Latest / UK Column Radio / ‘Moral Courage Is What Is Required’- Stopping Sexual Indoctrination in Schools

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‘Moral Courage Is What Is Required’- Stopping Sexual Indoctrination in Schools · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: Hello everyone.
0:08
Speaker 2: This is Diane rest missus Macketti with UK column News
0:11
Speaker 2: and I'm delighted to be talking today with Hugh McCarthy,
0:15
Speaker 2: who is a former teacher and has years of experience
0:19
Speaker 2: in the education system. You would you like to tell
0:22
Speaker 2: the audience a little bit about yourself and your background, please?
0:25
Speaker 3: Yes, Good morning everybody. Good morning Diane. It looks as
0:28
Speaker 3: if we weren't too much help to either Scotland or
0:32
Speaker 3: Ireland against France at the weekend, but maybe we'll we'll
0:36
Speaker 3: leave that one as you can say. Perhaps here I'm
0:42
Speaker 3: in Northern Ireland. I've had fifty three years of experience
0:48
Speaker 3: and education. Maybe I look like that twenty three of
0:52
Speaker 3: them as a head teacher rand about my retirement time.
0:57
Speaker 3: I also lectured in the Universe Stay of Ulster. I
1:02
Speaker 3: served on two of Northern Ireland's education councils, most recently
1:07
Speaker 3: as a ministerial at Point t And I write a
1:11
Speaker 3: Substack Hues newsletter. It's got seventy five published articles, including
1:18
Speaker 3: the most recent one with yourselves. And I married three children,
1:25
Speaker 3: and I like football and rugby and cricket and not gardening.
1:32
Speaker 1: Thanks for that. What subjects did you teach when you
1:35
Speaker 1: were a teacher.
1:37
Speaker 3: Well, I'm qualified in chemistry, so it was largely chemistry,
1:42
Speaker 3: but also physics and maths as possibly as the case.
1:47
Speaker 3: I didn't teach a lot when I was a head teacher.
1:50
Speaker 3: I found that interruptions were too much. But once again
1:55
Speaker 3: it was science I taught.
1:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it was all of your experience in
2:00
Speaker 2: Northern Ireland when you were in the education system or
2:04
Speaker 2: were you working in other places as well.
2:07
Speaker 3: No, all my experience has been in Northern Ireland. I
2:10
Speaker 3: am a member of a couple of international organizations and
2:13
Speaker 3: I've visited schools here, there and everywhere. But like everywhere,
2:17
Speaker 3: our system is unique and you need an inside information
2:24
Speaker 3: in order to deal with it.
2:26
Speaker 2: So how is the Northern Ireland system? How does it
2:29
Speaker 2: compare to the other devolved nations in the UK?
2:34
Speaker 3: I think the largest different Well, there are two main differences.
2:38
Speaker 3: One is we still have selection at eleven ten. Actually
2:43
Speaker 3: it is, although I was principal of a non selective
2:46
Speaker 3: school a unique area called the Dixon Plan actually, which
2:49
Speaker 3: is a grig avon or So that's the main difference.
2:55
Speaker 3: There's a lot of controversy over that. So we still
2:58
Speaker 3: have grammar schools half the system. The second difference is
3:04
Speaker 3: we are church based. Because of our history, we have
3:09
Speaker 3: essentially two main systems, one controlled and managed and known
3:14
Speaker 3: by the Catholic Church and the other one controlled and
3:18
Speaker 3: managed by the state. So they're roughly the same size.
3:24
Speaker 3: And I think the other main difference is that our
3:30
Speaker 3: parents here, although they don't realize that, have a lot
3:34
Speaker 3: more power than is the case in the other devolved nations.
3:38
Speaker 3: And that's tying to a document called the Educational Form Order,
3:43
Speaker 3: which I just happened to have here. This is the
3:48
Speaker 3: just this is the bedrock of our parents' authority, and
3:53
Speaker 3: I've concentrated a lot on trying to explain parent rights.
3:58
Speaker 3: As you know, the education system can be many systems
4:02
Speaker 3: difficult to deal with.
4:03
Speaker 1: He summarized that a little bit for us well.
4:06
Speaker 3: The Education Reform Order was nineteen eighty nine was part
4:10
Speaker 3: of the Thatcher Margaret Thatcher revolution to privatize or semi
4:15
Speaker 3: primatize the public sector, and the frust of it was
4:20
Speaker 3: to introduce competition. As you know, she believed that competition
4:25
Speaker 3: raised standards and that included health, trains, transport, and education.
4:33
Speaker 3: So the biggest single thing that it was introduced was
4:37
Speaker 3: open enrollment. Prior to that in Northern nine children went
4:40
Speaker 3: to the local school and that was it. Open enrollment
4:44
Speaker 3: meant you could choose schools, and that choice then was
4:49
Speaker 3: to be based on information. And the second parallel was
4:54
Speaker 3: that the school funding was to be based on the
4:56
Speaker 3: number of children attending the school. The theory was that
5:01
Speaker 3: good schools would prosper, that more parents would choose those schools,
5:07
Speaker 3: and that those schools were thereby get more funding. And
5:12
Speaker 3: because of the competition, schools would have to try a
5:15
Speaker 3: lot harder and to be a lot more responsive to
5:20
Speaker 3: the wishes of their parents and to the local community.
5:24
Speaker 3: And that's the thrust of what I think we're about
5:27
Speaker 3: to talk about, responsive to the wishes of the local community.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I you know something, I as a member
5:35
Speaker 2: of the Scottish Union for Education, I'm quite aware of
5:39
Speaker 2: the challenges that have been happening in Scotland the past
5:42
Speaker 2: few years of the piece of sports decreasing and so on,
5:46
Speaker 2: which has been out of the great concern to parents
5:49
Speaker 2: who are paying attention and to have in the see groups.
5:53
Speaker 1: Has it been a similar situation in Northern Ireland or
5:56
Speaker 1: do you think that this policy has helped with that
5:59
Speaker 1: over time.
6:00
Speaker 3: I'll say about the situation as far as I know,
6:04
Speaker 3: Northern Iron, to the best of my knowledge, is unique
6:08
Speaker 3: with our parents are entitled to know the curriculum. They
6:15
Speaker 3: are entitled to be consulted on changes to the curriculum.
6:21
Speaker 3: They are entitled to sit on our Boards of Governors,
6:26
Speaker 3: which determines the curriculum. Now it is true that one
6:32
Speaker 3: of the political party's alliance, and indeed the Northern Iron
6:36
Speaker 3: Children's Commissioner, wishes that those parental rights to be greatly diminished,
6:43
Speaker 3: including the right of parents to remove their children from
6:47
Speaker 3: lessons with which they do not agree. And those four
6:51
Speaker 3: rights are crucial to the campaigns that are organized being
6:58
Speaker 3: organized under sue under Public Protection Whales issue word and
7:04
Speaker 3: indeed here under a group called the Family Education Trust,
7:09
Speaker 3: and if I might just say Dian, the Family Education
7:12
Speaker 3: Trust is holding a conference on the seventh of April
7:17
Speaker 3: at seven o'clock in the Lisburn Vic Ryan Conference Center,
7:23
Speaker 3: and interested people can contact Lucy dot Marsh at the
7:28
Speaker 3: Family Education Trust. They will hear a lot more material
7:33
Speaker 3: about their rights. Materials such as I've been speaking and
7:36
Speaker 3: distributing to various parent groups throughout Northern Ireland. We are
7:42
Speaker 3: fortunate in that the Education Ministry and art devolved system
7:48
Speaker 3: is the Minister is currently very much of a mind
7:54
Speaker 3: that you would be that I would be the material
7:57
Speaker 3: under the amend at RSSAY is no place in schools,
8:01
Speaker 3: and so is the new Chief Executive and Chair of
8:04
Speaker 3: our Education Authority. They're of the same mind and not
8:09
Speaker 3: the mind of several of the political parties, I have
8:12
Speaker 3: to say, in our convoluted system. But that is important
8:17
Speaker 3: and it is a change from the previous ministry.
