Children being indoctrinated

about anything makes me feel uncomfortable. Yesterday I felt very uncomfortable as I listened to a group of five and six year being indoctrinated about "racism" and "loving our country".

Now please don't do what the adults were doing and just say, "But this is what children need to know about. We need to tell them that racism is wrong and that they need to love their country."

No, we don't need to "tell" them anything of the sort. We need to make them understand by example that "racism" is wrong and that "racism" occurs on all sides - not on just one. We need to make them understand that, if they do this, they can be proud of the place they live in.

I was watching the expressions on the faces of these children. Some of them were clearly confused, others were knowing, a few were serious - as if the point of the activity might be getting through. It was a group of mixed nationalities - "white" European, Mediterranean, Asian and Indian parentage was obvious. All of the could have been born here.

Nobody had raised their hand when asked if they were "indigenous". I doubt they would know what the word meant. I am also not sure that any of would really understand even if someone tried to explain. 

Generally speaking these children cannot read yet. The child I was watching in particular can read. He has been reading to himself for over a year. His mother taught him at the same time as she was working with his older brother while she was home-schooling during last year's lock down. He was bored and wriggling. He was told to sit still. His expression was mutinous.

At the end of the session the children were given "active" tasks designed to consolidate the ideas they had been given in the previous fifteen or so minutes. I watched them working at these. Several of them, obviously looking for approval from the teachers involved, were doing as they were asked and doing it carefully. They might have taken something positive from the lesson. Almost everyone else was doing as they were asked but they were talking to each other - and not, as far as I could hear, about the subject matter of the lesson. One child scribbled in some brown lines to colour the skin of the "indigenous" person and then started to draw something else altogether.  

In a sense there was nothing "wrong" with the lesson but it did not capture the attention of the children. I doubt it is going to do anything to prevent "racist" attitudes or encourage pride in their home country. 

The wriggling young reader was finally released from the classroom. I went with him and his mother so I could pick up the books she had promised to someone else. On the way he talked non-stop about other things that had happened during the day, including the way in which one of his friends had pushed someone else over in the school yard and made them cry. His mother queried this some more. The school would probably see this as a "racist" incident but it was much more about whose turn it was to do something. 

It left me wondering whether the emphasis on teaching children about racism isn't contributing to the problem and perhaps we should first be teaching them about taking turns, sharing and thought for everyone else.