Highland Council`s deputy leader has broken ranks

 

"Highland Council`s deputy leader has broken ranks condemning the Scottish Government`s so-called named person policy as `intrusive nonsense` imposed by `SNP dictators`."
 

"Ross-shire councillor Alasdair Rhind, a member of the minority independent-led council that has piloted the initiative is horrified by its involvement in the project."
 

"The father of three adult children said: `I`m totally against it. It`s an intrusion of government into family life. The government is way off the mark`."
 

"`The best people to look after children are their parents`."
 

"`Children are monitored from their nursery days into primary education and secondary education. Parents may not know that, but they are monitored at all stages within the education system and that is adequate enough`."
 

"He said countless constituents in his Tain and Easter Ross ward had criticised the named person scheme as `ridiculous`."
 

"He added: `This government are wanting to intrude into people`s personal lives and be dictators to people and we can`t have that, really. They should back off that scheme. And I`m pleased to see some of the opposition parties opposing it`."

 

===============================

 

 To get an idea of how authoritarian the named person approach will be, have a look at North Ayrshire Children`s Services Plan 2016-2020 Getting it Right for You

http://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/Documents/SocialServices/childrens-services-plan.pdf

Blanket surveillance is out of proportion

"John Finnie, Justice spokesperson for the Scottish Greens and MSP for the Highlands & Islands, [yesterday] used Topical Questions at Holyrood to question Ministers about the latest revelations concerning mass surveillance."

"Documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden show that a policing body called the Scottish Recording Centre was given access to swathes of communications data including phone activity, internet histories and social media behaviour."

John Finnie MSP said:

"This sort of blanket surveillance is out of proportion, inefficient and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.."

"There is clearly a culture of bulk collection of data that needs reined in. I will continue to challenge such over-reaching activities."

https://greens.scot/news/blanket-surveillance-incompatible-with-human-rights

OK, but how does John Finnie not recognise that blanket surveillance by Named Persons is out of proportion, inefficient and incompatible with the ECHR?

Scotland could be a world leader in preconception health

With the monitoring of childhood from conception to eighteen years, it was only a matter of time before there would be an interest in preconception:

"A report calling for would-be parents to consider delaying a pregnancy if they are stressed, dependent on drink or drugs, obese or affected by domestic violence, has been hailed by a leading US health expert."

"Dr Sarah Verbiest, executive director of the Centre for Maternal and Infant Health at the University of North Carolina, said the study could make Scotland a world leader in preconception health."

"Dr Verbiest, who is also a senior advisor to the US Centre for Disease Control, said: `If taken seriously and translated into action, this report has the potential to improve the health of generations of Scottish children, young adults and families, while setting a high bar of achievement internationally."

" `I predict it will put Scotland on the map in terms of preconception health, education and care`."

"The report by Dr Jonathan Sher, an author and former policy director of Children in Scotland, reviewed international research on improving child health and concluded that in many pregnancies, harm has already been done to the child before advice is sought from medical professions - and in many cases before conception has even occurred."

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14519832.Asking_unhealthy_would_be_parents_to_delay_pregnancy__would_make_Scotland_world_leader_/

The trauma inflicted on the nation`s children

By Claire Fox

"Even if you’re not a parent, a teacher or a primary school pupil, you can't have missed that it’s Sats week. The media is drowning in tales of tearful tweens and the trauma being inflicted on the nation's children by the tyranny of testing."

"To be honest, while headlines scream `factory-farming education` and `inhumane testing treadmill`, I want to scream back: `Oh please stop whining`..."

"Why do those on the brink of life's great adventure of adulthood seem so cowed and scared, to the extent that they demand protection from offence? My argument is that fragility is a core part of many young people's identity because we socialised them that way. And that takes me back to primary school. In the book I trace a parallel between over-coddled children - pre-loaded with therapeutic concepts, encouraged to complain at discomfort - and the growing number of over-sensitive, offended young adults in academia. School policies in particular have promoted notions of vulnerability from an early age..."

"Every trope used in relation to the #LetOurKidsBeKids bunk-off presages the problems ahead. The parents' complaint against the government's primary curriculum is that children find it `crashingly dull`, urging teachers instead to teach `stuff that actually interests and engages children`. So lesson number one for these primary school pupils: if your interests aren't catered for, if you don’t enjoy what or how you're being taught, you have a right to storm off in a strop? Once we concede education should be sanitised to cut out the horrible bits, we're setting up future demands for trigger warnings when lectures might contain any material deemed unpleasant."

