Education

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Instead of school supplies, this year I’m shopping for a bulletproof backpack

Judi Zirin

By: Judi Zirin.

After so many school shootings, I’m not worried my kid won’t fit in – I’m praying he won’t be carried out

Ihave always loved the end of summer’s lazy promise of infinite possibility, the late August back to school buzz of limitless potential. Instead of shopping for school supplies and first day of school outfits, though, I’m online looking at Kevlar hoodies and bulletproof backpacks. This year, I’m not worried my kid won’t fit in – I’m praying he won’t be carried out.

After so many school shootings, I’m scared. Scared of what happens when that student who seems a little off or angry or cruel, whose parents don’t notice or take it seriously, whose issues the school is “dealing with”, finds access to a gun. Terrified because I know I can’t protect my child – and the government won’t. Confused because these students need help and not stigma, and it’s oddly the guns who have the stronger lobby.

Prevention of gun violence depends now on the vigilance of other parents, school administrators and law enforcement. Parents and schools are generally forewarned. School shooters exhibit “behavioral warning signs that caused others to be concerned” 93% of the time, and shooters’ plans are known to others 81% of the time. When schools ignore bullying or overlook troubling or aberrant behavior, they create a dangerous atmosphere that arming teachers, lockdowns and drills can’t later prevent. Parents who ignore warning signs put both their own and other people’s children in danger.

Law enforcement is needed before active situations develop. The El Paso killer’s mother called the police to express her concern about her son having an assault weapon. The neighbor who took in the Parkland killer says she called police to express similar concerns. Seventeen states and Washington DC have variations of red flag laws, which allow the removal of guns by judicial order from those deemed a danger to themselves or others. When warnings are heeded and social media sites monitored, would-be killers can be stopped and numerous lives saved.

There are no easy answers, particularly given political resistance to gun control legislation, but we certainly we can try. Kids can be encouraged to share information, possibly using anonymous tip lines. Metal detectors and bulletproof doors and bag checks may be widely needed, and occasional assemblies just haven’t been cutting it.

Communities can be more involved in creating individualized solutions. Violence is a great equalizer; after shootings in Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland, parents in all economic strata recognize no community is safe. If this sways upcoming elections, meaningful legislation could move forward and much of this issue greatly mitigated.

It’s troubling that 74% of gun owners say the right to gun ownership is “essential to their own sense of freedom”. Freedom is now predicated on access to weaponry? Obviously your gun is for protection – though research shows it’s actually more likely members of your own household will be shot with that gun than any armed intruder … But you’re different – you will keep your gun safer, never develop mental health issues, your kid would never … Most gun owners believe they can control gun safety in their homes, their risk perception flawed despite statistical evidence.

Statistics. Evidence. The more than 100,000 people injured every year in shootings, and more than 36,000 people a year who die as a result of gun violence, a public health crisis according to the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Jama, etc. The second amendment, which doesn’t confer a right to own any gun for sport or protection without limitation – that’s neither its language nor how courts interpret it. The campaign donations senators and other representatives receive from the gun lobby. These facts can no longer be ignored or manipulated.

Forty years ago, my back to school was JC Penney’s, Sears or Kmart clothing advertised in shiny newspaper inserts, black-and-white marbled composition books and, if I was lucky, a novelty pen with click tabs of multiple ink colors. I was scared of the “burnouts”: boys with thick chains swinging from the loops of their faded jeans who smoked openly outside school doors, scared of gum chewing tube top-clad cool girls with their Farrah Fawcett feathered, Sun-In blonde hair … and of practically everybody else. The district’s least academic track was nicknamed “pre-jail”, there was a pregnant seventh grader whose belly strained against her overalls as she struggled to decorate our homeroom door with paper flowers, and a tall unsmiling redhead rumored to have joined the Nazi party wore enormous black boots whose stomp echoed in the narrow hallway where he called my best friend “kike” every day as he passed her. But all I feared was that someone would call me fat and everyone would laugh at me and my fatness – never guns, never being killed.