8:21
Speaker 1: So I'll come back to that in just a minute.
8:23
Speaker 2: Related to that, as well as just generally speaking and
8:26
Speaker 2: wondering about the standards in Northern Ireland and whether things
8:30
Speaker 2: like the piece of scores have gone down in the
8:33
Speaker 2: past few years, because I know that they certainly haven't patented.
8:37
Speaker 3: The Northern Ireland system is designed to be portable in
8:42
Speaker 3: England and Wales. As you may know, example, are not
8:47
Speaker 3: criterion reference they're norm referenced, which means past marchs go
8:52
Speaker 3: up and nine which means percentage of grades can be adjusted.
8:58
Speaker 3: Now in terms of our exams and exams in England
9:03
Speaker 3: because a lot of our children go to university in England,
9:07
Speaker 3: they did go to Scotland but that's much less so
9:09
Speaker 3: now in terms of research, it is true that the
9:14
Speaker 3: piece of results which include Northern Iron have fallen. That
9:19
Speaker 3: would be literacy and numeracy principally, and how could they
9:23
Speaker 3: not you close schools for two years, how could reading
9:27
Speaker 3: standards not have fallen? I had a very interesting exchange
9:33
Speaker 3: with the Department of Education, actually a direct conversation in
9:39
Speaker 3: which the assertion is made that our reading standards have
9:44
Speaker 3: only fallen by a month. That's nonsense. Why would you
9:49
Speaker 3: if you close schools for two years and reading standards
9:53
Speaker 3: and standards don't fall, schools are not doing a lot
9:56
Speaker 3: of good. So in terms of standards across Northern Iron,
10:01
Speaker 3: it is very difficult to get specific information pertaining to
10:06
Speaker 3: Northern Ireland. It is coupled with the English standards, and
10:11
Speaker 3: as you know, the English standards have fun They were
10:14
Speaker 3: at the Lewess since two thousand and nine, the same
10:17
Speaker 3: as the American NIPS tests the lowest I think on
10:22
Speaker 3: their history and Alan Dudley I e. Talking to teachers.
10:28
Speaker 3: Standards of speech and language, standards of development have all
10:34
Speaker 3: fallen in line with the finding of the Great Ormond
10:36
Speaker 3: Street professor or doctor Golden, who found that they were
10:40
Speaker 3: down for two years. That's a broad answer, but it's
10:44
Speaker 3: the answer I have.
10:46
Speaker 1: That's pretty much what I expected.
10:48
Speaker 2: I just wanted to get it out there because it
10:51
Speaker 2: is such an important point. And you know, I thought
10:55
Speaker 2: myself as well when I was teaching university, which I
10:58
Speaker 2: did through year before I joined UK column full time,
11:03
Speaker 2: and I would also have to say that just the
11:06
Speaker 2: kinds of students that we were having coming in starting
11:10
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty through twenty twenty four, they were not
11:15
Speaker 2: prepared in many ways in the same way that they
11:18
Speaker 2: were up to twenty nineteen, including socially. They can't pay
11:24
Speaker 2: attention to a lecture, it doesn't hold their attention any longer.
11:29
Speaker 1: The quality of their work has gone way down.
11:32
Speaker 2: Their ability to withstand any sort of stress or extra
11:37
Speaker 2: work that comes with doing a university degree seems to
11:40
Speaker 2: have also diminished.
11:41
Speaker 1: And it's just truly tragic.
11:44
Speaker 2: I think what the lockdowns did to the entire world,
11:47
Speaker 2: but when we see it in education, it's particularly sad
11:50
Speaker 2: because these are the people that are preparing to take
11:53
Speaker 2: over the future from us, and.
11:56
Speaker 1: They're just not up for it anymore.
11:58
Speaker 2: So I just wanted to speak see something similar and
12:01
Speaker 2: I expected that you would have. I just think it's
12:04
Speaker 2: important to get out there as much as possible.
12:08
Speaker 3: Yes, the NFBR, the Education and Diamond Trust and mirror
12:15
Speaker 3: Professor Helen doctor Golden's findings all the way through and
12:20
Speaker 3: just what you said, all the way through the age
12:22
Speaker 3: group of them to twenty twenty two, the fallen behind
12:26
Speaker 3: and how could they not attendance is dying? Suspensions are up.
12:31
Speaker 3: We are facing the worst mental health crisis in our history,
12:37
Speaker 3: with a million and one point four million children of
12:40
Speaker 3: waiting appointments for mental health. How could they not have
12:44
Speaker 3: mental health? The press is asking lutricually why we denied
12:49
Speaker 3: our young people all the things that nurture and protect
12:53
Speaker 3: their mental health. Parties, sport, church, travel, into relationships, we
13:01
Speaker 3: mask the parents so as you rightly point out, and
13:05
Speaker 3: it's the same here, when you affect a person's ability
13:10
Speaker 3: to interrelate, what would you expect to happen? And it's
13:15
Speaker 3: precisely what has happened. They are not mentally resilient in
13:21
Speaker 3: a way that perhaps our generation where they are not
13:25
Speaker 3: able to cope independently, and we are now finding I
13:29
Speaker 3: know it's the other end of the age group, but
13:31
Speaker 3: they're not toileting, they're not able to climb stairs, their
13:36
Speaker 3: speeches developments out there, it's lowest in history according to
13:40
Speaker 3: this speech therapists. All those independence and that just doesn't
13:45
Speaker 3: fall away because a brain is like it's like a
13:48
Speaker 3: milk bottle. You can't keep stuffing stuff into it and
13:51
Speaker 3: expected just to fill up it. That's not the way
13:55
Speaker 3: development works now.
13:58
Speaker 2: It's truly truly tragic, and I could only hope that
14:01
Speaker 2: things will get better for students that are even younger.
14:05
Speaker 2: But if it's a matter of them, and I've heard
14:08
Speaker 2: these other stories.
14:08
Speaker 1: As well about toilet training and this.
14:11
Speaker 2: Basic functioning, they're certainly not going to be ready to
14:15
Speaker 2: manage going through an education if they can't even take
14:19
Speaker 2: care of themselves at a very very basic level. Very
14:24
Speaker 2: sad to hear, I guess with the issue with the
14:28
Speaker 2: parents being involved, have you seen as well in the
14:31
Speaker 2: past few years that despite the fact that parents have
14:34
Speaker 2: greater rights in Northern Ireland than maybe they do in
14:38
Speaker 2: the rest of the UK, have you seen that their
14:41
Speaker 2: involvement decreasing in the last few years. Have they sort
14:44
Speaker 2: of become more detached from their children and their education
14:48
Speaker 2: or has that stayed the same.
