Portstewart, Northern Ireland - There are two ways to destroy a nation. One
is from without by an invading military force. The other is from within when
the people of the nation no longer embrace and promote the history, language
and culture that brought it to prominence and power. Britain has chosen the
second option, which is national suicide.
In addition to its indefensible immigration policy, which is rapidly
diluting British culture, the nation's public schools are giving up
classical teaching in history, science and English literature in favor of
trendy things to make the subject matter more "popular." It isn't working.
Students increasingly find the new curriculum as unpalatable as school
lunches.
According to the British think tank, Civitas, no major subject area has
escaped the blight of political interference. The Civitas report is called
"The Corruption of the Curriculum." It says history classes teach from
speeches by Osama bin Laden and what Arab media say about Sept. 11 with no
balancing material from American sources. "History has become so divorced
from facts and chronology that pupils might learn the new Œskills and
perspectives' through a work of fiction, such as ŒLord of the Rings,'" says
the report.
Science classes are dominated by debates over abortion, teaching about
genetic engineering and the use of nuclear power, rather than emphasizing
laboratory work. In English, the pursuit of gender and racial equality has
led an exam board to produce a list of modern poems from everywhere but
England and Wales, where many of the greatest writers were born. The English
literature exam features 32 contemporary poems and only 16 poems written
prior to 1914. Exam candidates must choose two about which to write, being
careful to select one from each gender (what no gay or transgender writers?).
The Civitas report says, "The traditional subject areas have been hijacked
to promote fashionable causes; teachers are expected to help to achieve the
government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge
to their students."
The Daily Telegraph reports on another study which shows that attempts to
make science more popular with the culturally trendy has had the opposite
effect, "with pupils less interested in the subject and less keen to pursue
it than they were under the previous, more fact-based lessons."