On the lookout for Terrorist Tots
(posted by Angelica)
British schools are going to be given a “toolkit on preventing terrorism”. Translation: Teachers are advised to watch out for signs that little Jimmy or Ahmed might turn terrorists from the age of five onwards.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls said schools could play a “key role” in getting young people to reject extremism.
Schools should have a named teacher to whom pupils can report any concerns of grooming by extremist groups.
Teachers should protect the well-being of pupils who may be vulnerable to being drawn to extremism, says the government’s “Learning together to be safe” kit.
Mr Balls said the initiative was a direct response to a call from schools for support and advice to tackle extremism.
“This is not about asking teachers to be monitors and to be doing surveillance, that’s not their job.
“But if something concerns them, we want them to know who to turn to for help,” he said.
My emphasis.
If you read the kit itself, you’ll find it incredibly anodyne, full of buzzwords, acronyms (ECM = Every Child Matters) and unreadable copy about empowerment and communities.
But the idea of watching out for terrorist tendencies in young children and encouraging teachers to report on them is disturbing no mater how much innocular procedurese you slather it in. From the kit:
Responses could be in-school actions…or involve external agencies to ascertain whether there are other risk factors to be taken into account and determine an appropriate support plan.
It may be that a pupil is facing multiple challenges in their life, of which exposure to violent extremist influences is just one. The schools should contribute to a multi-agency assessment where appropriate in line with the local authority protocols.
Schools may with to identify a member of staff…who can act as a source of advice for others and lead on engaging with external partners.
I’m curious as to who those ‘external partners’ and ‘agencies’ would be.
Tags: education, United Kingdom, war on terror
October 9th, 2008 at 6:44 am
[Bad link in post to BBC website -- extra 'http']
October 9th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Fixed. Thanks, Patrick.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Toolkit? Rather than “tookit”?
October 9th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Alright, obviously posting quickly during time off at work is not the thing to do. I will fix the typo.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Perhaps the schools can just warn them that any attempts at violent jihad will go on their permanent school record
October 9th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I remember reading something about this in Spiked Online.
I wonder if rather passionate defenses of Osama bin Laden’s potlitical complaints; agreement with the notion that Europe is full of spiritually dead automatons; or criticisms of Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip will “sound the alarm” on these youngsters (who, apparently, are old enough to chime on politics like this).
Ridiculous.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
[...] 10, 2008 by Abhishek Britain is getting spookily close to the world Orwell [...]
October 10th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
So after reading this article why do I have visions of marching nuns singing:
“Every sperm is precious,
every sperm divine.
If one sperm is wasted,
it would be a crime.”