days when conservative Christian tenets were even more privileged in school curricula: abstinence-only education, creation science, mandatory school prayers, etc. The absence of such privileges – infringements on the equal rights of students and families who believe differently – is presented as bullying and persecution. As Reach America director Gary Brown says:
"Bullying is in the eyes of the beholder, I guess."
This is precisely the sort of counterfactual reasoning and co-opted rhetoric of social justice that influential groups on the religious right use to promote their policies, rather than actually help students who are truly vulnerable to bullying and discrimination. Focus on the Family, for example, has developed a "True Tolerance" program to defend "parental rights" and help students stand up to "homosexual indoctrination" and "bullying" of Christians in public schools – by opposing anti-bullying programs that work to make schools safer for LGBT and gender non-conforming students.
Fueling such reactionary activism is a powerful sense of grievance, stoked by a thriving cottage industry that churns out misinformation like "The Thaw". In such a climate, dubious accounts of anti-Christian discrimination or coercion are believed readily. In recent weeks, for example, tales of students forced to engage in "lesbian kissing", or disqualified from athletic events for religious gestures have circulated widely in conservative media, only to be debunked shortly thereafter.
Factual rebuttals, however, have little impact in a culture where people are trained to overlook the considerable influence of conservative Christianity in society, and to instead believe their communities need more political capital. Paradoxically, children like those in "The Thaw" are encouraged to seek influence, even run for office, in a system they're taught to deeply distrust. This disconnect is embodied in Reach America, which "[encourages] Christian parents to remove their children from traditional public school systems", but counts among its supporters a member of the Coeur d'Alene School District Board of Trustees and a candidate for election to another local school board.
This mindset obscures serious problems of discrimination and bullying that many students face in schools – not usually for being white conservative Christians. And indeed, these problems are often perpetuated by the direct influence or complicity of the religious right. In Florida, Kiera Wilmot, a 16-year-old African American girl, was arrested and transferred to an "alternative school" after an experiment resulted in a small explosion with no injuries or damage. Her case has brought attention to the criminalization of black students and other students of color in public schools – far more likely than white students to be suspended, expelled, and funneled into the "school-to-prison pipeline" by zero-tolerance policies.
The same conservatives likely to complain that the Bible has been "taken out of schools" have spearheaded efforts to censor the history of white supremacist violence and colonialism from public education, overhauling history textbooks in Texas and shuttering a Mexican-American studies program in Tucson, Arizona on the grounds that it "encouraged students to resent white people". In my own town of Medford, Massachussetts, representatives from state "family values" organizations have shown up at city council meetings to oppose guidelines to protect transgender students in public schools, claiming, among other things, a violation of parental rights.
Ultimately, this is what is most troubling about "The Thaw": it represents a generation raised to believe their divine mission is to entrench a racialized and politicized Christian supremacy – not Christian inclusion – in the public sphere. Children on the religious right are being taught that they've been robbed of their voice, and that they have a calling to to reclaim it through political and cultural activism. In a lot of ways, they're succeeding.
- Religion
- United States
- Christianity
- US politics
- Republicans
- US constitution and civil liberties
- Bullying
- Race issues
- Gay rights
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Beginners' guide to using technology in language lessons
Not sure about how to use QR codes or a class wiki to teach languages? Emma Drury has some pointers
Blogging
This is a fantastic way for pupils to share and celebrate their learning but a blog does need an audience to keep it alive for pupils. A teacher can set up a class blog with individual student pages and it is incredibly easy to do and manage and allows the pupils chance to write exclusively in the language they have been learning. As the teacher you will probably need to populate the blog with articles to get the ball rolling and the pupils engaged but once they get the hang of it not only will they be leaving comments but also writing their own posts too. The British Council has a simple guide for setting up a class blog.
To take blogging one step further, think about joining a collaborative project like Quadblogging. This is where four schools link up across the world and blog on an agreed topic so the opportunities for sharing language learning are huge.
Wiki
A variation on the blogging theme is to set up a class wiki. In simple terms this is a simple webpage that can be edited by multiple users; obviously the most famous example is Wikipedia which is continuously written and rewritten by web users all over the world. Wikis are a great way of setting tasks, sharing vocab, videos and games. It can even be done as a tool to use with younger classes – take a look at this wiki set up as an online dictionary as part of the Comenius project at Bowburn Infants School. Language teacher Jackie Berry also uses a wiki as a means of sharing digital stories written in a variety of languages.
