Schools should primarily be places for learning that enable children to acquire knowledge and gain the ability to think critically. It should surely not be a place where extreme protest groups have the opportunity to promote their warped, dangerous and one-sided ideas.
Yet right now, a radical animal rights campaign – known for shock tactics and junk science – is trying to push its propaganda into classrooms under the guise of “humane education”.
That organisation is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). A new report published by campaign group PETA Watch reviewed the education materials that PETA produces and found they are not just misleading but dangerous, manipulative and utterly unsuitable for the classroom.
The report, ‘Saving Kids from PETA‘, has uncovered how this radical protest outfit – that has, in the past, compared farming to the Holocaust and zoos to slave plantations – is targeting British classrooms with material for children as young as five years-old. Let that sink in.
This isn’t education – it is ideological indoctrination disguised as compassion.
This is the same organisation that claimed pet ownership is “abysmal” and that drinking cow’s milk causes autism – claims so lacking in evidence they would not pass a Year 7 science class.
PETA’s materials are presented as free resources for teachers to use as a stimulus for discussion. In practice, they are propaganda kits. Take its GCSE English lesson: pupils are first shown a distressing image of a monkey in a lab before being presented with articles arguing that all animal testing should be banned. The material includes highly contentious claims with no scientific references or evidence such as:
Scientists trying to discover details of human neural networks by studying a different species are very likely to be led astray, wasting time and money. Worse still, treatments that have worked well in monkeys have frequently failed when tried on people, sometimes with tragic consequences.
There is no mention of how animal research has led to breakthroughs in cancer, HIV or vaccine development. No acknowledgement that monkeys make up less than 0.1% of animals used in research. No discussions of ethical safeguards. No context, no nuance. Just dogma, dressed up as education. PETA’s founder even once said that if finding a cure for AIDS required animal testing, she would oppose it.
PETA education lesson, ‘Zoos: Prison or Paradise?‘, follows a similar pattern, equating animal enclosures to prisons. It fails to mention the vital work of zoos in species conservation, or their educational value to inspire future vets and scientists. And why would it? Balanced information does not serve its extremist narrative. Instead, pupils are encouraged to see zoos as cruel spectacles, and zookeepers as prison guards.
As a former chairman of the English-Speaking Union Scotland I was involved in preparing a Scottish Government funded discussion pack to promote debating around the subject of climate change. It presented evidence from different positions of the public debate and asked critical and inquiring questions of all arguments. It was a genuine teaching aid that then allowed young minds to form their own opinions based on evidence and reasoning. The PETA teaching materials do not conform to that balanced approach and should not be allowed anywhere near classrooms.
Of course alternative views to PETA’s could be placed before children at the same time, but that is asking a great deal from teachers already overburdened with delivering the curriculum and is putting a great deal of faith in hope before the realities of teaching
PETA’s primary school programme aimed at five to 11 year-olds, called ‘Share the World‘, teaches children that animals are “just like us” and should never be eaten, owned as a pet or used in farming. Forget science or age-appropriate material. PETA’s objective is clear: it seeks to shape children’s worldview before they are old enough to question what they are told.
Worse still, when questioned, a PETA spokesperson admitted the organisation has no idea how many schools are actually using these materials – or how children are responding to them. It does not monitor usage or track impact, despite the provision of education being one of the organisation’s key charitable objectives. It just fires off lesson packs and walks away. It takes no accountability or responsibility for what comes next. Is this the kind of organisation that should be allowed anywhere near a classroom?
This prompts the question: if PETA is allowed to spread one-sided misinformation in schools, who else gets a free pass?
If we allow a campaign group that equates pet ownership with abuse and spreads pseudoscience to enter the classroom unchallenged, that surely opens the door to any single-issue campaign.
Do we hand the whiteboard to Extinction Rebellion next? Should we let fringe activists design one-sided lessons on gender identity or the monarchy? If PETA can preach in schools, why not every other political pressure group?
There is a clear line between education and indoctrination. PETA has crossed it repeatedly and unless the Government acts, others will soon follow.
Schools should be places where facts matter. Where complex moral and scientific issues are explored honestly, with age-appropriate, balanced, evidenced-based materials – where children learn how to think, not what to think.