"But for me the most destructive aspect of phenomena such as Let Our Kids Be Kids is how they incite the young to see their problems through the prism of psychological harm. Irresponsibly, campaigners have asserted that pupils are `traumatised` by the prospect of failing the tests, with Sats blamed for inducing stress, panic-attacks and anxiety. Indeed Natasha Devon (who is co-founder of the appropriately named Self-Esteem Team) fell out with her government masters when she weighed in to the Kids Strike row by declaring `the culture of testing and academic pressure is detrimental to mental health`..."

"Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas, a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and a regular contributor to TV and radio debates, including Question Time and Any Questions?

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/05/11/stop-whining-about-sats-mollycoddled-children-will-turn-into

My criticism is that she conflates political correctness, mental fragility and testing in primary schools as if these different strands coalesce into a single narrative. That is not necessarily so. It is true that they are all being enacted in the classroom and we have a right to ask, towards what end?

Pupils must take care to exude British values, whatever they are, because they can shift and seem rather strange. For instance, it`s important to tip toe around gender identity these days and there are many more identities than you might think. Diversity is something to celebrate but ethnicity ought not to be mentioned. Sustainable development is an acceptable part of the script but do take care how you express that in terms of environmental activism or you may end up in front of police officers accused of being a future extremist. And don`t forget your family is under surveillance too. Political correctness and the politics of offence is being practised in school, and it is no accident.

As for what is being done about mental health, Clair Fox is correct that children are being pre-loaded with therapeutic concepts. Social and emotional learning is now part of the school curriculum so that if girls and boys speak the language of emotion and sensitivity that is because they have been encouraged to reflect on their feelings ad nauseam. Of course, the one thing children can do is dramatise and play it up; there is no surprise about that. Kids are playful by nature. It is a pity that they do not have a more enriching experience to play around with.

Testing children in primary schools is another dead end. So much of what is going on in school is a complete waste of kids` time. And yes, some of it is harmful. If the only language around to protest is the language of trauma, so be it. It is good to see parents getting involved.

At this point it might be worth having another look at UK Column`s coverage of MAPPA, the Police and Crime Bill and the growing networks around children`s mental health. It begins about 15 minutes into the programme and suggests a much darker agenda is afoot. 

　

See also http://alicemooreuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-nurture-room.html

Tracking emotions for personalised learning

 

"The race is on to provide students with personalized learning experiences based on their individual emotions, cognitive processes, `mindsets,` and character and personality traits."

"Academic researchers, for example, are busy developing computerized tutoring systems that gather information on students' facial expressions, heart rate, posture, pupil dilation, and more. Those data are then analyzed for signs of student engagement, boredom, or confusion, leading a computer avatar to respond with encouragement, empathy, or maybe a helpful hint."

"`The idea is that emotions have a powerful influence on cognition,` said Sidney D'Mello, an assistant professor of computer science and psychology at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana. `The increasing power and affordability of eye-tracking, speech-recognition, and other technologies have made it possible for researchers to investigate those connections more widely and deeply`, he said."

"`Ten years ago, there were things you could do in a lab that you couldn't do in the messiness of the real world,` D'Mello said. `Now, you can get a reasonable proxy of a student's heart rate from a webcam.`"

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/digital-tools-evolving-to-track-students-emotions.html

Who`d be a child in this world ?

Opting out of the Every Student Succeeds Act

Here is more about America`s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the resistance mounting against it. It is worth reading for what it tells us about what is coming our way soon and the obstacles to be surmounted.

From Peg With Pen:

"Currently it's Spring of 2016 and we are in the thick of Opt Out."

"Opt out is still surrounded by intense bullying and harassment by school district employees (I anticipate that this will grow unfortunately). But, the good news is that the Opt Out Movement continues to increase in numbers. Opt Out, the People's Movement, grows by the day - and thank god for that because the work ahead of us is daunting. "

"Here’s why. Opt out has been completely co-opted. However, also understand that co-optation is typical when people are attempting to create a revolution. The .01% will co-opt in any way they can in order to gain leverage. They will use pawns to help create co-optation and compromise. These pawns who receive corporate funding will continue to push corporate ideology - which right now means singing the praises of ESSA."

"And the passage of ESSA means that the end of year test eventually could become passé. ESSA is pushing for online, daily testing - testing that is embedded inside online curriculum. Children will now be subjected to online modules in which they must master something before moving on to the next online module. It might be called personalized learning, mastery learning, proficiency-based testing, competency-based education, innovative assessments, and more. ESSA is pushing for these online assessment systems, as is ALEC, and the many foundations and organizations that are hoping to cash in."

