Friday 12 March 2010

Ban the BNP in the classroom

Some things are easy to figure out. Should members of the BNP be allowed to work as teachers? No. It is quite simple. It's nothing to do with the rights of the teacher. It is the basic human right of a child to be treated with dignity, fairness and respect. Let me give you an example. If two boys have a fight in the classroom and one is black and one is white, those two boys have an absolute right to expect their teacher to treat them in the same way. Is there any way that the black boy can reasonably expect equitable treatment from a BNP supporting teacher? Of course not. The only way that the teacher could ever be seen to be fair is actually to discriminate in favour of the black boy. Take another situation. What if a black child is on the end of racist bullying. Would he feel comfortable confiding in a teacher he knows to be a BNP supporter. What about a black boy who has got  a white girl pregnant. Would he feel comfortable asking a BNP supporting teacher for help and support? What about a Muslim boy who is being disturbed as he says his daily prayers by racist pupils. What about a Muslim boy who has seen extremists being interviewed on TV making threats against Muslims and is scared. Would he feel happy entering a classroom thinking that the teacher is a supporter of the BNP? What about when a boy sees his teacher picketing his Mosque shouting abuse at Muslims. How does he feel? Often teachers have access to private and personal information. Would a pupil feel comfortable with a BNP activist teacher knowing his address and private home arrangements.

The BNP will squeal like piggies that if the teacher is professional in his treatment of pupils, why should he suffer? The reason is because it isn't about the rights of the teacher, it's about the rights of the pupil.
***** Update *****
If you are interested, I phoned the Vanessa Feltz show on London 94.9 at around 9.25 and discussed all this with Vanessa. You can listen to it using the BBC Listen again facility

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