Years later, I do worry about the possibility of a shooter at my son’s tiny suburban school, though there are no grappling tweens making out in front of lockers, no lingering smoke smell at its entryway, no older kids in pick up trucks zooming out of its parking lot. In other years, I shook with PTSD at back to school night, flashing back to my tween awkwardness and pain. Now, I sit imagining someone reaching into pocket or purse and shots ricocheting around the small auditorium. Because no matter how good our body armor, none of us are bulletproof, and our most effective weapon remains our vote.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/31/school-shootings-bulletproof-backpacks-kevlar

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Japan: 97% of schools eligible to provide free higher education

Noticias

Asia/ Japan/ 23.09.2019/ Source: the-japan-news.com.

The education ministry announced Friday that 97.1 percent of 1,074 universities and junior colleges in the nation have been recognized as eligible for a free higher education program (see below) for students from low-income households, a system that will be launched in April 2020.

A total of 31 private universities and junior colleges did not apply to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry for accreditation. Institutions with financial difficulties are not eligible to provide free education. The ministry suspects that financial woes were the reason some institutions did not apply. Universities that are struggling financially could have further difficulty attracting students.

The ministry said that 1,043 out of 1,074 national, public and private universities and junior colleges have been certified. Of the 1,043 institutions, 744 are universities and 299 are junior colleges. All national and public universities, including the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, have been granted eligibility. According to the ministry, the 31 institutions that did not apply were all private schools.

Of the 2,713 vocational schools in the nation, 1,688, or 62.2 percent, were certified. All 57 of the nation’s technical colleges were accredited.

The system will be introduced to prevent a divide in educational opportunities, as the percentage of people who go on to higher education is lower among low-income households. However, some people argue that the system should not serve as a life raft for financially stricken private universities.

In response, the ministry has created a benchmark: Incorporated entities that have liabilities in excess of assets, face payment deficits for three straight years and have a student enrollment of less than 80 percent of the school’s quota for three straight years are ineligible for the program.

“Of the universities and junior colleges that didn’t file applications, nearly 10 are believed to have judged that they couldn’t meet such administrative standards,” said an official of the ministry’s office for higher education support.

Medical and dental universities did not apply apparently because the upper limits on free tuition under the system meant their hefty tuition fees could not be covered.

Part of the revenue from an increase in the consumption tax rate from October will be used to make higher education free. The ministry estimates that up to about 750,000 people will be eligible for the program, and that the annual cost will be up to ¥760 billion.

■ Free higher education program

A program to waive or reduce the tuition and entrance fees of universities, junior colleges, vocational schools and technical colleges, while expanding grant-type financial aid, including for living expenses. Up to about ¥700,000 will be provided in annual tuition fees, and up to about ¥910,000 will be provided in grant-type financial aid. For example, in the case of a family with two parents and two children, the program will apply if the household makes an annual income of less than ¥3.8 million, in principle. Such households with an annual income of less than ¥2.7 million are exempted from residential tax. Speech

Source of the notice: https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0006021575

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The Guardian view on the school climate strike: protests that matter

The Guardian

By: The Guardian.

 

The youth climate movement has created a new sense of urgency. Adults, including politicians, must now focus on plotting a safer course

 ‘When Greta Thunberg and other young campaigners met US legislators this week, it was not to propose a specific course of action but to assert their right to a liveable future.’ Thunberg listens to speakers during a climate change demonstration at the US supreme court in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

This Friday’s school strike, which adults around the world have been asked to join, is the largest mobilisation yet attempted by the youth climate movement launched last year by the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. As such, it is an event of international significance. History shows not only that social change is possible, even when the interests ranged against it are formidable, but that peaceful protest is among the most effective ways to bring it about. The campaigns against slavery, for female suffrage and for workers’ and civil rights, as well as the independence movements of former colonies including India, all harnessed new forms of civic participation and activism to the cause of progress.

Movements on behalf of people who lack voting rights, of course, have little choice but to try to exercise influence outside the ballot box. As adults in democracies, we have become used to making our political choices in elections, with only a small minority in most countries actively involved in parties or campaigning. That does not mean political action should end there. And except for 16- and 17-year-olds in a handful of countries, children cannot vote. If they want their voices to be heard they must seek other means – such as a school strike.

Some of the young people demonstrating on Friday will have been influenced by adults. But teenagers, who are typically rebellious and open to new ideas, have been important in social movements before. No one should be surprised if young people are more alarmed than their grandparents about effects that are predicted to become more severe in 20 or 30 years’ time.