Podcasting
This is another fabulous way of getting the students interacting in their chosen language and is more accessible than blogging as students don't need to have good written skills to feel confident to take part. It can, of course, be combined with a blog and is a great way for rehearsing and redrafting work in class. Great podcasts can then be listened to again and again and can become an effective tool for revision, especially if they are posted to a class or school blog.
It is really simple to record a podcast, all you need is some kind of computer with the ability to record (most smartphones can do this now) and some recording software. Audacity is free and allows you to record, edit and export as an mp3 file. You can then upload this to your school website.
E-publishing and digital storytelling
Language consultant Lisa Stevens is a big fan of e-publishing as she says it is an excellent way of sharing. She said: "I love using the Book Creator app on the iPad as it is so versatile and can be used by anyone - young or old - and not just for stories." It is hugely empowering for pupils to be in charge of their own book, writing, proofing, editing and re-drafting it and seeing it through to publication.
Digital storytelling sites are another strand of this. Websites such as Storybird harness the power of great art to stimulate creative thoughts and writing and could be used in any language. Stories cannot be published publically which makes it a safe environment for students to work, but sadly stories written in any language other than English can't be published on the site as yet (Storybird are working on a solution to this) so there is also a wiki that collates Storybird stories created by teachers and learners in Spanish, Italian, French and German which is a really useful resource.
Other great downloadable tools to get language students buzzing include Puppet Pals, Sock Puppets and Strip Design where students can design and make their own comic strips.
Video and video conferencing
Creating a video and publishing and sharing it with an audience (either on Vimeo, YouTube or on a school website/blog) can also be another powerful way of engaging young learners in a language. At the Royal High School, Bath the students regularly create videos for the school website and so far have filmed a fashion show in Spanish, a guided tour of the school in French and a Through the Keyhole style video of their homes in German. Helen Fraser chief executive of the Girls' Day School Trust, of which the school is a member, said: The students relish the opportunity to use their imagination and ICT skills to make original pieces in a foreign language. I think it's essential to constantly reassess the teaching of languages in our schools and explore creative ways to make it enjoyable for our pupils."
Video conferencing is a fabulous way of interacting with schools in different countries and getting to try out language skills directly. It is also a really useful tool for enhancing pupils' perceptions of different cultures from around the world. Tools such as Skype and Facetime make it easy for schools to connect on a regular basis so at the Howell's School in Cardiff French students have regular Skype chats with pupils from a school in Senegal. But one word of warning - if you are setting up a Skype chat or discussion with a partner school make sure you have checked out the time difference and keep your fingers crossed that your network doesn't fail you mid-chat.
QR codes
QR codes have a wealth of uses in (and out) of the language classroom. Since the explosion in the smartphone market QR codes have become something of an epidemic but for those who don't get what they are, in simple terms the funny little square of monochrome pattern can be scanned with a smartphone and then the user is directed to some other information. Now that info is usually some marketing literature but can be a specific location on a map, a song, or a video. In the classroom you can use them for treasure hunts or vocabulary learning. Lisa Stevens also uses it for creating starters, plenaries and for creating talking walls where information is revealed when the student scans a particular QR code.
Suggestions for sites to use to create a QR code include Visualead or Kaywa and use a multi-platform reader such as iNigma to read the codes as both Android and iPhones have other specific versions that can be used.
Social networking site Twitter has a myriad of uses for the language teacher and it is so simple and easy to find and connect with other users from across the world. Some teachers use it in primary classes with the teacher being in charge of the account but the students offering ideas and questions to be asked but at Belvedere Academy, Liverpool the languages department has set up Twitter accounts in French and Spanish where the students are sent a word of the week plus top-up reading materials. For lots of ideas and inspiration join the army of languages teachers who follow #mfltwitterati.
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Lucy Mangan: a little goes a long way
Ever heard of 'microagressions'? No, me neither, but they're out there and they're partly responsible for the state we constantly find ourselves in
There's a new word out there, and if you haven't heard it yet, you soon will. (In the normal run of things, I mean, not just because I'm about to mention it here.)
The word is "microaggressions". It was first coined in the 1970s to describe the kind of small, non-physical interactions that nevertheless help create and perpetuate the oppressive environment in which a disadvantaged group lives. Basically, it refers to the kind of thing that you would otherwise have to resort to clumsy circumlocution to avoid – for instance, "I couldn't put my finger on quite how or why, and it's hardly worth bothering about really, but, you know, it made me feel a bit shitty anyway." A billion examples can be found at microaggressions.com, which is lucky, or that would be one highly misleading website address.
