Lent 30

[mylodon]

Following on from nodbear's thoughts of how we perceive ourselves as a nation and how others see us, I was reminded of my favourite twitter site, Very British Problems. Marvelling at the confidence of someone who has the ability to say "excuse me, sorry, this isn't what I ordered" raises a smile because it's so true. But that British reticence must drive other people bananas.

There is a big push on promoting British Values in schools, partly to counter extremism. What are those values defined as?

• an understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process;
• an appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety;
• an understanding that there is a separation of power between the executive and the judiciary, and that while some public bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account through Parliament, others such as the courts maintain independence;
• an understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law;
• an acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour; and
• an understanding of the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.

Not a bad set of values at all. I wonder how often we live by them?

Comments

[nodbear.livejournal.com]

After spending too long sniggering over at the Very British Problems website yesterday and annoying my flat mate who was trying to work by laughing so much that she was then forced to ask me to read out what was so funny and then sniggering some more, I then never got round to posting a comment.
This set of values is indeed not bad but I am interested in how its being reactive - ie having as you rightly say the aim of combatting extremism - affects it.
And as you say are they actually values that in practice we live by = or at least for instance in the case of number one a good number of citizens would be highly critical and cynical about the chances of influencing decision making through the democratic process, hence the low turnouts even for important elections and referenda.
But getting more out of value statements like this -and where to get inspiration for seeing a clearer view of ourselves and others -that is another post :)

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

I suspect good school have always taught these values, if not overtly. Of course, this was partly a reaction to the Birmingham schools thing, but the 'Prevent' training has been interesting as it's seen as a natural extension of how we safeguard children any
way.