The justification for the Orwellian “Safe Schools” program is that it is supposedly an ‘anti-bullying’ program. Which is odd, because, as critics pointed out from the start, it is entirely focused on sexuality and Marxist gender theory – even though gay and ‘trans’ students represent a minority of kids who are actually bullied in school. It says nothing, for instance, about fat kids, kids with glasses, nerds, gingers, or any of the other things for which most kids get bullied.
In fact, even its creators openly say that it’s not an anti-bullying program, but a radical, Queer Theory indoctrination program.
So it should be no surprise that its introduction has not been correlated with a reduction in school bullying. In fact, the opposite may be true, if a new claim is to be believed.
Bullying, intimidation and cyber-harassment are rife in Australian schools, with the problem significantly worse than in most other countries.
While this might be claimed as justification for the program, the evidence seems to be that bullying has risen in correlation with its rollout.
Bullying has increased over the past five years, sparking calls for further investigation into the state of Australia’s schools. The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey, which is released every five years, also shined the spotlight on the impact of technology on student safety.
But is it even true? Dodgy statistics are rife in this area, and this one should be treated with similar caution.
While the report cautions that the participation rate among Australian principals was low, making accurate comparability between nations difficult, it does not discount the potential for local ramifications.
It appears likely that the data has been skewed by motivated participants rather than randomly selected. If the sample is loaded with people who want to report bullying because they’ve experienced it, while people who haven’t didn’t bother taking part, then naturally the result is going to be distorted.
That doesn’t stop interested parties from using the data to push their political hobby-horses.
NSW Secondary Principals Council president Chris Presland said the findings echoed those of recent principal wellbeing surveys and seemed to mirror declining standards of civility in broader society…
“Kids model their parents’ behaviour and, with easy access to technology, the end result of that is what we’re now seeing in schools.”
The TALIS survey, which involved 260,000 staff from 48 countries, also revealed that Australian teachers feel less confident dealing with disruptive students in the classroom compared to their international counterparts, despite most having received formal training in classroom management while at university.
Close to half of all Australian teachers have felt ill-prepared to manage classroom behaviour, with a significant portion claiming to “lose quite a lot of time” due to students interrupting lessons.
theaustralian
Far easier to blame ‘society’ than to consider the possibility that teacher training in universities is failing, that the staggering anti-male gender imbalance in the teaching profession needs fixing, or that ‘anti-bullying programs’ are a lie designed to cover for the Marxist Trojan Horse that is “Safe Schools”.