That is why PETA Watch believes the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson MP, should prevent PETA and other extreme groups from pushing their propaganda into schools. Once we allow ideology to replace education we lose the very purpose of schooling, as it erodes trust and we ultimately fail the next generation.
Children deserve the freedom to explore ideas, not to have them imposed by campaigners with no qualifications, no mandate and evidently no interest in the consequences of their continued influence on our children.
The classroom must be a space for informed debate, not a platform for political entryism. That means, in short, saving kids from PETA.
Brian Monteith is former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments now writing regularly for the Daily Telegraph and the Scotsman.
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Once they allowed climate change nonsense in, others were bound to follow. Home schooling is the only way.
Which is why they are trying to stop it under the pretence of caring about children who are no longer attending school post lockdowns.
And taxing private schools though maybe many are no better in this regard
Or Free Schools
Stop children from harming animals is certainy a much more laudable goal than get children to castrate themselves chemically. So, if Stonewall is present in schools, which it is, why shouldn’t PETA as well? I completely agree with the general direction of travel of this article but specifically, it seems very much like a call for bolting the stable door after the horse has been set on fire.
No organisation agitating for societal change to further some agenda has any place in children’s education.
It’s wearisome reading all the “time to do this, time we did that” articles – Government holds power because it has the monopoly on violence.
If people understood that, they would realise “time to do this, time to do that” wish-list is futile. The ONLY solution is to remove Government’s monopoly on violence. See history starting with the barons ganging up on King John.
Isn’t having a nominal monologue on violence fundamental to a government? I’m very much in favour of strict limits on what it’s agreed a government can do, but surely it needs to be able to pass and enforce laws?
Voters need to wake up. We have the parliament we voted for. Flavours of big state socialism.
I could get down with this type of sedate violence. Coming to a canal near you!
https://x.com/NotFarLeftAtAll/status/1915334714082152886
Lol. I know Eddie Hall has a tank but I’ve not seen a tank boat. Our town has 4 rivers and lots of people living on boats so could be a good option for us.
Brilliant!
Monologue? I’ll assume you mean monopoly.
Monopoly on violence is fundamental to government assuming you want a brutal tyranny that cannot be stopped.
You are very much in favour of strict limits on what it is agreed a government can do. Did we agree government could put us all under house arrest, stop us from going about our normal lives to “protect” granny? Have we agreed to pay more and more for electricity and not be allowed to heat our homes as we wish or drive the cars we want?
And in the event all do not agree how do you stop government imposing its will on those who don’t agree when it has a monopoly on violence?
Yes monopoly.
I struggle to imagine life as we like it without a government/state and some
level of coercion to pay for non excludable goods and enforce basic laws. I would stop there but most people seem to disagree with me sadly. Whether we will ever get to a healthier consensus I have my doubts
and certainly not in my lifetime.
Democracy will always be the tyranny of the majority (at best).
Kicking extremists out of the classroom means flushing out the truth-twisters who facilitate extremists getting into the classroom in the first place.
Stand up Stonewall against a brick wall and fetch the firing squad. Likewise the misanthrope philanthropists funding behavioural ops directed at children. Continue working up the chain of command all the way to Westminster and beyond.
It is a bit sneaky trying to present these materials as a stimulus to discussion as if the dubious propositions described above are being offered in order to encourage debate. When you’re a small child your grasp of metaphysics is very limited and so it would be difficult to contemplate the similiarity between human beings and animals. Of course when you reach intellectual maturity it is very easy to tear their arguments to shreds but they want to get in early during the formative years and essentially hijack the intellectual and spiritual development of their victims.
State Determined Education (and that includes the remaining Private Schools and Nurseries/pre-schools) has been turned into State Indoctrination.
The only solution, currently still available but now being targeted, is Home Schooling.
If you want to insulate your child from the indoctrination as much as possible, then care for them yourselves from birth until their formal education starts. Do not send them to Nursery/pre-school.
That will give you 5 years to instil YOUR values, teach them how to think and give them the ability to resist the indoctrination.
“Give me the child for 7 years and I will give you the man.” Five years is two years short, but determined parents should make very good use of that time. It will have financial and lifestyle implications, but then choosing to have a child always has and previous generations made the necessary sacrifices. So can this one.