Barrel Strength

I refer you to the texts of the BC Ministry of Education BC Performance Standards – Social Responsibility: A Framework . I cannot print the PDF versions here so I ask your indulgence to open them up and compare to this posting.

Take, for example, the program for grades 8 to 10. Any of the age-related curricula will suffice.

Go to the quick scale on page 139 and look under “exercising democratic rights and responsibilities”.

See how the desired criteria are

1. oriented to agreeability and conformity
2. require the teacher to make very precise judgments of character on a host of behaviours being shown by the children in her classroom;
3. and therefore are biased against males.

There are several acepted criteria for the measure of human psychological differences, summarized under the acronym GOCASE. Each criterion produces its own Bell curve, and each is independent of the other. For a discussion of this, please read Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior, by Geoffrey Miller.

G – general intelligence

O – openness

C – conscientiousness

A – agreeability

S – stability

E – extroversion

Two of these criteria are sex-linked. That is to say, males and females charcteristically differ on them. They are agreeability and stability. Males are more stable than females and less agreeable. Sorry, that is just the way it is. Now, return to our BC Ministry of Education judgement guidelines.

Under the title of “Exercising democratic rights and responsibilities” the worst performer is the kid who:

• tends to be egocentric and apathetic; displays little sense of community or responsibility for others

The next one up the hierarchy is one who

• shows some sense of of communitymindedness; may go along with positive actions organized by others, but without much commitment

And finally, Miss Goody Two-Shoes. He who fully meet expectations:

• shows a sense of responsibility and communitymindedness; increasingly interested in taking action to improve the world

The supreme one is she who:

• shows a strong sense of communitymindedness and accountability; can describe and work toward an ideal future for the world

The ideal student is a social policy activist. There is an explicitly political agenda to mark students according as they have plane to improve the world: abolish poverty, stop greenhouse gas accumulation, and so forth. A little Craig Kielburger.

The ideal student speaks out for “diversity and human rights” (see the set of boxes just above the ones cited here). In a former age or political clime they would speak for the brotherhood of man or the supremacy of the Aryan race, or the class struggle, or the reality of the Holy Trinity, or white Christian civilization, fair play and God save the Queen. Today the slogans are diversity and human rights. Why not uniformity and our duty to the country? Silly question. These words summarize the left agenda, which is instructing the little monsters of BC to turn into good socialist tattletales and agreeable conformists.

I am not saying that the students of British Columbia should act like junior Somali warlords. That is plainly a dysfunctional society and the children from it need to be socialized.

But I hear not a word about manliness. I see not a word about the virtues that make men they are, and to which boys should be taught to aspire. The whole program seems directed to inculcating uniformity, obedience, the mouthing of cant platitudes, and the handling of all disputes by girly behaviour rather than a punch-up.

I cannot imagine a male worth his salt who would not rebel against this claptrap. Or, as most likely happens, children realize they are living in a kind of benign dictatorship, and believe exactly the opposite of what Mrs. Lois Thoughtright of the BC Ministry of Education and her minions  try to teach them.

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The BC Ministry of Education describes these standards as “voluntary” in its introduction.

The BC performance standards for Social Responsibility have been developed for voluntary use in BC schools. They describe the professional judgments of a significant number of BC educators about standards and expectations for social responsibility, and they provide a context within which teachers, students, and families can examine aspects of social responsibility in their schools.

The categories of behaviour under observation are as follows:

CONTRIBUTING TO THE CLASSROOM AND SCHOOL COMMUNITY

• sharing responsibility for their social and physical environment
• participating and contributing to the class and to small groups

SOLVING PROBLEMS IN PEACEFUL WAYS

• arguments respectfully, and considering others’ views
• managing conflict appropriately, including presenting views and
• using effective problem-solving steps and strategies

VALUING DIVERSITY AND DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS

• treating others fairly and respectfully; showing a sense of ethics
• recognizing and defending human rights

EXERCISING DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• knowing and acting on rights and responsibilities (local, national, global)
• articulating and working toward a preferred future for the community, nation, and planet—a sense of idealism