I'll Have The Penne Alla Arrabiata

Only from the halls of academe can you find this sort of inverted logic: Can't run your cafeteria properly? Are your clean up operations inefficient? Then show your contempt for the students by banning trays.

It's all their fault for not worshiping Blessed Gaia enough and they eat too much anyway.

Protection from Common Sense

Why did they even bother to take their picture in the first place?

Patriotism is Icky

Services no longer required?

In a recent report, the Institute of Education has recommended that British schoolchildren should not be taught patriotism or encouraged to take pride in Britain's history.

Not so much a report as a national suicide pact.

School Quiz

Britain is having a major problem with Muslim schools being infiltrated by Jihadists bent on turning them into recruiting and indoctrination centres. Do you:

1. Keep a close eye on such schools and make certain that they are not being subverted.
2. Let them police themselves with minimal oversight.

If you chose 2, congratulations! You are now the Education Minister.

Newspeak Update

"Mum" and "dad" have been removed from the latest edition of the Dictionary of Newspeak because it is wildly improbable that children are not being raised by homosexuals.

Barmy Becta

From the BBC:

A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been turned down from (Becta, the government's educational technology agency) annual awards because the subject matter could offend Muslims.

I think Becta has just given sufficient grounds for its own abolishment.

School as Preparation for Life in Modern Britain

Lunchtime, kids! Grab a tray and get fingerprinted.

Survival Kit

My daughter's kindergarten asked us to pack an emergency kit for her in case of earthquake and the like. We sent along this one, but for some reason her teacher said they prefered something more along the lines of crackers and colouring books.

Go figure.

A Lesson in Dhimmitude

From the Daily Mail:

Teachers at a primary school have been ordered to dress up as Muslims to promote multiculturalism.

The West Midlands school is belatedly celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid and told its pupils and teachers to don traditional Muslim dress for the day.

All 257 pupils, most of whom are Christians, and 41 teachers - two of whom are Muslims - dressed up.

A morning assembly was held to mark the event and an afternoon party was strictly for women only, because Muslim husbands object to wives mixing with other men.

Sally Bloomer, head of Rufford primary school in Lye, West Midlands, told The Sun: "I have not heard of any complaints. It's all part of a diversity project to promote multi-culturalism."

Such willful blindness in the service of cultural suicide is breathtaking.

Update: Maybe it's just overreaction. After all, it's not as though a Labour think tank was advocating the sacrifice on the altar of multiculturalism of every institution that Britain has left.

Spines of Jello

In an effort to be "inclusive", Oak Lawn school district in Chicago, Illinois tried, unsuccessfully, banning Jello from the lunch menu and are now abolishing Christmas and Halloween celebrations because they might (all together now!) offend Muslims.

Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since officials agreed earlier this month to change the lunch menu to exclude items containing pork to accommodate Muslim students. News that Jell-O was struck from the menu caused such a stir that officials have agreed to bring it back. Gelatin is often made with tissue or bones of pigs or other animals.

That controversy now appears to have been been dwarfed by the holiday debate, which became so acrimonious Wednesday that police were called to Columbus Manor School to intervene in a shouting match among parents.

"It's difficult when you change the school's culture," said Columbus Manor Principal Sandy Robertson.

True, Principal Robertson-- especially when there's no justification for doing so other than political prejudice.

In normal circumstances, this sort of multicultural groveling would be merely offensive, but in a time of war it goes well beyond a mere eye-rolling moment. If we are going to win this battle against the Jihadists, then we must show confidence in our own institutions and traditions rather than dropping them like a live hand grenade at the first opportunity. Acts of preemptive dhimmitude such as this not only make the civilised world look weak before the barbarians who wish to kill and enslave us, but it also sends entirely the wrong message to moderate Muslims, who are equally threatened, by making it appear as if it is we who are suspect and that it is we who must justify ourselves to the Muslims rather than vice versa.

Poetic Licence

Daniel Drezner's wife on academics in fact and fiction:

The reason professors sleep with their students in fiction is because any realistic portrayal of your jobs would bore readers out of their skulls within ten minutes.

As an ex-academic I can attest to that on a stack of exam booklets.