14:51
Speaker 3: Well, it's always hard for me to say, because I'm
14:53
Speaker 3: no longer in schools Ancdotally, I don't think that's the case. Certainly,
15:00
Speaker 3: I have tried to act as an advisor to various
15:06
Speaker 3: groups of parents, and I'm finding there very interested that
15:14
Speaker 3: one of the things that you mentioned, and it stuck me.
15:16
Speaker 3: With the Curriculum and Examination Council that I was a
15:21
Speaker 3: director on, we were able to speak very little about
15:26
Speaker 3: education matters. What a parent wants is how their child
15:33
Speaker 3: is doing in relation to their peer groups. So how
15:36
Speaker 3: are they reading, how are they behaving horror is their numeracy?
15:40
Speaker 3: How are they learning in relation to their peer group?
15:44
Speaker 3: It is not a finite measure. They just need to
15:47
Speaker 3: know how they're doing in relation to the rest of
15:50
Speaker 3: and indeed, how they are doing in relation to a
15:52
Speaker 3: group five years ago now, I did find a significant
15:58
Speaker 3: involvement with the parents in this school in which I
16:00
Speaker 3: was principal. I understand that has continued. Parents evenings and
16:05
Speaker 3: open nights are well attended, and groups that I've been
16:10
Speaker 3: speaking to are very keen on knowing how their child
16:16
Speaker 3: is doing, whether we're actually delivering at an organizational level.
16:22
Speaker 3: I have campaigned long and hard for a province wide
16:29
Speaker 3: reading assessment, because reading drives everything. According to the uec D,
16:35
Speaker 3: reading gives you access to education numerously enables you to
16:38
Speaker 3: benefit financially from it. Yet we have no standardized reading
16:43
Speaker 3: test across the province, so nobody really knows how they're
16:47
Speaker 3: doing in relation to the school next door, how they're
16:50
Speaker 3: doing in relation to the rest of the province, and
16:55
Speaker 3: how are they doing in relation to last year. And
16:58
Speaker 3: it's crucial and what we were talking about reading earlier
17:02
Speaker 3: on Diane, and it's very important once you reach the
17:05
Speaker 3: age if you haven't learned to read, but the age
17:07
Speaker 3: of about thirteen, the synopsis sort of cement and you
17:12
Speaker 3: can't really let a lot of diminishing returns thereafter. Now,
17:17
Speaker 3: the reading functional literacy is about eighty five points on
17:23
Speaker 3: scales and tests which exist. You can shove them up
17:28
Speaker 3: to ninety ninety five hundreds in more. If you get
17:33
Speaker 3: them up to nineteen ninety five, we're in GCSEEC level.
17:37
Speaker 3: But if you don't continue to do that, they fall
17:40
Speaker 3: back down. If they fall back down, they haven't got
17:44
Speaker 3: the functional literacy skills needed to live and work. Now,
17:48
Speaker 3: there was a whole cohort in that age in that
17:55
Speaker 3: point score, say, from the age of nine to twelve,
18:00
Speaker 3: desperately needed pushing up in school. Schools were closed and
18:06
Speaker 3: they didn't get it. So there's a whole coord right
18:09
Speaker 3: there who's really standards have fallen, and they sadly, it's very,
18:17
Speaker 3: very difficult to teach those children to read after thirteen,
18:21
Speaker 3: and schools are finding that, and society we'll find it
18:24
Speaker 3: because those are the children that will have to read
18:26
Speaker 3: instructions about this, that and the other. And it's very sad.
18:32
Speaker 3: And what I've been writing about Dane is which somebody
18:36
Speaker 3: be held responsible for the damage instead of just being saying, WHOA,
18:40
Speaker 3: I don't know how it happened. I know what had
18:42
Speaker 3: you closed schools and you didn't need to children weren't
18:45
Speaker 3: at risk. They weren't they weren't a risk to other people.
18:49
Speaker 3: Schools should never have closed and children were in many
18:57
Speaker 3: times suffered lifetime damage because of the decisions made by
19:01
Speaker 3: the authorities. And I was not popular, and I have
19:04
Speaker 3: the two councils that I sat on for saying so
19:09
Speaker 3: I'd like to hold something responsible.
19:11
Speaker 2: At UK column, we have consistently questioned the narrative that
19:16
Speaker 2: happened in twenty twenty and beyond for a lot of reasons,
19:21
Speaker 2: and I believe rightfully so. But even if you look
19:23
Speaker 2: at the UK government's own website, and again we can't
19:27
Speaker 2: you know that, we can't.
19:28
Speaker 1: Part of me trust what's on the government website.
19:31
Speaker 2: But even there it's said that the you know, the
19:34
Speaker 2: survival rate of COVID if you believe that COVID was
19:37
Speaker 2: a disease and killed people, which not everyone does, but
19:40
Speaker 2: some people do. But even believing their official narrative, they
19:44
Speaker 2: were saying that it had a ninety seven point five
19:46
Speaker 2: percent survival rate and that most people who died from
19:49
Speaker 2: it were elderly, which meant that children were at no
19:52
Speaker 2: risk whatsoever really of dying from any sort of respiratory
19:56
Speaker 2: illness if it did exist, and it's certainly should not
20:00
Speaker 2: have closed schools and affected their patient And I heard
20:04
Speaker 2: a lot from parents that I know who had young
20:08
Speaker 2: children at the time who were having difficulties getting them
20:12
Speaker 2: to engage with their education because they were giving these know,
20:17
Speaker 2: the online classes, and they were having trouble with getting
20:20
Speaker 2: their children to do their work.
20:22
Speaker 1: They just wanted to go walk.
20:23
Speaker 2: YouTube or whatever they felt like doing, and so they
20:26
Speaker 2: would turn off their cameras that were supposed to be
20:28
Speaker 2: on and go do something else, or go to sleep,
20:32
Speaker 2: or just completely not be engaged. And I certainly, as
20:37
Speaker 2: difficult as it was for me to teach at university
20:39
Speaker 2: level during that time, I certainly don't envy the teachers
20:43
Speaker 2: who had to live through it either, because I also
20:45
Speaker 2: know some teachers teaching in the schools younger children that
20:50
Speaker 2: felt just as isolated as anyone did, and they still
20:54
Speaker 2: had to carry on with it, and so I imagine that
20:57
Speaker 2: was a lot of load for them to carry as
20:58
Speaker 2: well to have to slaid into that environment. It was
21:02
Speaker 2: difficult enough when I'm teaching legal adults at university, so
21:06
Speaker 2: for everyone, it was a terrible, terrible situation to be in.
21:11
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit as well about,
21:14
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, your writing for us right now for
21:18
Speaker 2: our viewers. I'm not sure exactly when this energy will
21:20
Speaker 2: go out live to everyone, but as at this point,
21:24
Speaker 2: you have a three part series that you're writing about
21:28
Speaker 2: the sexualization of children in the schools, which the main
21:31
Speaker 2: title of the three parts is what they Didn't Want
21:34
Speaker 2: to Hear. So Part one has been published, Part two
21:37
Speaker 2: and part three will be coming out about in a
21:40
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. We're going to spread them out a
21:42
Speaker 2: bit so that people have time to digest the material.
21:46
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk a little bit about what's
21:48
Speaker 2: in that series, because I personally see connections between what's
21:53
Speaker 2: happened with the you know, the COVID era, the closing
21:58
Speaker 2: of schools, and now we have this incredible distraction, terrible
22:03
Speaker 2: disgusting distraction of the indoctrination that's going on with schools,
22:07
Speaker 2: which really cannot lead to anything good in any way,
22:11
Speaker 2: and certainly not for the basics of education that children
22:15
Speaker 2: need to receive.