Quick guide

Covering Climate Now: how more than 250 newsrooms are joining forces this week to spotlight the climate crisis

It is the simplicity of the movement’s message, as well as the youth and determination of the protesters, that has made them unignorable. Less than a year ago, the world’s leading climate scientists issued a warning that we are running out of time to avert the worst effects of global heating, at a meeting at which some scientists were reported to be in tears. Temperatures are continuing to rise and the effects are already punishing, particularly in poorer parts of the world. But increases of more than 1.5 degrees celsius would lead, scientists warn, to food scarcity and water stress for hundreds of millions more people. Heat-related deaths, forest fires and mass displacements by flooding become far more likely in this scenario, while for species including coral the consequence would be extinction.

Yet despite these dire warnings and the attempts at decarbonisation overseen since 1988 by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world is failing. Carbon emissions in 2018 reached a record high of 37.1bn tonnes. There has been some progress, measurable in pledges by governments and notably a decade of emissions cuts in the EU. The profile of green issues is higher, the cost of renewables is falling fast and public opinion in many countries is shifting. But our path is taking us towards a painful and dangerous future.

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3:41
 Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot make short film on climate crisis – video

The climate strikers demand that the world faces these facts. Their aim is to force us to confront a problem that, for far too long, we have found it convenient to ignore. When Greta Thunberg and other young campaigners met US legislators this week, it was to assert their right to a livable future. In a short film with George Monbiot, also this week, she was more specific, advocating the protection and restoration of ecosystems as a natural climate solution.

A reckoning is overdue with those who, seeking to avoid the transition to clean energy, misled the public. Without the lost decades of inaction and denial, global heating need never have become the emergency it now is. Many politicians as well as fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists are deeply culpable. But Friday is an opportunity to take action – as the Guardian is doing by declaring a climate emergency.

Environmental campaigners, scientists and others deserve praise for their climate work over many decades. That we are nowhere near where we should be, in spite of their efforts and knowledge, is a cause for anger. The freshness and seriousness of the school strike movement is a reason to hope

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/19/the-guardian-view-on-the-school-climate-strike-protests-that-matter

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Children return to school in Ebola-affected regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Noticias

Africa/ Congo/ 17.09.2019/ Source: www.unicef.org.

Schools have reopened for an estimated two million children living in communities affected by the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“Ebola has had a devastating and disruptive impact on families and communities here,” said UNICEF Representative in the DRC Edouard Beigbeder. “Ensuring that these children have access to safe, protective and welcoming schools is key to helping them regain normalcy and continue their learning.”

There are 6,509 primary and secondary schools in Ebola-affected areas of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu Provinces – 3,800 of them are in high-risk areas.  Most have reopened for the new school term.

“At the start of the last academic year, the Ebola outbreak was still very new,” said Fati Bagna Seyni, UNICEF’s education lead in the Ebola response. “Many parents were scared to send their children to school fearing they could be infected in class. Teachers lacked the information and training to teach children about the disease or assist vulnerable children from Ebola-affected families. A lot has changed.”

Over the past year, UNICEF has worked closely with the Ministry of Education and other partners to map and deliver targeted assistance to schools, teachers, parents and students in affected areas.

This includes equipping schools with thermometers, hygiene supplies and handwashing stations and training school administrators and teachers on everything from prevention measures to basic case management if a student or teacher begins to show symptoms.  Teaching materials were produced, including an instruction guide with child-friendly illustrations that helps teachers teach children about how the disease spreads, how to prevent it and good hygiene practices.

Teachers have also received psychosocial training, so they can identify and assist a child suffering from stigma or discrimination or a child grieving the loss of loved ones, whether from Ebola, other diseases or violent conflict, which also afflicts the region.

Among the students returning to class include hundreds of school-age Ebola survivors and children orphaned to Ebola.

In preparation for the new school term, UNICEF and partners have been assessing which schools need additional health and hygiene supplies, updating instruction guides and messaging based on feedback from teachers, printing new posters and informational materials and increasing outreach to parents and communities to encourage children to return to school.

