Tuesday, November 17, 2015




Dartmouth Protesters Assault Students While Screaming Racial Threats

An excellent lesson in what the naive white students are defending

A group of Black Lives Matter protestors at Dartmouth College led a violent protest Thursday, hurling racial insults at students and pushing them up against a wall as they tried to study in the library, The Dartmouth Review reports.

“Fuck you, you filthy white fucks!” “Fuck you and your comfort!” “Fuck you, you racist shit!” they reportedly yelled.

About a 150 Dartmouth protesters shouted as they marched through Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College. Students who didn’t join in on their protests were harassed, one woman was pinned to a wall by protesters who shouted, “filthy white bitch!” in her face. Students who were seated were told to, “Stand the fuck up!”  “You filthy racist white piece of shit!”

The protesters actively disrupted students reviewing for exams, entering study spaces and shouting at students who tried to close their door. One student was forced to abandon her study room and ran out of the library.

The black-clad protesters also harassed students who wore “gangster hats,” and Beats headphones, calling them “symbols of oppression.” One self-identified protester wrote on Facebook, “we raised hell, we caused discomfort, and we made our voices heard all throughout this campus in the name of standing up for our brothers and sisters across the country who are staring terrorism and assault directly in the face.”

A student wishing to remain anonymous told the Dartmouth Review that she clapped after a protester said, “let’s give a round of applause for the beautiful people of color who were here for this protest.” However, she was then told by the protester, “for all of you that are sitting down and applauding right now, ‘we don’t care about you.’”

SOURCE





Profs Write Openly Racist Manifesto Against Campus Concealed Carry

Two professors at the University of Texas (UT) have taken a new approach to resisting the impending legalization of concealed carry on Texas campuses: Gun rights are the new segregation.

A new Texas law, passed earlier this year and taking effect in 2016, will allow those with concealed carry permits to bring their weapons onto Texas college campuses and even into classrooms.

There is a strong movement of students and professors opposed to the new law, and two such professors released a manifesto for the movement Tuesday that is remarkably open in its hostility toward white men.

“As professors, we don’t see classroom carry to be about our own personal security,” the manifesto says early on. “We will most likely never be shot in our offices or classrooms, even if we were to piss off some white male students with sacrilegious ideas about race, empire, evolution, or god.”

The new manifesto, authored by UT-Austin history professor Jorge Canizares-Esguerra and UT-El Paso political science professor Patrick Timmons, both leaders of Gun Free UT, was released in an email urging opponents of concealed carry to attend a Tuesday rally. In it, the authors argue that it’s misguided for opponents of concealed carry to focus on whether the new law will increase or decrease violent crime rates.

Instead, Canizares-Esguerra and Timmons explicitly frame the conflict as a racial one, with supporters of gun rights cast as white racial oppressors who are the heirs of slavery, Jim Crow, and other acts of “settler colonialism.”

“We are witnessing the great ideological return of settler colonialism,” they say. “America has all along been about the sheer display of white male power (with guns): over Indians, over slaves, over females, over Mexicans, over Asians, over African Americans, and over Arabs. [The] return of the vigilante movement is a giant, collective white push back against the Civil Rights Movement and against the unintended consequences of globalization,migration, and demography.”

The two authors also make the unusual argument that Texas’s concealed carry law is unconstitutional because it results in the suppression of free speech.

“When a student brings a gun into our individual first -amendment [sic] right to control the bond of trust and community that is constitutionally under our care,” they say. “Yes, this is a classroom he has privileged his individual right over our right to establish and control the bond of trust and community in the classroom necessary to teach. The mere presence of guns can intimidate and thwart free speech.”

The two then return to equating gun rights with racism, blaming a “toxic ideology of white racism and libertarianism” for infringing their “individual right to determine the nature of the community of trust within our classroom.”

The manifesto ends by suggesting that those who carry guns are no different from those who attempt to hurt others by causing a panic.

“What differentiates an individual who seeds mistrust and puts people at risk by shouting ‘fire,’ in a crowded theater, from the individual who carries a gun into our classroom? Neither the shouter not the carrier can avail himself from constitutional protection.”

More than 250 UT professors have signed a petition protesting the new Texas law. In October, economics professor Daniel Hamermesh announced he was resigning his position and going to teach at another university, claiming the law drastically increased the chances a disgruntled student would assassinate him. Supporters of concealed carry have accused Hamermesh of being a false martyr, suggesting he was planning to leave anyway and chose to blame the gun law for political reasons.

SOURCE





British school leavers are unemployable because they can't speak properly, says business leader

Students are leaving school and university unable to speak properly, to the dismay of employers.

John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, called for better training in communication skills to prepare young people for the world of work.

He said too many people 'cannot speak articulately' and fail to recognise the importance of turning up to work on time.

A new survey by the BCC reveals that 69 per cent of employers do not think secondary schools prepare their pupils for work. More than three-quarters (78 per cent) want to see lessons in how to behave in job interviews.

Almost nine in 10 firms (88 per cent) said they value communication skills most, compared to 69 per cent for literacy, 64 per cent for numeracy and 56 per cent who said IT skills.