22:15
Speaker 1: So can you tell us a little bit about your
22:17
Speaker 1: serious please?
22:18
Speaker 3: I will and if I can hold both questions in
22:21
Speaker 3: my head, just for those who will listen. To Northern Ireland,
22:25
Speaker 3: two hundred and seventy three people died of COVID. Of
22:30
Speaker 3: COVID in four years. They died at the same rate
22:33
Speaker 3: as they would have died of flu, except nobody did
22:37
Speaker 3: die of flu. The youngest person to die of COVID
22:41
Speaker 3: in Northern Iron was thirty eight. Now where did I
22:45
Speaker 3: get that information? The Department of Health Northern Iron and
22:49
Speaker 3: Kathy Gray, who's a great friend of No healthy child
22:54
Speaker 3: died anywhere in the world that can be traced of
22:58
Speaker 3: COVID and if there was any transmission, it happened from
23:04
Speaker 3: adult to child. And actually the sadness of it was
23:10
Speaker 3: that they knew this all alone. And there's a four
23:13
Speaker 3: part series of mine on UK column. This was known
23:18
Speaker 3: all along. In fact, our chief medical officer is on
23:21
Speaker 3: record as saying it was nothing and is more or
23:25
Speaker 3: less the directly, it was nothing to do with the children.
23:28
Speaker 3: It was to keep the parents at home. No, that
23:34
Speaker 3: is absolutely disgraceful. And in fact, our parents, our chief
23:38
Speaker 3: medical officer couldn't and wouldn't answer the simple questions why
23:42
Speaker 3: did you close goods? Parents should know that. To answer
23:46
Speaker 3: your direct question about the sexual sexualization of children via
23:54
Speaker 3: the school curriculum, I got three whys here. Why is
23:59
Speaker 3: this a school issue? Why isn't it a health issue?
24:04
Speaker 3: Why should every child be taught this when it's a
24:08
Speaker 3: minority of a minority, and why would you teach it
24:12
Speaker 3: at all? Now for our people that are listening for
24:17
Speaker 3: the first time, and I'm going to refer to something
24:20
Speaker 3: sitting beside me here, Diane, the who driven government's agenda
24:27
Speaker 3: which filtered down from the United Nations to the United
24:32
Speaker 3: Kingdom governments from Westminster into the devolved administrations, from there
24:39
Speaker 3: into the civil service and then down to the curriculum councils.
24:43
Speaker 3: That's the train with this followed now the WHO guidance,
24:48
Speaker 3: which after a campaign, was removed from our website, our
24:54
Speaker 3: curriculum website. Some of us spoke out strongly against it.
24:59
Speaker 3: I was one of them. And it's now there. And
25:03
Speaker 3: I would like to think that primary schools in Northern
25:06
Speaker 3: Iron parents on head teachers, we check again, because there
25:11
Speaker 3: are some several many of our primary schools are still
25:14
Speaker 3: using it. It's not there any longer. Now, this is
25:19
Speaker 3: what it said. Bear with me, don because this is important.
25:23
Speaker 3: And WHO published two documents, the WHO Standards for Sexuality
25:28
Speaker 3: Education in Europe and the International Technical Guidance on Sexual
25:33
Speaker 3: Sexuality Education. Now they're not great reads, but you should
25:39
Speaker 3: read them. I've got some examples. For sixty nine years.
25:46
Speaker 3: Who's got two statements. A child is understood to be
25:50
Speaker 3: a sexual being from the beginning. From the beginning. The
25:56
Speaker 3: Guidance for sixty nine year olds recommends a corecerum content
26:00
Speaker 3: which includes now the words recommends. Now remember the curriculum
26:06
Speaker 3: websites for all that devolved administration the first port of
26:10
Speaker 3: call for teachers, head teachers and administrators because they will
26:14
Speaker 3: just put this. This is for six to nine euros.
26:19
Speaker 3: Sexual intercourse, gender orientation and sexual behavior of young people,
26:26
Speaker 3: Enjoyment and pleasure when touching one's own body, masturbation, self stimulation,
26:33
Speaker 3: and organism. The International Technical Guidance for five to eight
26:40
Speaker 3: year old state that learners will be able to identify
26:45
Speaker 3: the critical parts of the internal and external genitals and
26:51
Speaker 3: describe their basic function. Moving on to gender who respond
27:00
Speaker 3: to contemporary global challenges through education with a special focus
27:06
Speaker 3: and gender equality. Sexual reality education is firmly based on
27:12
Speaker 3: self determination and the acceptance self determination and the acceptance
27:19
Speaker 3: of diversity. The curriculum for sixty nine year rules the
27:24
Speaker 3: differences between gender identity and biological sex for five to
27:32
Speaker 3: eight year rules define gender and biological sex and describe
27:39
Speaker 3: how they are different. And finally, now there's a lot
27:44
Speaker 3: more so this is only finally a minutes reflect on
27:48
Speaker 3: how they feel about their biological sex and gender. Now.
27:56
Speaker 3: It also recommends that this should be taught in an
27:59
Speaker 3: inter active way. I am at a loss to how
28:03
Speaker 3: you teach about texting pornography, which is also here about
28:09
Speaker 3: Genitalia in an interactive way. At the very least, it
28:16
Speaker 3: involves very descriptive language and probably photographs or pictures. So
28:25
Speaker 3: once again, and I put this to my board, why
28:29
Speaker 3: would you teach this? And I'm at a loss. I
28:36
Speaker 3: never got an answer. I have put it to our officials.
28:41
Speaker 3: Why would you teach this at all? Why would you
28:44
Speaker 3: teach it in a school? Why would you ask a
28:47
Speaker 3: young child are you a boy or a girl? Today?
28:50
Speaker 3: Why would you offer a young child to put on
28:53
Speaker 3: the clothes of the opposite sex in a primary school?
28:58
Speaker 3: Now I'm not talking hypothetically here. I'm giving examples of
29:05
Speaker 3: what has happened in some of our primary schools. And
29:09
Speaker 3: if it's happened in Northern Ireland, you can be sure
29:11
Speaker 3: it's happening in Scotland, Wales and England. Why would you
29:15
Speaker 3: do this? Now? The answer given by the Secretary of
29:21
Speaker 3: State at Westminster was reduce unwanted pregnancies and reduce domestic violence. Now,
29:33
Speaker 3: I'm not clear on the connection between what I've just
29:36
Speaker 3: read and the stated aims, and even later, even later,
29:44
Speaker 3: and I know this is a bit of a monolog
29:46
Speaker 3: but I think it's important. It talks about access to abortion.
29:52
Speaker 3: Now I've got in my head that sexual activity with
29:57
Speaker 3: a minor is a criminal offense. I don't say and
30:02
Speaker 3: I don't say it any of the websites big banner
30:05
Speaker 3: that says this against the law, this is a criminal offense.
30:12
Speaker 3: There are no legal and moral issues on the website
30:15
Speaker 3: unless you choose to bring them in. Now, the evidence
30:19
Speaker 3: presented through CAST and you might want to ask me
30:22
Speaker 3: about that through Professor Patton at Westminster, it was quite
30:26
Speaker 3: clear these programs don't deliver. There is no evidence that
30:31
Speaker 3: they work at all. Yet the WHO talks about evidence
30:35
Speaker 3: based Now I'll go back to abortion issue. The WHO
30:43
Speaker 3: does say in a small print about the wishes, the
30:48
Speaker 3: social norms of society, and the importance of the churches
30:53
Speaker 3: and faith based organization. But it gives them in about that.