Identifying microaggressions is a new (or at least resurgent) twist on political correctness. And, like political correctness, it is both a) a brilliant and fundamentally sound idea that would, if properly practised, result in greater happiness for a greater number of people; and b) capable of quickly leading practitioners down spiralling corridors of guilt, anxiety and negativity that hide the original departure point from view.
These lead to barred and padded cells from which there can be no speedy return and outside which non-liberals gather to smoke cigars, point and laugh. "You guys!" they say, fat bellies and multiple chins wobbling with glee. "You always take things too far!"
I, for instance, began by (I think usefully) mentally recasting heavy shop doors as not just a personal inconvenience but an actively hostile presence (to wheelchair users and people, primarily the wimminz, with prams). But by the end of the first week I had turned every man clearing his throat on the train into a Vile Oppressor (women are taught to keep their phlegm dispersals private, ergo gender-specific mucosal tyranny). And by the end of the month I was curled in the foetal position trying to decide on the validity of a friend's argument that, by going to the library, I was depriving the publishing industry of vital support. Or that, by buying books, I was depriving the library of vital support. I forget which, and the scratches I made on the floor as I tried to work it out are indecipherable.
To slow the descent into insanity and risibility, we guilt-prone liberals must insist on maintaining a de minimis requirement before the guilt/rage/offence glands are activated. For example, a man leers at a teenage girl on the street? Let them juice away and fuel your intervention, be it verbal or merely stink-eyed. Someone demands that you write a cheque to Faber every time you use the library? Ignore him and have a biscuit instead.
And don't forget that a relentless focus on all the negative aspects of the world will eventually destroy you and leave the place entirely in the hands of the fat-bellied plutocrats outside your door. I'm putting a call out, therefore, for microniceties. If you find any, for the love of – and without wishing to denigrate, discommode or impugn those who do not believe in any divinity or whose religious affiliation lies with one other than the Christian deity – God, let me know.
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Eton finds talent is made in Dagenham thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber
Royal Academy of Music's former IT head jailed for conning school out of £370,000
Head teachers to declare motion of no confidence in Michael Gove
Secret Teacher: I'd rather leave the job I love than teach Gove's propaganda
Draft curriculum changes are forcing Secret Teacher to consider their teaching future
I was once the sort of graduate that Teach First now aims to entice into teaching. Having studied history at Oxford and considered academic research I decided to teach instead. People's reactions were sadly reflective of the status of teaching. One tutor sneeringly asked why I was "intent on pedagogy?" Plenty wondered whether it would be sufficiently intellectually challenging; some praised my supposed altruism or churned out the words "wasted as a teacher" while others put a positive spin on it saying: "at least you'll have long holidays". This is the situation Teach First aims to address; although the thought of a sponsorship scheme to substitute the former me, 21 and straight from my ivory tower, for someone with real experience and training, is excruciating.
Now, some 17 years on, I know hardly anyone with greater job satisfaction than me. Rather than teaching 'first' I want to go on teaching until I retire. Certainly there are frustrations; inset days spent sticking up Post-it notes on how to teach outstanding lessons, the tyranny of levels and prescriptive mark schemes, cosmetic and time-consuming initiatives from senior managers intent on enhancing their CVs. Increasing evidence of the unreliable marking of public exam scripts is harder to stomach, as is the annual round of advising victims of inexplicable marking whether to 'twist or stick' in the roulette game of remarking.
Yet none of these frustrations threaten the essence of the job. I still consider myself fortunate compared with friends who went into the city, law or academia. I see the humanising effect of studying history on teenagers every day. I see them slowly transformed by understanding different perspectives and debating with one another using evidence and rational argument. When I teach them the Russian Revolution I see them contemplating, for the first time, alternative ways in which societies can be organised, the gulf between ideals and realities and the relative impact of human agency and impersonal forces. I see them engaging with the big questions at an age when their outlook is being formed. When Sunday night despondency strikes family and friends, I keep quiet about the fact that I'm actually looking forward, say, to re-enacting the Lincoln-Douglas debates with my sixth-formers the next day.
My pupils are a constant source of intellectual challenge, especially now the information revolution has democratised history. Resourceful 14 year-olds can easily find counter-examples to challenge their history teacher's points, scary but invigorating for me and exhilarating for them. Pupils' questions and observations have been more instrumental in shaping my own views than the input of that Oxford tutor who sneeringly questioned my decision to teach. Whereas friends look back wistfully on the days spent contemplating history rather than share price movements, I'm paid to discuss the subject I love every day and to witness how it helps form young people's minds and personalities. I'll put up with most things to carry on with that.