Young people do not know how to make eye contact or speak politely, preferring instead to play with their mobile phone, it was claimed.

Mr Longworth told The Times: 'What businesses often say is anecdotally is they will get people coming in for jobs who simply are not able to articulate at all what it is that they want to do or demonstrate that they are able to deal with customers or even with other employees.

'Communication skills are a real problem both at interview and in the workplace where students actually cannot speak articulately and don't know how to deal with people in a polite way.

'Then there is the whole business of punctuality where they won't turn up for work on time, and they don't think that's a problem.'

Research by the BCC found that business and education were 'worlds apart' when it comes to careers advice.

New figures today show the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds was 14.2 per cent for July-September, down from 16.2 per cent a year ago but higher than the national average of 5.3 per cent.

Mr Longworth added: 'High youth unemployment and business skills gaps are a cause for national embarrassment. 'Unless ministers allow schools to increase their focus on preparing students for the working world and businesses step up and do more to engage, inform and inspire, we could fail an entire generation of young people.

'Preparing students to face potential employers should be given the same level of priority as academic achievement in schools across the UK.'

The survey of 3,200 businesses and 300 education leaders found a 'mismatch' on the views of careers guidance.  Four out of five secondary schools believe they are effective at offering careers advice, but all businesses said the system needed to be reformed.

Mark Boleat, policy chairman of City of London Corporation, said: 'Urgent action is required to boost the skills of young people.  'Too many employers are having to fill the gaps of patchy careers advice at the recruitment stage.

'For a successful outcome, this engagement needs to happen a lot earlier. Businesses and schools need to work much more closely to raise awareness of skilled jobs and how young people can secure them.

'Pupils also need more frequent exposure to the workplace so they understand the practical and 'real life' application of their studies.'

Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: 'The NUT shares a number of the BCC's concerns, in particular their dismay at the high level of youth unemployment, and the complacency of Government in supporting young people.

'It is Government policy and cuts which have stifled careers advice and rendered 14-19 education a muddle. 'It was the coalition Government, rather than schools, which chose to strip out work experience and work-related learning from the national curriculum for 14 to 16-year-olds.

'The Government should urgently review the availability of independent, impartial careers advice and guidance. It was their abolition of Connexions which contributed greatly to the current parlous state of careers services.'

SOURCE






UK: Bidding war for maths and physics teachers: Staff cashing in with inflated salaries as heads struggle to fill posts

Schools are spending thousands to poach teachers on inflated salaries instead of buying classroom materials like books, a leading head has warned.

Robin Bevan, who runs one of the country’s best state schools, said heads are blowing their budgets on pay because of a national teacher shortage.

Many are being paid £10,000 more than they are worth and are inundated with offers from rival schools keen to lure them away.

The biggest shortages are in maths and physics, but schools are also struggling to recruit in other subjects including music.

Mr Bevan said a relaxing of the rules that forced schools to abide by pay scales has meant teacher recruitment now operates like a ‘free market’.

He branded it a ‘bloody mess’ and warned that there was ‘a risk’ that schools could run out of cash to pay for classroom materials, including iPads and maths textbooks.

He said that while this was not the case at Southend High School for Boys in Essex, where he is head, recruitment was still a problem.

He said: ‘At the moment because the supply of maths and physics teachers is really poor, salary is used as the principal manipulator to move teachers from one school to another.

‘As a head teacher you face the difficulty of looking to recruit when there are very few teachers coming in.

‘We are forced to respond with at least some financial offer and it makes things very difficult. It’s much more like working in the commercial world.

‘Salary negotiation has never been part of the education landscape.

‘The proportion is schools budgets that is being spent on teachers pay is rising faster than those budgets are rising.

‘And if you’re paying more for teachers’ pay as a head teacher you have less resources for those other things - classroom materials, equipment and so forth.’

He said he recently paid a music teacher £5,000 extra to recruit her but she left 18 months later for higher pay and a leadership role elsewhere.

He said he was doing his best not to throw money at teachers but ‘that is what is happening’.

And he revealed he recently had to teach maths classes of 60 because he could not get enough staff.

He added: ‘Recruitment for us is consistently a massive headache. It’s not unusual to advertise for a very successful school [like ours] to get only one or two applicants.

‘Maths is very difficult to recruit. ‘Last year we had for nearly six months a shortage of maths teachers.’

Teachers’ pay used to be rigidly set by the government, but under recent reforms aimed at raising standards, the best teachers can be paid more.

However, this has led to a competitive market in which teachers in short supply go to the highest-bidding schools.

He said: ‘It’s fine to liberalise your pay scale so long you have a good teachers supply. But if you don’t it means salaries are going to rise.

‘Teachers are being paid very substantially higher salaries than the main scale point in order to retain them.

‘The consequence is I have difficulty recruiting and when I do I am doing it from a neighbouring school which means it leaves them with the inherited problem.

‘It’s like Chinese puzzle you’re moving the pieces around to see who ends up with a hole.’

SOURCE



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