30:58
Speaker 3: You have to read the eating pages to see it.
31:02
Speaker 3: The other stuff goes on for page after a page
31:05
Speaker 3: after a page. Now, actually I understood, and it's two
31:10
Speaker 3: of the Presbyterian churches as well, that it was a
31:14
Speaker 3: bedrock of a Catholic faith. That's the sanctity of holy
31:19
Speaker 3: life was was a given. So why are we talking
31:25
Speaker 3: abortion to eleven, twelve, thirteen or fourteen year olds, and
31:31
Speaker 3: yet the Secretary of State talked about unwanted pregnancies and
31:36
Speaker 3: access to abortion, talked to youngsters. Now Northern Ireland, as
31:44
Speaker 3: you know, is it conservative place? We at least I
31:48
Speaker 3: thought it was the other factor before and I stopped
31:52
Speaker 3: after this. Seventy four of our parents in the official
31:56
Speaker 3: public consultation said no to this. But as we were
32:01
Speaker 3: finding with everything else, then the authorities just roll on
32:07
Speaker 3: as if we don't matter. And I pause there because
32:11
Speaker 3: you may have questions based on research or the curriculum
32:15
Speaker 3: or whatever. Yeah.
32:17
Speaker 2: No, they certainly do whatever they want. And I've seen
32:21
Speaker 2: that not only in this area, but in other areas
32:23
Speaker 2: where I've completed consultations, either through the UK government or
32:27
Speaker 2: even Edinburgh City Council where I live, and they just
32:31
Speaker 2: do what they want anyway. The only reason they ask
32:33
Speaker 2: us is to say that they did, but they never
32:35
Speaker 2: actually do what. I don't think what the majority of
32:38
Speaker 2: people say they want or don't want. Did you see
32:41
Speaker 2: anything in this report, because one of the big questions
32:45
Speaker 2: I have with all of these agendas, these evil agendas,
32:50
Speaker 2: is you said that the WHO report claims to be
32:54
Speaker 2: evidence based, but there was no evidence for it, and
32:57
Speaker 2: I know you've studied this all very carefully, So did
32:59
Speaker 2: you see anything anywhere that says where where these ideas
33:04
Speaker 2: come from or what it is that told the who
33:09
Speaker 2: that we need to be doing these things and providing
33:12
Speaker 2: this information to our children.
33:14
Speaker 3: Well, I haven't read it. It is true that children
33:18
Speaker 3: take on societal norms from a very early age. There
33:22
Speaker 3: is shall I say, generic research showing that young children
33:27
Speaker 3: take on shall we say, sectarianism in northern Iron from
33:32
Speaker 3: the very early age. And we do know that the
33:35
Speaker 3: first five years of a child's life, ninety five percent
33:40
Speaker 3: of their development takes place. So there is general research
33:44
Speaker 3: pointing at the importance of what happens in their early years.
33:48
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm speaking about it, because if you
33:51
Speaker 3: normalize what we're talking about here, then a child views
33:57
Speaker 3: it as normal, especially if it comes from an adult
34:00
Speaker 3: in authority. And we do know that separate from the teacher,
34:04
Speaker 3: separate from the child itself, the teacher is the single
34:08
Speaker 3: biggest influence on all the child learns. I think it's
34:12
Speaker 3: thirty percent. I think it's the research. And we also
34:16
Speaker 3: know as parents that peer group pressure social media is
34:20
Speaker 3: now shoving the teacher. So if the teachers talking about this,
34:27
Speaker 3: and the trade unions are spreading it too. The Highest
34:30
Speaker 3: National Teacher Organization, which represents a majority of the teachers
34:36
Speaker 3: in the Catholic sector, incredibly runs training courses. In this
34:42
Speaker 3: two it says that teachers should challenge prevailing attitude to gender. Well, no,
34:51
Speaker 3: they shouldn't, and that is in those articles. I mean,
34:57
Speaker 3: I'm have you spoke about them where I have experience
34:59
Speaker 3: in I spoke about what we are doing to our
35:02
Speaker 3: children in Leath with Professor Richard Inos. I couldn't get
35:06
Speaker 3: a hale. I did it in Leith Park so that
35:12
Speaker 3: we wouldn't be silenced completely. What are we doing to
35:15
Speaker 3: our children and why? And this is just another step
35:18
Speaker 3: and yet our authorities I have the impression I raised
35:22
Speaker 3: this eight consecutive board meetings to a stony silence. The
35:32
Speaker 3: title refers to the fact that I never got the
35:35
Speaker 3: full opportunity to present the actual science. I had lots
35:41
Speaker 3: of science that showed that the Department of Education was
35:46
Speaker 3: using out of date to put it, kindly, out of
35:49
Speaker 3: date science. Now I did the Department sitting beside me
35:53
Speaker 3: like me saying that no, but if we followed NASS
36:00
Speaker 3: guidance on closures. Why aren't we following the NHS CAST
36:06
Speaker 3: report which is stating that something up towards ninety percent
36:10
Speaker 3: of the children using the time honored phrase grew out
36:14
Speaker 3: of this and those children who have doubts about their gender.
36:19
Speaker 3: Its research again shows that it's because they've suffered a
36:22
Speaker 3: trauma in their lives. So we're talking about a minority
36:27
Speaker 3: of a minority of a minority. And doctor Hillary Cask
36:32
Speaker 3: clearly said that clinical management approaches should be hard. This
36:37
Speaker 3: is handled where the child is having doubts about their
36:42
Speaker 3: sexuality and their gender. And the other evident space that
36:48
Speaker 3: Professor Patten and others presented was that in only six
36:52
Speaker 3: percent of the courses round did they see any difference.
36:56
Speaker 3: It didn't reduce unwanted pregnancies, reduced the number of partners,
37:03
Speaker 3: but it did they saw an increase in the number
37:05
Speaker 3: of sexual partners. Are they found an increase and they
37:09
Speaker 3: saw eighteen percent cause great harm and professor presented that
37:15
Speaker 3: in Westminster. They also his research also showed that mandating
37:20
Speaker 3: it for schools made no difference. It made no difference
37:25
Speaker 3: whether it was an update and that was that is
37:30
Speaker 3: the current science. And I advise parents to have a
37:34
Speaker 3: look at it now, I and this is this is
37:38
Speaker 3: a cynic In Northern Iron, parents are proving a block
37:45
Speaker 3: because more and more of them the way our governors
37:48
Speaker 3: are made up. And this is why I urge all
37:50
Speaker 3: parents to establish who governs their schools and what part
37:54
Speaker 3: they have. Now in Northern Iron, there are all the
37:58
Speaker 3: order of four parents elected by the parents. There are
38:02
Speaker 3: four church representatives, either Catholic church representatives on the Catholic
38:09
Speaker 3: boards or the three main Protestant church representatives on the
38:15
Speaker 3: state school boards boards of governors. Now there is it.
38:18
Speaker 3: That's a majority. And the boards of governors represent or
38:24
Speaker 3: are supposed to represent local indrests. Now there's a clue
38:29
Speaker 3: in the title parent representatives church representatives. I would advise
38:36
Speaker 3: parents strongly to get in touch with their representatives because
38:42
Speaker 3: the Northern Iron representatives, the actual people on the ground,
38:46
Speaker 3: remain conservative with the small say and they are opposed
38:51
Speaker 3: to this. The governors are opposed to it, the parents
38:54
Speaker 3: are opposed to the church representatives are opposed to it.
