Backlash against Keir Starmer’s plan to show the Netflix drama Adolescence in schools has grown after more than 1,500 teachers and parents signed a letter saying the series is not suitable as an educational resource. The Telegraph has more.
When Antoinette Keane – a teacher and the mother of two teenage boys – overheard her colleagues talking excitedly about playing the smash-hit Netflix drama Adolescence to pupils, she was alarmed.
Keane teaches English and has spent her career showing children how to sort fact from fiction and understand the concepts of bias and perspective. And yet, amid the breathless reactions to the show from the Prime Minister down, she believes a dangerous narrative is being spun that Adolescence has uncovered some sort of truth about boys.
The four-part drama follows Jamie Miller, a 13 year-old who is arrested for murdering a schoolmate, Katie, after he has been radicalised online. Over the course of the undeniably compelling series, we watch as police visit the local comprehensive, a psychologist evaluates Jamie in prison, and his parents cope with the devastating aftermath of his actions. Tens of millions of people have watched it worldwide – including Sir Keir Starmer, who has now decreed that it should be shown in schools around the country.
“As a piece of fiction it is very good,” says Keane, “but as the mother of white British teenage boys, I am very against the idea that it taps into some sort of universal experience of white British teenage boys – I live and work with them and can tell you that is simply not the case. If we show it in schools, we are saying we believe that this is who they are.”
For Keane, there are a number of further problems. Firstly, we are exclusively engaged in Jamie’s world, rather than Katie’s. “It is his story, his challenges, his family, his voice,” she says. “Her voice is erased – that was a creative choice they made, and in terms of art, it works very well, but it is a disaster as an educational resource.”
She also believes that a drama with a damning view of education probably shouldn’t be shown in schools. “In the second episode, there is only one competent teacher,” she says. “The others are putting on videos instead of teaching, while the well-meaning but ineffective head teacher doesn’t instil any confidence. Nobody stops or changes or guides pupil behaviour. Not only is this not fair – there are good, nurturing teachers everywhere – but if you show this in a school, you are undermining yourself as you do so. You are saying, ‘We are powerless’.”
Keane is far from alone. More than 1,500 teachers and parents have now signed a letter opposing Government plans to show Adolescence to children. It was written by doctoral researcher Jaimi Shrive and psychologist Jessica Taylor, who has worked in prisons and schools to teach people about consent through her initiative VictimFocus.
“As a drama, it is excellent,” says Taylor, who has two teenage children of her own. “I have spent such a long time working with police and prisons and the way they captured both the speed and chaos is really very skilled. But I absolutely do not think it should be used as an educational resource.”
For one, she believes that a school setting is not conducive to showing very young people a complex drama. “For the last 15 years I have delivered workshops on porn, violence and peer on peer abuse, from Year 7 to the end of sixth form college, and I have learnt that there will be children who are triggered, children who have switched off, or who are mocking it, and children who are invested in it. There might be a kid in that room or who laughs at another boy and calls him an incel. These are teenagers – and while this is often a defensive response, it has the potential to deeply harm anyone with some personal experience of these issues.”
Similarly, she believes that teachers are simply not equipped to deal with some of the questions that might be raised. “Teachers are not trained in this: they aren’t specialists in male violence or abuse and yet they would be expected to have very difficult reactions or discussions – it’s not fair on them or the children.”
Taylor argues that any books or films shown in schools usually go through a rigorous vetting process – hence her surprise at Starmer green-lighting Adolescence with no research at all. “I worked on cases when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service [CPS], and he was very evidence-based – but this response is not in any way evidence-based. He doesn’t strike me as the type of person to have jumped on a random bandwagon, and yet he has.”
Worth reading in full.
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“The reason we have the vaccine success is …. because of greed my friends.”
Many a true word … never mind the efficacy or effects.
Now you know why children are proposed as guinea pigs – never mind that they are not affected and are not spreaders.
An injection of money and greed brings Mengele back to life.
Most certainly not worth reading in full. It is abhorrent.
