Fascinating. The Daily Mail tells us that 'reasonable force' is back in British schools. The Holocaust and the Crusades are out. We are again in a 'state of flux', shall we say.Marvellous, innit. ''You can't confiscate me mobile cuz it infringes me civil rights to peaceful ownership" and "I don't get to learn about wholesale massacre on the grounds of religion 'cause the Muslims are told it didn't happen, innit." Don't get to learn about the Crusades either, 'cause the imams tell 'em all different stuff to what we learn about."
We might remember what the Daily Mail said about Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany “The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage..... the number of aliens entering the country through back doors is a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed” Daily Mail, 20 August 1938.
Or, going back further “They fought, they jostled to the foremost places at the gangways.. ...When the Relief Committee passed by they hid their gold and fawned and whined in broken English asked for money for their train fare.” Daily Mail, February 3rd, writing about Jewish immigrants in 1900.
H'm....The image is of a medieval birch, used for chastisement.
Crusades, ambushes and armed advances - all seen in today's classroom - or at least the staffroom - where one out-of-joint nose jostles for position with the latest favour of the month...it's incredible how the power struggles of the youth are only overshadowed by the calculating struggles of the 'have I missed the boat somewhere along the line' and the 'in my last school I ...' type teachers in such establishments as would prefer to look (from the naive outsider's viewpoint anyway) as calm and nurturing, rich and reasonable, pillars of educational inheritance as the future will need. So too the crusaders of every generation - in fact, it seems to me that the lessons of warfare are simply learned and honed in the playground , in readiness for 'real' life in the scenario of 'work' later on.
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