38:59
Speaker 3: They need to confidence, as Robert Kennedy Senior said, they
39:03
Speaker 3: need moral courage, and I didn't see much of that
39:06
Speaker 3: on my board. To be honest with you, I know
39:09
Speaker 3: the people on the board didn't agree with it, but
39:13
Speaker 3: I didn't see anybody saying asking what Hannah Arnt said,
39:18
Speaker 3: why stop? And think? Why are we doing this? They
39:23
Speaker 3: seem to me just be following some great weight from
39:27
Speaker 3: the sky when actually we had the authority to say no,
39:34
Speaker 3: just to say no and two. But what we needed
39:40
Speaker 3: was courage. I'm a member of a retired principal script.
39:45
Speaker 3: There are ten of us and we meet regular It's
39:47
Speaker 3: cross community, very healthy. And when I was discussing this
39:52
Speaker 3: and said, why are we doing this? And one of
39:55
Speaker 3: the experience heads said, fear are all afraid to stand
40:03
Speaker 3: up for what is right? They all agree that they're
40:07
Speaker 3: afraid to stand up and that's sad, and therefore they
40:12
Speaker 3: have to be shoved and pushed. And that's where if
40:15
Speaker 3: parents are not going to do it, no, and grandparents
40:20
Speaker 3: are not going to do it, now, when are they
40:23
Speaker 3: going to do it? Are they content to let schools
40:30
Speaker 3: separate them from their children because children are learning one
40:33
Speaker 3: thing in school and then going home. A couple of
40:36
Speaker 3: the political parties and the usual institutions are saying parents
40:41
Speaker 3: shouldn't have the right because Sue. One of Sue's articles
40:45
Speaker 3: says parents in Scotland will not have the right to
40:48
Speaker 3: withdraw their child because they're integrating it through the entire curriculum.
40:52
Speaker 3: That's not the case in Northern iron It's a free
40:55
Speaker 3: standing or currently a free standing subject and it's the
40:59
Speaker 3: men the subject I'm talking about. It's freestanding and therefore
41:03
Speaker 3: a parent can withdraw. But the Alliance Party wants to
41:09
Speaker 3: remove that right, and then Children's Commissioner here wants to
41:15
Speaker 3: remove that right. But they're all paid forward with the
41:18
Speaker 3: same global funding that seems to be determining a lot
41:24
Speaker 3: of our policies. I'll stopped there. I'm on my soap books.
41:30
Speaker 1: Yep, it's great, it's great. We're here to hear from you.
41:34
Speaker 2: Going back to CASS for just a minute as well.
41:37
Speaker 2: I did interview previously doctor Jenny Cunningham for UK column
41:42
Speaker 2: and we talked about that review from her perspective as
41:46
Speaker 2: a retired pediatrician, and one of the most interesting things
41:50
Speaker 2: that she said about CASS from her perspective was that
41:55
Speaker 2: essentially what they're trying to do is the idea of
41:59
Speaker 2: the medical transition. When we're talking about these gender ideologies,
42:04
Speaker 2: the medical transition is not the answer to what may
42:07
Speaker 2: be a mental health condition. So we're trying to treat
42:10
Speaker 2: a mental health condition by you know, modifying their bodies
42:15
Speaker 2: in really dangerous and permanently damaging ways.
42:19
Speaker 3: As we know, when you.
42:22
Speaker 2: Looked at casts from an educator's perspective, what were the
42:25
Speaker 2: most important things that stood out to you?
42:28
Speaker 3: Well, what you just said, Actually it goes further. Every
42:34
Speaker 3: systematic review of the evidence shows that there is no
42:39
Speaker 3: evidence that hormonal transplants solve mental health issues. And you're
42:45
Speaker 3: quite right. What Cass is saying is that there's no
42:49
Speaker 3: evidence that these that either surgical or hormonal medical treatment
42:56
Speaker 3: has any effect whatsoever, because the evidence shows that suicide
43:03
Speaker 3: rates and mental health issues are higher in the group,
43:07
Speaker 3: not lower. I mean, if it worked, then The original
43:14
Speaker 3: theory was that children who are suffering gender dysphoria, we're
43:21
Speaker 3: doing so because they're in their wrong body, and that
43:25
Speaker 3: they would lead happier, more fulfilled lives if they underwent
43:30
Speaker 3: or moral treatment or medical surgery. And it was called
43:33
Speaker 3: the Dutch protocol, and it was introduced largely by a doctor,
43:38
Speaker 3: a finished doctor known as Caltiale. Now she based that
43:43
Speaker 3: on research. Now, doctor Caltiale has totally reversed her position.
43:50
Speaker 3: Now this came by who United Nations, the United States
43:57
Speaker 3: and the Norway speeding Denmark. All the countries they let
44:03
Speaker 3: us in, they're leading out now Finland, for example, co
44:09
Speaker 3: Heer it's the Finnish National Health Services. And I said,
44:12
Speaker 3: leave all this to post a team when the person
44:16
Speaker 3: is mature enough to make their own decision. And there
44:21
Speaker 3: County Ali has now reversed her position. She said her
44:25
Speaker 3: position was based on a bass and flawed set of
44:29
Speaker 3: research papers from a very small cohort. So the whole
44:35
Speaker 3: fundamental tenet is flawed from the science. And that's when
44:42
Speaker 3: I refer to it's using out of dead science. The
44:44
Speaker 3: Department of Education, it's using out of dead science because
44:47
Speaker 3: the science says the direct opposite to the science that
44:50
Speaker 3: they had used. And you're right, Jenny Cunningland is is
44:56
Speaker 3: pedutrition and she would be typically advice that I would
45:02
Speaker 3: be following that. What we do know to talk about
45:07
Speaker 3: this at the age where development isn't complete, The children
45:14
Speaker 3: don't understand the concepts involved to make such decisions that
45:20
Speaker 3: will affect them, as Coohor said, for the rest of
45:23
Speaker 3: their lives. Why would you do that?
45:28
Speaker 2: That's a really an excellent question, and the only answer
45:31
Speaker 2: that I can come up with is that you're not
45:34
Speaker 2: protecting children the way that you should be. You're not
45:37
Speaker 2: making them aware of what's going to happen to their
45:40
Speaker 2: bodies as they go through puberty. And as you said,
45:44
Speaker 2: you know, when you're over eighteen, if that's something that
45:47
Speaker 2: you want to do to yourself, and that, in my opinion,
45:50
Speaker 2: that's your choice to do so, that's your right to
45:53
Speaker 2: do with your own body. But these children are going
45:56
Speaker 2: through it even before they've reached puberty. And while they're
45:59
Speaker 2: going through it, the permanent damage is not something that
46:04
Speaker 2: they will be able to understand or maybe even really
46:08
Speaker 2: consider the fact that it will affect their future plans
46:11
Speaker 2: for fertility. They won't be able to be parents themselves.
46:15
Speaker 2: And just the health issues, the side effects of some
46:18
Speaker 2: of the hormonal medications alone, not to mention the surgeries,
46:22
Speaker 2: and once body parts are gone, you can't put them back.
46:25
Speaker 2: You can't change that decision later when you've changed your
46:28
Speaker 2: mind and realized that maybe you shouldn't have done that.