I’m very surprised that LDS has chosen not to point out that the adult trials don’t even finish until 2023 or thereabouts, so the idea of pushing this onto children after a very small and very short trial in their demographic needs to be opposed in the strongest terms possible. They don’t suffer from the virus, they don’t spread the virus, LEAVE THEM ALONE.
I always think we can’t get any lower, surely humanity will win through this madness? I continue to be crushingly proved wrong, day after day after day. The horrors just pile up.
Where’s the comments from the people who think this is unnecessary and unethical? Why only showcase the views of those advocating this child abuse? You say “the plan is not without its opposers”. Let’s hear from them then shall we. Let LDS be the place they are given “more of a hearing.”
My 8 year old nephew (who has a history of sinus problems resulting in nose-bleeds) had a coronahoax test stuck up his nose and back of throat by none-other his grandparents (on the other side). This was so that they could feel safe spending a couple hours with him on his birthday last week. They didn’t test themselves because they’ve had the superhuman vaccine.
Personally, I would have told them in no uncertain terms that it’s the last time they’ll see their grandson.
This kind of insanity is happening on a ground level, probably all over the country. And I think it shows that there are people who will support children being ‘vaccinated’.
Unspeakable.
Yes indeed. My ex-wife wants our 15 year old son to have the ‘vaccine’. ‘Particularly since he doesn’t wear a mask’, is her reasoning. We get on quite well now, but I’m a sceptic and she is totally taken in by all the virus propaganda.
I will do all I can to make sure he doesn’t have it.
‘Children to be vaccinated’ is just another distraction from the only thing that matters.
How many people are currently being hospitalised/sadlidying from Covid ( I’ll take With Covid less 20% because I am not harsh.)
Why are we still in lockdown? Why haven’t bozo, wancock, ferguson and the rest been arrested?.
Your last question is the most important, and we need to be discussing it a lot more. That being said, no one was successful in bringing criminal charges against the devil incarnate Tony Blair.
This article: http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2020/06/building-the-coronahoax-charge-sheet-reckoning-culpability-for-the-deliberate-inflation-of-covid-19-death/ is on the right track (and a very good read too). There needs to be a groundswell of conversation about how to successfully bring a prosecution against those responsible.
Every day, one more (previously unthinkable) thing just happens without much pushback.
Vaccinating children who are at no risk of the virus with a vaccine that has not been properly trialed is just outrageous.
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Why is this simply cut and pasted from the MSM with no comment? Do the LS editors support this?
My thoughts too. Why is this vile, abhorrent concept being presented by LDS – of all people – in neutral terms?
Over my dead body will my children be vaccinated – literally.
Make your choices LDS – which side are you on?
I clicked away from LDS yesterday and was presented with an opportunity to contribute cash for its upkeep. If it is just a regurgitator of MSM ‘news’ I don’t think I’ll even bother to look anymore.
Are there any lower depths these people can plumb before there’s a revolution ?
Can anyone seriously justify injecting whole societies and especially children with lives before them , with an experimental treatment for an illness that would have gone unnoticed was it not for the testing scam.
And now from the horses mouth , fatso lets the cat out of the bag . Greed. Big pharma, the green reset the great economic reset .
It’s all about the money and most importantly the monetisation of individual life itself.
All those test schwabs , all the samples , what happens to it all ?
They are collecting DNA , why ? because it’s digital gold , we are the paydirt to be ground up and sluiced until all value has been extracted.
Much of the analysis is done in China. It’s one big happy money making syndicate, we are raw material.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/en/uksi/2020/973/regulation/4/made
“The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends.”
He said what his audience wanted to hear. And that is how it works. Although in this case it is also because of a desire amongst many to help their fellow man – which is where the public funding came in to get the science over the line.
It is the perfect combination of greed and compassion. And it worked.
Worked ?????????????????????????????????????????
This is utterly, utterly appalling. The snake oils haven’t been fully tested, even on adults.There have been no tests on children. Children don’t get Covid and they don’t pass it on. Giving them this muck is not only pointless, it’s immoral on every conceivable level.Can’t you SEE that, Toby and Co.? Are you bloody sceptics or aren’t you?