On a side note, ever notice that novels written by English professors are almost invariably about embittered, alcoholic English professors who sleep with their students?

Culinary Crystal Ball

2005: Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver condemns the "turkey twizzler" culture in British school lunch rooms. Demands students eat what he wants them to eat. Government yaps like happy little puppies at the thought of more social engineering opportunities.

2007: Cost of school lunches shoots up 250 percent and students stop eating the "healthy" menus because they can't stand them. School meal services face collapse. Government acts all surprised that students act like creatures with free will and responds by pouring more taxpayer money down the rat hole.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

The Seattle Schools are conducting multiculturalism workshops that are such concentrated doses of Political Correctness that you could bottle them and were they compulsory they'd be more properly called re-education camps.

No surprise there. The Seattle School district always did look upon anyone to the right of Pol Pot with suspicion anway. What's interesting is this Orwellian quote from the land of unalloyed separation of church and state:

Muslim Prayer in Schools

Why do Muslim students need to leave my class to pray? This presentation focuses on accommodating Muslim students in school. Specifically, we cover prayer requirements for Muslim youth as well as other important information for making a school and classroom Muslim-friendly.

So the new Left orthodoxy is that prayer in public schools is a dangerous threat to the very fabric of American society-- unless you're a Muslim.

The Point That Isn't a Point

From the BBC:

University heads in the UK have rejected warnings that the European Commission is trying to wrest control of higher education from member states.

Universities UK said there was "no sign of a conspiracy" to take over the process of making degrees more comparable across Europe.

Quite right. There's no conspiracy; they're being blatantly obvious about it.

Maths

Have your copy book ready.

Dhimmitude in the Classroom

The Telegraph has this from a recent government report on British schools:

Some teachers dropped the Holocaust completely from lessons because of fears that Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic reactions. One school avoided teaching the Crusades because its "balanced" handling of the topic would directly contradict what was taught in local mosques.

The students may be getting a substandard education, but the teachers are learning their lessons very well.

Saving Their Bacon

The Three Little Pigs will not be renamed the Three Little Puppies in a children's show at the Kirklees Primary Music Festival, thanks to local councilors who thought the move intended to avoid offending Muslims was "well-intentioned but wrong."

Wrong, yes, but well intentioned? I'm not so sure. No Muslims voiced any objections to the play, but Gill Goodswen, one of the organisers of the festival, said,

We have to be sensitive if we want to be multi-cultural. It was felt it would be more responsible not to use the three little pigs.

Ah, the perfect mindset of the dhimmi. Censor yourself before the Faithful even complain.

Sauce for the Goose and Not the Gander

Sometimes the Muslim Council of Britain overreaches itself and the mask slips off, as in the case of its latest decree report that demands suggests that British school effectively ban all "un-Islamic" activities in deference to Muslim students no matter how few, if any, are in attendance. The report calls for a ban on such infidel activities as mixed-sex sports, dancing, drawing the human form, and giving immunisation shots during Ramadan, but the money quote from the Daily Express is this one (emphasis added):

And while the MCB insists that all British children should learn about Islam, it wants Muslims to have the right to withdraw their children from RE lessons dealing with Christianity and other faiths.

Apparently religious accomodation is a one-way street at the MCB.

The report was roundly condemned by other Muslim groups and all but disowned by the Department of Education, which is already suffering intense embarrassment from having Professor Tim Brighouse, chief adviser to London schools, scheduled to attend its launching.

The report's title, "Towards Greater Understanding – Meeting The Needs of Muslim Pupils In State Schools", is a beautiful study in Newspeak. If the contents are to be taken at face value, "meeting the needs" of Muslim pupils requires their infidel colleagues to accept dhimmitude.

Welcome to the 7th century.

Tagging Lunacy

Thought the recent ban on football at school was the height of insanity? Well, stand by for this headline:

Kids told: You can't play tag

Acutally, it's even worse; the kids are banned from touching each other at all.

I suggest the headmistress try touching reality now and then.

Wrong End of the Telescope II

How to deal with the bankruptcy of multiculuralism and the need to assimilate exploding immigrant populations? Obviously, reduce the teaching of Christianity in schools in favour of Islam and Hinduism.

Next: How to put out a fire with a can of petrol.