46:31
Speaker 2: But whether or not children are still capable cognitively even
46:35
Speaker 2: of thinking about those decisions long term, I think is
46:38
Speaker 2: something that really needs to be looked at carefully, and
46:43
Speaker 2: so yeah, you're absolutely right about that. With the parent
46:47
Speaker 2: issue and the board. What exactly is going on there
46:51
Speaker 2: with those interactions, because if you have small c conservative
46:56
Speaker 2: parents saying no, we don't want this in our school,
47:00
Speaker 2: and the board just kind of staying quiet.
47:05
Speaker 1: How does that work?
47:06
Speaker 2: I can't. I'm just trying to picture how that works
47:08
Speaker 2: at a board meeting where they're just afraid to say
47:11
Speaker 2: to the parents, Okay, we'll do what you want, when
47:13
Speaker 2: that's supposed to be how it works in Northern Island,
47:16
Speaker 2: but they're not doing it, Like, what is going on
47:18
Speaker 2: there exactly?
47:20
Speaker 3: Board of governors is one board I referred to another board.
47:23
Speaker 3: I should really have called it a council. Boards of
47:27
Speaker 3: governors have the power. When our devolved government collapsed, Northern
47:33
Speaker 3: Ireland was governed by directory via a Sexuary of State.
47:38
Speaker 3: So when we had no our devolved administration called storm.
47:42
Speaker 3: When we had no Storm, the Secretary of State introduced
47:45
Speaker 3: this legislation at Westminster and you can read about it.
47:50
Speaker 3: In answer. He was quite clear in the small print
47:54
Speaker 3: that it must be in line with the ethos of
47:57
Speaker 3: the school. Ethos of the school. Even onda says determined
48:02
Speaker 3: by the Board of Governors. Now the board of governors
48:08
Speaker 3: are constituted by churches and local parents. Now every official body,
48:15
Speaker 3: and I want to make this clear to Northern Ireland parents,
48:19
Speaker 3: where do you get your rights? Where they derived from?
48:21
Speaker 3: Apart from that book that they showed you, every official
48:24
Speaker 3: body in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State, the Department
48:29
Speaker 3: of Education, the Education Authority and the Curriculum Council assert
48:35
Speaker 3: parental rights. So don't be in any doubt. Parental rights
48:41
Speaker 3: and the ethos of the school are para mind, but
48:45
Speaker 3: they're no good unless you assert your rights. The Department
48:52
Speaker 3: is telling you all this, but it's saying, oh, you
48:54
Speaker 3: must teach this, but you mustn't. That's the point I'm
49:00
Speaker 3: trying to make. And it's hard. Long as a piece
49:04
Speaker 3: of strength, I could teach you about volcanoes in a
49:10
Speaker 3: line or two volcanoes erupt period. I could teach you
49:15
Speaker 3: in a month about volcanoes. And so it is with
49:21
Speaker 3: the legislation. That's why I concentrated them. The who guidance
49:26
Speaker 3: WHO Guidance gives you impression and it goes on for
49:29
Speaker 3: page after page after page, in great detail. These are
49:34
Speaker 3: led out as learning objectives. These are led out as
49:38
Speaker 3: less lesson plans in great detail, but you don't have to.
49:45
Speaker 3: You can teach it in a sentence or two. And
49:48
Speaker 3: you can teach morality criminality as well in Northern Arland.
49:55
Speaker 3: Now what HAPs the Board of Governors need to take responsibility.
49:59
Speaker 3: That's what they're there for. At the Curriculum Council, I
50:04
Speaker 3: don't know what the Scotland one called the Welsh one
50:06
Speaker 3: is what as a WJEC. The English one is called JQA.
50:13
Speaker 3: Ours is called sa CCEA curriculum trying to education assessment?
50:22
Speaker 3: Why that continued? Now? Important changes were made to the hub.
50:28
Speaker 3: Scotland's got a hub, Northern Ireland as a hub. Important
50:32
Speaker 3: changes were made to emphasize ethos of the school, parental rights,
50:38
Speaker 3: the removal of WHO guidance. That's very important, very important
50:45
Speaker 3: for parents. However, the department sits on the council. Senior
50:50
Speaker 3: official sits on the council and the Department of Education
50:56
Speaker 3: commissions the council. It's kind of the boss. It pays
51:02
Speaker 3: for and commissions. Very hard for the Council of Affair
51:08
Speaker 3: to not do it. It's easier for a director, a
51:13
Speaker 3: board member such as myself to speak out. I was
51:19
Speaker 3: a bit disappointed that not more members of the board
51:24
Speaker 3: spoke guide and then essentially, as you would know, most
51:29
Speaker 3: boards are made up of shall we say, middle aged people.
51:33
Speaker 3: Northern I remains church facing amongst that generation. That's the
51:40
Speaker 3: society that we come in. Came up with church facing,
51:44
Speaker 3: a contact with our local churches or chapels, and so
51:48
Speaker 3: it was with the people that were around me, and
51:51
Speaker 3: I had several private, difficult conversations about Catholic belief system
51:59
Speaker 3: presbytere belief systems, about bringing our belief systems into their
52:03
Speaker 3: professional life. And my view was and is, if you
52:07
Speaker 3: don't bring your personal belief system into your professional life,
52:10
Speaker 3: but what good are you? And all those were as
52:16
Speaker 3: you can imagine, those were difficult conversations. I believed, and
52:22
Speaker 3: I to be fair to the council, the tide has changed.
52:29
Speaker 3: At the last my final meeting, I did say I
52:33
Speaker 3: don't need to speak. The US government policy statement has
52:38
Speaker 3: done it for us, and I believe since we've followed
52:41
Speaker 3: the US government policy and we follow it in two years,
52:45
Speaker 3: why not do it not? And in Northern Ireland, the
52:50
Speaker 3: Minister of Education and the two top officials maybe not
52:55
Speaker 3: the civil service probably align with the ex executive orders
53:02
Speaker 3: that President Trump signed in January the twentieth, and it
53:09
Speaker 3: will be interesting to see what transpires. And one of
53:16
Speaker 3: the things I talked about in parental rights is access
53:19
Speaker 3: to local politicians. Northern Ireland as small, everybody knows everybody.
53:27
Speaker 3: I know some of them personally. They were in the
53:30
Speaker 3: system that I'm in. I've called in to see them
53:34
Speaker 3: and most of them, or some of them anyway, answer
53:38
Speaker 3: my emails. And parents must make their views known because
53:42
Speaker 3: some of our MLAs were elected by a handful of votes,
53:47
Speaker 3: and a handful of parents using their democratic rights will
53:54
Speaker 3: have tremendous effect on an eighty thousand pounds the year's salary,
54:00
Speaker 3: and some of my local MLAs are not facing the
54:03
Speaker 3: reality of their position. And just to on this point, Diane,
54:10
Speaker 3: I thought I lived in a democracy, and in a democracy,
54:15
Speaker 3: our politicians should be accountable. They're represented us. And the
54:20
Speaker 3: other thing that I thought I was entitled to do
54:22
Speaker 3: was to state my opinion. You don't have to agree
54:25
Speaker 3: with me, but I am entitled to state my opinion. Sadly,
54:31
Speaker 3: as you well know, that appears to be no longer
54:36
Speaker 3: the case, and we need to fight for the freedoms
54:40
Speaker 3: that I thought we fought for in a couple of
54:43
Speaker 3: world wars. I thought that's what it was all about,
54:47
Speaker 3: religious and democratic freedoms. And if we're not careful, we're
54:53
Speaker 3: going to lose them. And our politicians need reminded that
54:58
Speaker 3: you're there because we say so, and parents need to
55:04
Speaker 3: be knocking doors and lifting forms.