I presume you don’t bother reading our comments now anyway. In the early days you used to respond to them. How about coming out if your cage every once in a while?
Well said Annie.
And now the only time they appear to take any notice of the comments is if they include a rude word.
Spot on Annie. Why is this on this site without a single viewpoint to say THIS CAN NEVER HAPPEN!!! How dare this government say this is the correct thing to do, and the fact that they have already found 300 people with parents so stupid or uncaring for their children they have allowed them to become crash test dummies.
Why is there a full page of comments about something some know nothing on the bbc has commented with in depth fact checks and nothing on one of the biggest abuses against children ever committed. My god what has become of this site. I’m off to the other place where I bet this us being torn a new one. You have lost the dressing room Toby.
No way! It’s not like the so called ‘conspiracy theorists’ haven’t been saying this since BEFORE this became a news story.
Sterility is a major issue and a desired outcome for Mr Population Reduction.
People scoff at the idea but give it time and you will see.
State education is useless now anyway.
I find it remarkable that even now, people brazenly peddle out the idea this is all happening by misjudgement, a mistake, bad advice, etc. I’ve even seen recently a popular poster saying the statisticians are bad at their job.
If someone is kicking a dog in the street, would you say they’re misguided by bad advice?
I’m of a growing opinion that there are people deployed on to sites like this to try and quell those who are flying too close to the truth.
As others have said this is abhorent and not worth reading in full.
Why on earth is Michael Curzon posting this odious bilge without any objective analysis.
You can see from the attached chart that SARS-C0V-2 has essentially a 100% survival rate for children.
If children do transmit SARS-C0V-2 at all then it will be at low viral loads which will give those vulnerable people they may transmit it to opportunity to fight off the virus before it replicates out of control.
Stopping low viral load transmission just serves to push transmission into the high viral load locations such as hospitals and care homes. Those same vulnerable people encountering the virus at high viral loads won’t fare so well as the viral replication starts from a higher base.
And what evidence is there that the experimental vaccines stop transmission. Plausibly they might even increase transmission by masking symptoms. Transmission was not checked in the experimental vaccine trials.
And if the experimental vaccines do stop transmission won’t vaccinating children increase the selective pressure for SARS-C0V-2 to mutate into a variant that is more likely to evade the immune system, and so be more damaging for the vulnerable who have already been experimentally vaccinated? Or it may mean a different virus enters the virome and kills the vulnerable instead.
Of course transmission of SARS-C0v-2 isn’t really understood. And we can’t say any of the above things about transmission definitively. But we can say that is it is much more likely than not that experimentally vaccinating children will worsen things for vulnerable people.
But even if there was some very small element by which experimentally vaccinating children helped the vulnerable (albeit the opposite is much more likely) how many vulnerable would want their grandchildren experimentally vaccinated to mitigate this risk?
The immune system is one of the most complex parts of the human body, honed to perfection by evolution. Its arguably the most complex system next to the human brain. It adapts and learns. Messing with this by experimental vaccination that turns the cells of the body into spike protein manufacturing sites is going to disturb the wonderful balance of the immune system. Who knows what the affect will be when the next coronaviruses and other viruses are encountered. These aren’t traditional attenuated or inactivated vaccines that present a weakened or ‘dead’ form of pathogen to the immune system in a way not too dissimilar to what happens with natural infection. This is a completely different gene based technique which overrides the immune system’s resource allocations and disturbs its innate and adaptive balance.
It is reasonable to say that these are Mengelean experiments on children and have no place in any country in the world.
Spot on, especially your last two paragraphs.
The arrogance of the people who suppose they know better than the human immune system is astounding, and at its core utterly evil.
An excellent summary, Freecumbria.
I’ve just posted this on the Today’s Update forum, but will also put it here for obvious reasons.
As referred to ATL, in disturbingly neutral terms.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/23/exclusive-children-line-covid-vaccines-august/
‘Exclusive: Children in line for Covid vaccines from August’
Children will start getting the Covid vaccine as early as August under provisional government plans to push for maximum immunity from the virus, The Telegraph can reveal.
