Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Guardian, teachers are not allowing fliers advertising the student strike on school premises, but they are encouraging students to spread the word via word of mouth.
Pupils’ climate change strike threat poses dilemma for heads
Thousands of pupils set to be absent on 15 February, putting schools on the spot
Jamie Doward
Sun 10 Feb 2019 19.00 AEDTHeadteachers across the country will this week be faced with a tricky dilemma: should they allow their pupils to go on strike?
Thousands of schoolchildren are expected to absent themselves from school on Friday to take part in a series of coordinated protests drawing attention to climate change.
At a time when politicians fret that young people are failing to engage with the political process, a headteacher’s decision to take a hard line against the strikers could be counter-productive. But equally granting permission for a day off could set a dangerous precedent and lead to safeguarding issues, it is feared. Parents could be fined for taking a child out of school.
One would-be striker, Anna Taylor, 17, from north London, said her school had given her “mixed messages”.
“I chucked up a notice – ‘school strike in a few weeks’ – on the noticeboard in the common room and they wiped it off, said ‘you can’t actively publicise it in schools’ and ‘we’ll give you an unauthorised absence and detention if you strike’, but then they said ‘you can spread it by word of mouth and we do support your cause’.”
…
A template letter drawn up by Youth Strike 4 Climate, one of the groups supporting the network, for parents of striking children to give headteachers, states: “I’m aware of UK law that permits parents to only give permission for their child to miss school on medical grounds or in a few other cases, one of which is under ‘exceptional circumstances’. My view is that having only 12 years left to cut CO2 emissions by 50%, as per the latest UN IPCC report, is pretty dire and exceptional circumstances to find ourselves in. And it in this light that I’m giving my child permission.”
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/10/pupil-strike-climate-change-puts-schools-on-spot
In my opinion teachers encouraging students to attend emotionally charged radical green political rallies which could turn violent is an unspeakable breach of trust.
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“… My view is that having only 12 years left to cut CO2 emissions by 50%, as per the latest UN IPCC report …”
There is less than 11 years to save the planet Earth.The sr14_spm_final.pdf say 2030 all the time, and 38 times they say: “global warming to 1.5°C”
I thought school children in UK would love to have 1.5℃ warmer average temperature, it could even provide for a few “too hot to go to school days”, where they could have the legal opportunity to demonstrate against the weather, climate and capitalism./SARC
Sorry should have been sr15_spm_final.pdf
‘you can spread it by word of mouth and we do support your cause’
All kids have a “cause” of not wanting to attend school. The difference from the past generations to the current is that the teachers now support the cause for kids of not attending school. Noting that the Green New Deal offers economic security for those who are unwilling to work you can see that kids are already preparing for their Green dream.
Spot on
Let’s face it. Today the school children do not study Mao’s Little Red, today they study IPCC’s SfPM together with Hollywood films. Mao would have been proud of today’s youth. All that may change if Green New Deal goes through and they pretty fast realize it may not be such a good deal. Much better then to stay in nice room temperature in the class room and study the other side of the climate coin. I suggest they start with WUWT 🙂
Why is no one organizing a day of missed classes to protest government overreaction to the slightly warmer climate?
No more Nutella, no more Mars bars (plastic capped or -wrapped), no more new
brain prosthesismobile phones when the contract needs to get renewed, travel by train and not by plane and these teenies will turn into monsters Dr Frankenstein would be afraid of.Surely they should protest by throwing away their mobile phones and tablets, make sure they walk and cycle to school and get their parents to get rid of their cars. 12 years pushed out to 13!
‘We don’t need no education’
‘We don’t need no thought control’.
I’ll say this – they’ve made Pink Floyd relevant again.
Do you mean ‘edgercayshun’, Joel? 🙂
In the UK if you want to take your children out of school in term time to take advantage of off season holiday deals you pay a fine.
I hope all the parents of all the striking kids will receive bills.
https://www.heart.co.uk/news/quirky/facts-children-school-term-time-holiday-law-rules/
The logic of this is baffling. First, schools have nothing to do with climate change (other then maybe educating students of it). Second, there’s no telling if the kids are doing this to simply just get out of school. The only way to differentiate their true motives would be to ask them to strike outside of class (which is just as appropriate). I bet the true motives would come out and the crowd wouldn’t be as big.
https://www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence
Just saying
Has it occurred to anyone that failing to actually prosecute the parents of these children will leave the local councils open to hugely expensive challenges from all those fined for taking the children on holiday.
How can those kids cope with having to travel on fossil fuelled vehicles to get to school or the embarrassment of mummy rolling up outside the school gates in the Land Rover.
There should be a caption on the picture of the ‘cabbage patch’ kids that reads “climate ugliness” to see if it could trigger someone to claim that it implies that all kids are ugly!
It would make a great OT sub thread.
In Australia tens of thousands of these munchkins will be voting in the upcoming federal and NSW state election. Be afraid be very afraid,. And we’ve got waves of brainwashed students just like them on their way to voting age, all armed with a little bit of knowledge, just enough to vote us right back to the Dark Ages.
My local newspaper has a letter from a parent which says:
‘Across Europe and the USA, children have been marching and demonstrating because this climate problem is not being tackled effectively.’
Readers are invited to look on the internet at youth-strike4climate.
The parent ends by saying ‘Their future is at stake. They need our support.’
Perhaps the teachers should be imparting some science and not encouraging this nonsense?