55:08
Speaker 2: There's nothing we can do that's any more important right now.
55:11
Speaker 2: I don't think individually. You know, people get really sometimes
55:15
Speaker 2: depressed about what we cover on the UK column and
55:19
Speaker 2: they feel helpless. But one of the things that they
55:21
Speaker 2: can do, as I keep saying to our viewers, is
55:23
Speaker 2: to do things locally. Find out what's going on in
55:26
Speaker 2: your schools, do what you can, write those letters, knock
55:29
Speaker 2: on those doors, make your voices heard. I'm not sure, Hugh,
55:33
Speaker 2: how much you know about my personal story in my
55:37
Speaker 2: cancelation as a librarian and an academic in the field
55:41
Speaker 2: when I left as a full professor of informatics because
55:46
Speaker 2: basically my views were not welcomed, and even when I
55:51
Speaker 2: brought up the issues, when I was disciplined by my
55:54
Speaker 2: professional body by Philip which is the professional body for
55:57
Speaker 2: librarians in the UK, as well as by my former university,
56:02
Speaker 2: my past employer, even mentioning things like my human rights
56:06
Speaker 2: to express opinions and to have religious beliefs that maybe
56:11
Speaker 2: do not align with these ideology, this ideology of you know,
56:16
Speaker 2: changing gender and these kinds of things. I was just
56:19
Speaker 2: told that I was not being inclusive, and therefore I
56:23
Speaker 2: was I was the problem even and so that my
56:26
Speaker 2: opinions were the problem, and that was why I lost
56:29
Speaker 2: my academic career. As hard as it's been in that climate,
56:33
Speaker 2: I don't regret it at all, because now I have
56:36
Speaker 2: a wonderful job with UK column and I'm very happy
56:38
Speaker 2: to be here because I know that I can truly
56:40
Speaker 2: now speak freely and get the truth out as much
56:44
Speaker 2: as I can, and educate and encourage others to do so.
56:48
Speaker 2: But I think unless more people start to speak up
56:52
Speaker 2: and get over the fear that I would, I hope
56:57
Speaker 2: that if we can find any sort of optimism in
57:00
Speaker 2: any of this, that if more people start to do
57:03
Speaker 2: what I did, that less of us will start to
57:05
Speaker 2: be as persecuted and will not lose their livelihoods as
57:09
Speaker 2: I did, be just for sharing opinions and for stating
57:13
Speaker 2: what I believe to be right and what is within
57:16
Speaker 2: my own moral compass for standing up against some of
57:19
Speaker 2: this evil that I believe is coming into the schools
57:23
Speaker 2: and elsewhere in society. And I hope that our discussion
57:28
Speaker 2: today will start to motivate people more and more to
57:32
Speaker 2: join us, because I keep saying it's strength and numbers.
57:36
Speaker 1: We all have to do this.
57:37
Speaker 2: But unless we're aware of what's going on and are
57:41
Speaker 2: willing to do something to follow up, I don't see
57:44
Speaker 2: neither way of a changing. But I think small small
57:47
Speaker 2: steps locally, if it's done all over the UK, I
57:51
Speaker 2: think can maybe start to add up to make some
57:54
Speaker 2: changes happen. And I've seen it happen locally in my
57:56
Speaker 2: own area of Edinburgh when people were opposing fifteen minutes
58:00
Speaker 2: at cities by they kept taking down the cameras that
58:03
Speaker 2: were being placed around my neighborhood, and they finally the
58:06
Speaker 2: council finally just stopped trying to put up the camera
58:10
Speaker 2: because everyone whoever it was that kept taking it down
58:12
Speaker 2: at night made a difference, so they stopped the cameras.
58:15
Speaker 2: So that gave you a lot of hope when that happened,
58:19
Speaker 2: the fact that people were able to do it, I
58:20
Speaker 2: physically can't climb a pole to take down a camera,
58:23
Speaker 2: but somebody could. And so this is the kind of
58:26
Speaker 2: action that we need to make a difference. We're just
58:30
Speaker 2: about out of time. How about five minutes left? Is
58:33
Speaker 2: there anything else that you would like to leave our
58:36
Speaker 2: viewers with today, or anything else that you want to
58:38
Speaker 2: say at all?
58:40
Speaker 3: Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head.
58:42
Speaker 3: We almost do what we can. Every small thing that
58:47
Speaker 3: we do adds up. And in this case, as I
58:50
Speaker 3: said to parents, if you're not going to stand up
58:53
Speaker 3: for your child and I, when are you going to
58:56
Speaker 3: do it? When as a principal, I was a principal
58:59
Speaker 3: for twenty three years and parents weren't slow to tell
59:05
Speaker 3: me when they thought I'd got it wrong, or when
59:07
Speaker 3: I'd lost to Jim Schuer, when they didn't agree with
59:11
Speaker 3: our rules. Why be so nigh? Now is the time
59:16
Speaker 3: to present yourself and to inform the governors and the
59:21
Speaker 3: principle of your views. You'll find you're in the majority.
59:25
Speaker 3: And I would urge all parents and grandparents, because you're
59:29
Speaker 3: a stakeholder, to write to the school saying you object,
59:36
Speaker 3: and it's your right to object. The school will know
59:39
Speaker 3: that your right to object and to withdraw your child,
59:43
Speaker 3: and to know when it's to be taught, and to
59:46
Speaker 3: check on the library. By the way, and mentioned the library.
59:50
Speaker 3: Some of the books that are in the library and
59:53
Speaker 3: our schools are horrendous. Check your child's library books. Ask
59:59
Speaker 3: the school you know for its library books, and involve yourself.
1:00:07
Speaker 3: You will find that that there you're in the majority.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: You'll be on the majority in the governors. But you've
1:00:13
Speaker 3: got to give the governor's horror. Your words will give
1:00:18
Speaker 3: the governors and the principal horor the department's telling them
1:00:23
Speaker 3: to do one thing. So it's education authority. Your words
1:00:28
Speaker 3: will matter to the principle and to the governors and
1:00:33
Speaker 3: to the chair, and they have the authority to say no.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: So for the sake of your child and your grandchild,
1:00:43
Speaker 3: say no. I think that's me, Diane, and I want
1:00:46
Speaker 3: to thank you for inviting me here and to praise
1:00:51
Speaker 3: you and others. I didn't lose my livelihood. My position
1:00:55
Speaker 3: on the boards that I was might have been problematical
1:00:59
Speaker 3: because I focus on some very frosty board meetings, let
1:01:03
Speaker 3: me tell you, but it wasn't my livelihood. And those
1:01:07
Speaker 3: of you, like yourself and others who have lost their
1:01:11
Speaker 3: lively ages are greatly to be admired and it is
1:01:14
Speaker 3: a Senator Kennedy Seniors said moral courage is what is
1:01:20
Speaker 3: required by are people now.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you Hugh, thank you for your time
1:01:28
Speaker 2: today and for speaking out. And thank you to the
1:01:31
Speaker 2: viewers for watching. This is Dinasted with Macattie with UK
1:01:35
Speaker 2: column News. Please go out there, help us make a
1:01:38
Speaker 2: difference and otherwise have a wonderful day. Thank you all,