Two sources involved in preparations said that was the soonest point at which Britons under the age of 18 would be given the jabs – months earlier than expected.
…
The Telegraph revealed on Monday how Mr Johnson and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, had agreed to change the law to require care workers to have Covid jabs.
It can now be disclosed that NHS frontline workers, including nurses and doctors on wards and staff in community mental health support schemes, could be next.
I had better not say what I think of this government and its advisors, as if would be far, far stronger than a post I had removed yesterday by the moderators.
So let us turn to LDS. Why is this vile, abhorrent concept being presented by LDS – of all people – in neutral terms? Make your choices LDS – which side are you on?
Are you really happy that an experimental ‘vaccine’ (to be generous in choice of word) – whose medium and long-term effects are unknown (but could be utterly disastrous), and whose horrible short-term side-effects are increasingly being brought to light – should be given to children, likely under coercion? Even though they absolutely don’t need it, in terms of either the disease itself or their propensity to spread it?
I utterly fail to comprehend how any decent human being can support this. A huge number of parents reading this will be feeling their blood run cold, as I do, and be readying themselves to go to whatever extremes necessary to protect their children. For me, I’d rather be in the grave than allow my children to be injected with this. To allow it would be a betrayal of my children, myself, my mother and father, and all their mothers and fathers before them. The safety of my children was entrusted to me by them, and I intend to fulfil that trust.
So where does LDS stand? And will it fight on that stance? Come on Toby, make your case clear. You have children. How do you feel about this? Anyone contributing to this site – and most of we posters will have done so financially in the past – has a right to know. What have we supported?
The Darkness and the Light: Indeed.
(Btw – do I have to put a naughty word in here to ensure that someone at LDS actually reads this post?)
TJN – I reckon it’s fairly obvious that posters here have picked up the implications of the Telegraph article. Calm down.
Yes, but at what point do we finally make a stand, or nil plus ultra?
The days and weeks pass, and with each passing day and week we sink further into a pit of amoral degeneracy. Increment by increment we are disappearing into a moral nothingness, and as a society we just seem to sit here paralysed.
Rightly or wrongly we look to sites like LDS to lead the fight back, but as far as I can see they are simply not stepping up to the plate.
I’ve supported this site in the past. Unless they come out clear against this I’ll not be supporting them again. Far better the money goes to UsForThem, for example.
Unfortunately, UsforThem seem to be shying away from this issue as well. I really hope they have the guts to take it on, but I worry that they won’t.
I’ll have to catch up UsForThem view – I can’t believe they’ll go along with it.
“at what point do we finally make a stand?”
What ‘we’, TJN? What ‘stand’? What ‘fight back’?
I think most posters here have expressed only disgust, and a refusal to let any children of theirs be vaccinated.
Don’t blame LDS for reporting the agenda.
In the old days LDS did far more about lockdown than merely report the agenda.
When I say ‘we’, I mean we as a society. When I say ‘stand’, I mean that we say no we’re not putting up with this. When I say ‘fight back’, I mean that we go out there and demonstrably make a point of breaking the rules, as some of us have been doing since the start.
LDS appears to be tacitly supporting the vaccine agenda – i.e. the vaccine propaganda, and eventually coercion. At least they aren’t actively decrying it, which for me in these circumstances approaches being the same thing.
Sorry to have to disagree with you on this, as I respect your posts.
No words.
Come out you who would support this. I want to see your face.
yes – its absolutely terrible. ‘the precautionary principle’ turned on its head
I’ve given up on all the adults I know who are happily lining up for these vaccines, but the thought of their children being vaccinated with an experimental treatment that they don’t need makes me sick to my stomach.
So what can we do? How can we mobilise and protest? Please someone let me know where to start. UsforThem don’t seem willing to take this on, so who will?
I agree with you whole heartedly.
Virbac is an animal health pharmaceutical company and it took them 10 years to develop the vaccine against rabies I know this because when we lived in France our lovely French vets explained it all in detail. So why on earth would you give children a substance which has not even
completed Phase 3 clinical trials and was not successful with Sars Cov 1 on animals
most of the animals died ferrets and cats. That is fact. I can not write what I think about this country, the government and all the others who are lieing exaggerating the media hyping everything up I don’t know what their end game is. I despair and very sad. People have become so nasty angry and disgusting with each other. I despair.
