The NUT [National Union Of Teachers] Conference November 2004
November 2004 / by Jonathan J Joslin
In November 2004 the NUT [National Union Of Teachers] near Kings Cross presented The Pride In Education conference, on promoting LGBT issues in education, and invited gay and lesbian teachers and LGBT groups in relation to promoting education curriculums on minority issues of sexuality.
The first half started of with Tim Lucas the chair of the NUT party working on equality, seemed to a be pointless boasting soap box for LGBT group heads to say how far the societies educational system has grown on the LGBT issues, (if only it had, but there's no difference in a conditioned stigma whether its wrong or OK to choice to be that way).
[Effective Strategies in Secondary Schools] David Moor- an HMI inspectorate on schooling and teaching teachers how not to teach, was the most innovative talk I've seen on teaching. His work involved the psychology of teaching & belief systems when working with pupils, and how easy it to discriminate and victimise pupils without the teacher realising they were doing it by putting forward belief systems without being direct simply by visual expression on subject matter when working with pupils who witness teachers likes and dislikes of issues without the teacher verbalising them.
Then there every one was split into groups for workshops on and voicing issues that needed dealing with. But this seemed more like just a conference time filler and thing to do to make it seem like they were genuinely interested in helping to change things, but after the group talks were over, what was said and done was put away and ignored, proving it was just time filler and a pointless exercise to show people wanted to to change things but then realised it actually meant taking their thumb out their arse to achieve what was suggested.
Clair McNab [Press For Change] Gave an interesting, poignant speech on the gender recognition act.
After another platform for people to say I'm gay and I was victimised at school and now I'm this person doing this and now I'm getting respect, the conference came onto a section about law by Amanda Brown the NUT assistant secretary to legal and professional services.
Which interested me greatly because she spent 30 minutes explaining anomalies within the Equality Bill and the Sexual Orientation Regulations of which neither she or the NUT knew what the implications of these anomalies were let alone what they meant. So afterwards I gave her a copy of the Name Change Brief which points out exactly what those anomalies are and the full implications of them against the UK LGBT community and how it effects every school in the country and the new Section 28.
But very few LGBT heads want to read the Name Change Brief and many have deliberately ignored it. Not because its a long brief, but because it points out serious implications against LGBT group heads who with there verbalised actions and opinions on law, have confirmed the worst prejudice beliefs of the people who wrote these laws to act against them. And using the brief would mean owning up to a mistake, and nobody wants to look the fool.
All in all the conference was very interesting, as it showed me the education system of this country is being run 80 percent by people that haven't got a clue, and the other 20 percent who know and understand everything that needs to be done, but are being completely hindered by the other 80 percent and the government. And a brand new section 28 that nobody wants to acknowledge because it would inevitably make every one look like a bunch of idiots, while LGBT group heads and the NUT make statements like Section 28 left a ghost behind but were trying.
This countries education system & LGBT groups on educational issues of LGBT community still haven't past 1988, so the chances of the education system of this country and its LGBT groups moving forward on issues of Homosexuality or sexuality is about much chance as total nuclear disarmament. |