“Informed teachers are incredibly valuable to the Ebola response because they are respected and listened to,” said Bagna Seyni. “Children learn how to prevent the spread of Ebola from teachers and bring those messages home to their parents and communities. Teachers and children can be great amplifiers and influencers and it’s essential we take advantage of that.”

To date, UNICEF and partners have:

  • Trained over 32,400 teachers on how to teach children about Ebola prevention and how to make schools a protective environment for children
  • Reached more than 928,000 students with vital information about Ebola
  • Provided school support, including school fees, uniforms and supplies, to 432 child survivors and children orphaned to Ebola
  • Equipped nearly 2,350 schools in high-risk areas with handwashing stations, thermometers and hygiene supplies

Source of the notice: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-return-school-ebola-affected-regions-democratic-republic-congo

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To create an immigrant-friendly Japan, start with education reform

Noticias

Asia/ Japan/ 17.09.2019/ Source: www.japantimes.co.jp.

The Japanese economy has been suffering in part because of an aging population, resulting in an extreme shortage of young labor. To compensate, Japan has begun actively allowing in foreign workers. Government data released in April 2019 show that the number of resident foreigners hit a record high of 2.22 million, 1.76 percent of Japan’s population.

Has Japanese society welcomed these foreign workers with open arms? Not always. Shunsuke Tanabe, a Waseda University professor, explains that “many people in Japan think public security is getting worse as the number of foreign residents increases,” an attitude that leads some to discriminate against newcomers. Many foreigners living in Japan feel alienated, often experiencing verbal or even physical abuse. For example, according to a survey conducted by the Anti Racism Information Center in Tokyo, a human rights organization made up of scholars, students and NGO workers, 167 out of 340 foreigners, including students, claimed that they have suffered from discriminatory acts.

Why is this happening? Although education is not often discussed in connection with immigration, the roots of the problem lie in the secondary school system, which elicits and encourages this type of discriminatory behavior. The Japanese school system incorporates militaristic and conformist ethics and permits strong government control over education through textbook and curricula censorship. Regarding curricula, the education ministry controls all kindergarten through 12th grade educational material. Schools have to follow guidelines called Gakushu Shido Yoryo, which tell schools what and how to teach — and which also excludes comprehensive humanistic education about topics such as human rights. Through this strong control, the ministry works to shape obedient students who will easily conform to social norms, not only in schools but also in their supposedly homogeneous society.

The conformity that is encouraged in Japanese schools not only stifles uniqueness and personal expression among Japanese individuals, it helps shape a social consciousness that is suspicious of outsiders.

The Japanese school system is strictly education-focused rather than highlighting personality-building, and most schools from the junior high school level onward have unreasonably strict rules regarding appearance and behavior; students are regularly required to wear school uniforms and act in accordance with strict rules.

There are very specific guidelines designed to maintain a conservative appearance, such as keeping clean-cut hair with a natural black color, wearing only white shoes and socks, no makeup (although some schools allow natural makeup), no piercings and so on.

Some rules regarding appearance have already caused problems related to the increasing foreign population and to mixed children in Japan. For example, schools have tried to force children who do not have naturally black hair to dye their hair in an attempt to avoid standing out too much.

This seems a bit irrational; however, it is part of the education system’s way of maintaining uniformity and peace in order to avoid possible cultural dissent.

The conformist environment nurtured in the Japanese education system poses a direct challenge to immigrant or mixed students, but it also has a clear role in shaping the attitudes of Japanese adults in ways that are not conducive to creating a welcoming society for immigrants.

Another consequence of Japanese schools’ conformist tendencies is that many students who appear or act differently from the understood norm can become victims of severe ijime (bullying).

According to statistics from the education ministry, there were around 224,540 reports of school bullying in 2015-2016. Japanese students show collective and group-centric behavior in their ijime process, targeting victims because they are different in one way or another. These students might be new to the school, slower at doing things compared with others, prefer being alone (which is considered strange in the group-centric school system), disabled or ill, of mixed heritage or poor, for example.

Even Japanese students who return from living abroad can be victims of ijime. “According to one study,” says University of Adelaide professor Shoko Yoneyama, “two-thirds of 50 returnee children (kikokushijo) who responded to a survey indicated that they had been bullied because of their overseas experience — because of their English ability, lack of competence in Japanese, different manners, attitudes and ways of thinking.”