"As Stephen Krashen states: Competency-based education is not just a testing program. It is a radical and expensive innovation that replaces regular instruction with computer "modules" that students work through on their own. It is limited to what can be easily taught and tested by computer, and is being pushed by computer and publishing companies that will make substantial profits from it."

"Not only are they pushing for daily online testing and curriculum, they are pushing for people to DROP the end of the year test. Who knew! They support Opt Out!"

"Meanwhile..............."

"Everyone , and their mother, will quietly guide the states and districts to assist them in implementing ESSA state policies - which of course will include daily online testing - via lots of federal cash..."

"Also, be sure to read how the Rockefeller Foundation plans to solve the `youth employment crisis` via competency-based hiring. Never forget that the goal is to gather data from cradle to adulthood. As daily online testing infiltrates the schools there will be more data than ever before - the data will be used to control, manage and direct our children into employment - or prison - in order to benefit the .01%.. Competency based hiring will be made possible due to the data that will morph into micro-credentials or digital badges online. This is already happening - it was planned patiently, methodically, and over years."

Read more http://www.pegwithpen.com/search?updated-min=2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2017-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4

Chris Hedges spoke at the Opt Out conference but the quality of sound is not good.

This video is better.

　
Beginning about 39 minutes, Chris Hedges talks about the growth of the prison population after the Clinton administration.

"The prison system......a microcosm of what our corporate masters are planning for the rest of us... They have the mechanisms by which they can shut down dissent."

Knowledge devalued and a reversal of roles

From the USA:

"If SETRA passes in its current form, the federal government will be empowered to expand psychological profiling of our children. Parents must understand this threat so they can mobilize to stop it."

"SETRA is a proposed reauthorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act, which created bureaucracies and funding for education research (the results of which are routinely ignored if they contradict the dogma of the progressive education establishment). But SETRA would go beyond merely wasting money and plunge the government into an area it has no constitutional, statutory, or moral right to invade: the psychological makeup of children."

"Section 132 of SETRA expands authorized research to include `research on social and emotional learning [SEL] . . . .` SEL is defined as `the process through which children . . . acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.`"

"SEL is all the rage in public education. The idea is that imparting academic knowledge is passe’ because if a student wants to know something, he can Google it (seriously – this is a common theme in education circles). Instead, the theory goes, schools should focus more on `non-cognitive` skills to jumpstart education – helping students develop government-approved thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors that will supposedly make them more productive workers."

"In other words, the school will do what the parents should be doing (encourage development of these non-cognitive traits), while the parents do what the school should be doing..."

http://beta.townhall.com/columnists/emmettmcgroarty/2016/04/15/why-does-your-congressman-want-to-psychologically-profile-your-children-n2148674

The same thing is happening in Scotland with Curriculum for Excellence, GIRFEC and the Named Person scheme.

Privacy International opposes Britain`s surveillance state legislation

 

"Britain is sleep-walking into an Orwellian surveillance state, with most of its citizens unaware of or disinterested in the far-reaching implications of the government’s Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill, a new survey suggests."

"A poll conducted by broadband comparison site Broadband Genie reveals the widespread confusion many Brits are experiencing with respect to the soon-to-be-implemented legislation."

"Known to its opponents as the `snoopers’ charter,` the bill will give UK law enforcement bodies unprecedented access to citizens’ online activities."

"It will allow them to force broadband providers such as BT and Virgin to store people’s internet browsing history and hand over this data to the state in the absence of judicial oversight..."

"Privacy International (PI), which specializes in the field of mass surveillance and privacy rights, says the IP Bill will give police deeply intrusive snooping powers, allowing for the installation of malware on citizens’ computers..."

"Such a move would empower UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies to spy on citizens by activating their microphones and webcams. PI also warns the draft legislation would allow UK authorities to remotely gain access to files on citizens’ computers and erode data security on their personal devices, without them knowing..."

"PI has launched a campaign to raise awareness about the implications of the IP Bill. Among the charity's chief concerns, is the argument that police hacking will make citizens less safe because the very technology these people use on a daily basis will become more vulnerable to cybercriminals..."

"We are calling on internet service providers to publicly oppose the bill in its current form."

https://www.rt.com/uk/340411-big-brother-surveillance-state/#.VxhvguSASCw.facebook

Some say the legislation is only about catching up with what has already been happening.