Let me help you here. When you say “Supporters of the plan see the mass vaccination of children as a way to minimise the spread of infection” – what you should be saying is “Supporters of the plan are living in a fantasy world where the ‘vaccine’ prevents infection and spread and contributes to herd immunity”.
And even if it did there is no medical or ethical case for this, which violates the basic principle of ‘first do no harm’. The proponents of this are not acting in good faith and for LS to treat this as an even-handed debate is just plain wrong. Let’s be really generous here and assume the adverse reaction rate is 0.1% – with 11 million vaccinations that’s 11,000 children damaged or killed, for zero benefit. Pre-covid, if a parent was found to be ‘treating’ their child with a harmful substance for an imaginary disease, that child would likely be taken away from them.
What I would say is: “Supporters of the plan see the mass vaccination of children as a way to bring untold health problems for generations to come”
Indeed! Actually, following Boris Johnson’s comments, the WHO have just changed their definition of vaccines again. It now reads ‘vaccines: a mechanism for transferring large amounts of taxpayers money into the coffers of Big Pharma’.
cost benefit just doesn’t stack up for anyone under about 70
putting kids at risk just so they don’t infect 98 year old granny is evil
Steve – Do drop the idea that there is any proven benefit for the over 70s
I agree there is no benefit studies in France and Austria in care homes average 90 years showed that Ivermectin had a 98% success rate. I’m only repeating what I’ve read. I’m sure there’s the same results for hydroxychloroquine.
it might or might not work for over 70s – I’m not bothered either way – but the longterm side effects hardly matter
Three things.
I’m bothered about (a) short term effects (b) unestablished effectiveness in all dimensions and (c) the principle of curtailed testing for a moderate virus.
When it is pretty well established that Ivermectin does everything that any snake-oil does – and probably better – why should an old fart like myself kow-tow to the most dishonest government in living memory?
Don’t accept bits of their narrative on their say-so.
He’s obviously a fan of Taleb:
“The virtue of capitalism is that society can take advantage of people’s greed rather than their benevolence, but there is no need to, in addition, extol such greed as a moral accomplishment.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
People have largely forgotten about Pandemrix. This was a flu vaccine fast tracked for approval by the EMA. The Pharma company, Glaxo Smith Kline were given indemnity against any claims (sound familiar?) There were problems;
Pandemrix vaccine: why was the public not told of early …www.bmj.com › content › bmj
Pandemrix narcolepsy | Narcolepsy UKwww.narcolepsy.org.uk › resources › pandemrix-narco…
These NHS Staff Were Told The Swine Flu Vaccine Was Safe …www.buzzfeed.com › shaunlintern › these-nhs-staff-we…
Just google it
That previous vaccine shit-show was only part of a wider foreshadowing of this one.
Every sceptic should be familiar with the try-on that failed in the Swine ‘Flu ‘epidemic’ and which was roundly condemned in the Council of Europe report on the issue.
That’s brilliant; thank you so much. These references will perfectly back up my argument with my children on why I’m not having the C19 vaccine.
“Children will start getting the Covid vaccine as early as August under provisional Government plans to push for maximum immunity from the virus, the Telegraph can reveal.”
The vaccine doesn’t deliver immunity. The manufacturers themselves say this.
WHY IS LOCKDOWN SCEPTICS REPUBLISHING LIES FROM THE TELEGRAPH?
I also read this morning that the AZ paediatric studies are in 300 patients. Pfizer in about 2000.
With only 1 in 2000 people actually having coronavirus in the UK right now (as per LFTs in schools, which is probably even lower due to false positives, but wevs)….JUST HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET ENOUGH INFECTIONS IN CHILDREN (with their low ACE2 expression levels) TO GET A STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RESULT?!
Seems bonkers.
Really good point.
Probably a much lower incidence than 1 in 2000.
But they’re already immune…