If Japanese students are so inclined to discriminate against Japanese who have merely lived abroad, this suggests challenges for their future behavior with respect to immigrants hoping to integrate into Japanese society.

If Japanese policymakers really want to successfully promote immigration, it will require reform of some of their most fundamental education institutions and practices, a dimension that receives too little attention in the current discourse.

While taking in foreign workers who will potentially become victims of discrimination, the government needs to implement policies that will reform the education system to prevent unfair treatment toward people of difference by softening the strict and militaristic rules and by teaching its people to embrace diversity instead of over-conformity in the secondary school system.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/09/11/commentary/japan-commentary/create-immigrant-friendly-japan-start-education-reform/#.XX9kJygzbIV

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China makes great leaps in education over 70 years

Noticias

Asia/ China/ 16.09.2019/ Source: www.xinhuanet.com.

China has made great leaps in developing basic and higher education over the past 70 years as the country endeavors to improve its comprehensive strength.

In the early days after the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the illiteracy rate in the country stood at 80 percent. Today the newly-added labor force has received over 13.3 years of education on average.

Over the decades, compulsory education coverage in China has been expanded to the average level of high-income countries as the country has given strategic priority to education and included compulsory education into legislation.

This year the Ministry of Education announced that China has built the world’s largest higher education system with the gross enrollment ratio in higher education rising to 48.1 percent from 0.26 percent in 1949.

China’s higher education will enter a new phase which will see over half of the college-age population being able to have access to higher education.

Vocational education has also registered marked progress as the country has cultivated 270 million high-caliber laborers and skilled workers.

Source of the notice: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/08/c_138375346.htm

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LGBT lesson protests hijacked by religious extremists, MPs say

Nazia Parveen

By: Nazia Parveen.

Schools described as ‘under siege’ as actions spread from Birmingham to north-west

Protests against LGBT lessons in schools have been hijacked by those with a “religious, extremist agenda” who are holding schools “under siege”, MPs have said, as the number of schools being targeted has grown.

Anderton Park primary school, in the Moseley area of Birmingham, has become the latest site of demonstrations against the teaching of LGBT rights, following similar protests at other schools in the city. On Friday, the last day before the half-term holiday, staff were forced to send children home after another protest. Earlier this week, protesters claimed 600 of the school’s 700 pupils were withdrawn by parents, a figure disputed by the school, which said more than half remained in attendance.

West Midlands police are investigating threatening emails and phone calls against the school’s headteacher, Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, and allegations that mostly female LGBT activists were pelted with eggs by men wearing balaclavas as they placed heart-shaped messages and banners on the school fence.

Taking centre stage in the protest is 32-year-old Shakeel Afsar. For six weeks he has stood outside the school with a microphone, chanting with fellow campaigners: “Let kids be kids,” and “Our kids, our choice”. Other protesters have carried placards with the messages: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” They have also demanded the resignation of Hewitt-Clarkson. Although the school does not teach No Outsiders, the programme that informs children about LGBT identities, it does share equality messages and books with pupils.

Afsar, whose daughter attends an Islamic school, went to Anderton Park as a child and has a niece and nephew who currently study there. He grew up in a heavily politicised household in which his father, Najib Afsar, the head of the Birmingham-based Jammu Kashmir Liberation Council (JKLC), would regularly give talks and organise protests against events in the disputed region.

The family has links with a number of local and national politicians and political aides, including the MP Roger Godsiff, who has criticised LGBT+ inclusive education. The family also runs a TV channel – Kashmir Broadcasting Corporation – which is currently off-air but has a website that regularly posts updates on the schools protests.

Najib Afsar, who has described Hewitt-Clarkson as a dictator, says he does not take part in the protests, but that his son has his full support.

“He has a working team of five people. I don’t participate in their activities, because that is their show and we don’t get involved in it,” he said.

However, he later revealed he had written to the school to ask to be appointed as a mediator. The school refused his request. He has also written to local and national politicians about the issue and said it was a boost to his son’s cause to have Godsiff, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, endorsing their views.

The protests have been met with anger from Labour’s Jess Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, who lives near the school, and said they were being organised by a group of “12 angry men”.