But I won't put up with what's happening now. This time the changes proposed aren't easy to circumvent and go to the very heart of my job. I would be embarrassed to call myself a history teacher in a country where teaching history meant relating "our island's story in all its glory".
Gove wants me to jettison academic integrity, to exchange teaching a serious subject with civilising, democratising and humanising potential, for the imparting of nationalist propaganda. I'd rather no history were taught than Gove's history. Just as history taught properly is food for young minds, bad history – biased history, government-appropriated history - can be, and has in some contexts been, poison.
Clever, free thinking pupils will have some immunity; they will see through it and give up history. None of my former pupils who have gone on to read history at the sort universities that Teach First targets would have persisted with studying history if subjected to Gove's syllabus, let alone considered teaching it. Sponsorship schemes will not come close to resolving this. Gove claims to have a passion for history and respect for teachers but is about to drive me, many history teachers like me, and many future history teachers out of the job.
Today's Secret Teacher works at a school in the south of England.
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New US manual for diagnosing mental disorders published
The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, has divided medical opinion
The field of mental health will face its greatest upset in years on Saturday with the publication of the long-awaited and deeply-controversial US manual for diagnosing mental disorders.
Early drafts of the book, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, have divided medical opinion so firmly that authors of previous editions are among the most prominent critics.
Known informally as the psychiatrists' bible, the $199 tome from the American Psychiatric Association is the guidebook that US doctors will use to diagnose mental disorders. The latest edition is the first major update in 20 years.
Though not used in the UK, where doctors turn to the World Health Organisation's International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD), the US manual has global influence. It defines groups of patients, and introduces new names for disorders. Those names can spread, and become the norm elsewhere. More importantly, the categories redefine the populations that are targeted by drugs companies.
Criticisms have come from almost every corner. There are claims of expansionism, with common experiences and behaviours becoming newly medicalised. Temper tantrums become disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD); grief becomes major depressive disorder (MDD), according to Allen Frances, an American psychiatrist who chaired the task force behind the fourth edition of the manual. Other behaviours get their own labels: overeating becomes binge eating disorder; keeping too much junk, a hoarding disorder; a bit forgetful could be mild neurocognitive disorder.
David Clark, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, said mental health disorders are often hard to divide into clear categories, because too little is known about them, and there can be major overlaps. But the definitions are often valuable. For example, greater distinctions between various types of anxiety have led to more specific and effective treatments, he said.
Nick Craddock, professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University, and director of the National Centre for Mental Health in Wales, said some of the stranger aspects of the US manual will have no impact in Britain. But he said DSM-5 was flawed because definitions of disorders were sometimes changed on the basis of too little fresh scientific evidence.
"I don't believe the science has advanced sufficiently in 20 years since DSM-4 to warrant making a new system," he said. "That essentially is just a group of people agreeing on tweaking things and making them a little bit different. That to me is not a very helpful stage in the develop of psychiatric diagnosis. This is the wrong time in history to change the diagnostic system. "
Changing the definitions of disorders alters who has them. That affects who gets drugs and other support, and who interventions are trialled on. If the criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are broadened, then more people are likely to be diagnosed with the condition.
The arrival of DSM-5 will mark the end of Asperger's syndrome in the US.
Along with some other autism-related conditions, Asperger's will now be consumed by the new category of "autism spectrum disorder".
Some people diagnosed with Asperger's are unhappy about the coming change. Carol Povey, director of the National Autistic Society's Centre for Autism, said: "The term Asperger Syndrome is a core part of their identity for many people and they understandably feel anxious about moves to remove the term. The changes won't prevent people from continuing to use it to define themselves and nor should it," she said.
Debbie Tucker, chair of the Asperger's Syndrome Foundation, said the label can be useful in treating people, but that some did not want to be labelled. "Labels only become unhelpful and sometimes dangerous if used to discriminate. People with Aspergers are vulnerable to this," she said.
Last month, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, declared that the organisation would not use DSM-5 definitions to set its research priorities. Writing about DSM-5 on his blog, he said: "The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischaemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure." Instead, he said the NIHM would lay the foundations for a new classification system, based on brain imaging, genetics, cognitive science and other research.
"We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data – not just the symptoms – cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response," he said.
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