The MP Jess Phillips confronts Shakeel Afsar outside Anderton Park school
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The MP Jess Phillips confronts Shakeel Afsar outside Anderton Park school. Photograph: BBC News

She recently confronted Shakeel Afsar at the school gates, accusing him of damaging the reputation of Birmingham’s “peaceful and loving” Muslim community.

She said: “It is hate preaching. The protest has to be stopped. I feel like everyone is pussyfooting around a load of bigots. They shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the schools. These are people with a religious extremist agenda. They are holding schools under siege.”

Phillips said she would ask for an exclusion zone around the school to allow pupils to attend lessons without being disturbed by the protests.

Afsar denied the protests were promoting an extremist agenda. He said: “That’s absolute nonsense. That’s not what is happening. I am here for the community and they feel the school are being intolerant and I am supporting them.”

Hewitt-Clarkson said the school would pursue an injunction to stop the protesters from gathering outside, and claimed the protests were a “one-man show”.

She said: “The first time I met Shakeel he slammed his hand on my desk and demanded that we stop teaching anything about LGBT rights. He was very agitated. He describes himself as a general in army and uses words like battles, army, soldiers, and I have to keep reminding him that this is a primary school. We call it the Shakeel show.”

Headteacher Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson
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Headteacher Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson says the protests at her school are a ‘one-man show’. Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian

At Parkfield community primary school in the predominantly Muslim Alum Rock area of Birmingham, where the first protests took place, there has been a moratorium. Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s former lead on child sexual abuse, has been brought in as a mediator and both the school and parents have remained silent, seeking to distance themselves from other recent activity on the issue.

In other parts of the country groups have also been created. In Oldham inGreater Manchester, 500 parents have joined the Oldham Parents Forum and plan to lobby all 60 schools in the area to begin talks with parents over LGBT lessons.

Nasim Ashraf, a member of the religious group Oldham Interfaith Forum, said he started the forum. Ashraf and his wife, Hafisan Zaman, received payouts from a number of national newspapers when they were falsely accused of a Trojan horse plot to take over Clarksfield primary school in the area.

Ashraf acknowledges his own children are not affected by the LGBT teaching. One of his daughters is at university and his other child is at a Church of England school and will have left by the time the programme is rolled out into the curriculum.

However, he was allegedly called on by parents who were finding it difficult to articulate their concerns. His group has approached seven schools and have plans to speak to 60 in total.

He said: “Some of these parents can’t articulate what they feel and some of them don’t even know what Islam says about this issue. I am here to guide them. Our biggest asset is our children and we need to make sure the schools are adhering to guidelines and policies when teaching RSE [relationships and sex education] and taking into account parents’ beliefs.”

The Manchester Parents Group is headed by Shebby Gujjar Khan, a 30-year-old accountant who has no children. His group, which has almost 250 members, called for protests at primary schools across the region and for parents to withdraw their children. This resulted in parents at several schools, including William Hulme’s grammar school in Whalley Range and Acacias community primary school in Burnage, contacting the management about sex education lessons.

Khan, who says he created his group after parents raised concerns with him about a transgender child attending a local secondary school, claims groups have also been created in Blackpool, Preston, Bradford and Liverpool.

He said: “This is about morality. We have our own religious beliefs and they need to be respected.”

From September 2020, primary schools in England will be required to teach relationship lessons, including classes that will reflect the fact some children have same-sex parents. Parents will not have the right to withdraw pupils from these classes.

The education secretary, Damian Hinds, said the protests had been “hijacked by individuals with a vested interest and no links to the schools”.

He added: “It is unacceptable that children at Anderton Park are missing out on education because of the threat of protests. There is no place for protests outside school gates. They can frighten children, intimidate staff and parents. It is time for these protests to stop.”

Hewitt-Clarkson says she will not bow to the protesters. “This is not about LGBT. This is all about control, coercion, manipulation, dehumanisation of me because I will break and I will be crushed and they will be victorious. We’ve seen this play out here but I won’t meet them and I won’t meet their demands, and they are not winning and that’s why it has escalated. They have to be the victors at any cost, but they will not win.”

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/24/lgbt-lesson-protests-hijacked-religious-extremists-mps-say

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