It’s Time to Kick the Extremists Out of the Classroom

 

BRIAN MONTEITH

Schools should primarily be places for learning that enable children to acquire knowledge and gain the ability to think critically. It should surely not be a place where extreme protest groups have the opportunity to promote their warped, dangerous and one-sided ideas.

Yet right now, a radical animal rights campaign – known for shock tactics and junk science – is trying to push its propaganda into classrooms under the guise of “humane education”.

That organisation is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). A new report published by campaign group PETA Watch reviewed the education materials that PETA produces and found they are not just misleading but dangerous, manipulative and utterly unsuitable for the classroom.

The report, ‘Saving Kids from PETA‘, has uncovered how this radical protest outfit – that has, in the past, compared farming to the Holocaust and zoos to slave plantations – is targeting British classrooms with material for children as young as five years-old. Let that sink in.

This isn’t education – it is ideological indoctrination disguised as compassion.

This is the same organisation that claimed pet ownership is “abysmal” and that drinking cow’s milk causes autism – claims so lacking in evidence they would not pass a Year 7 science class.

PETA’s materials are presented as free resources for teachers to use as a stimulus for discussion. In practice, they are propaganda kits. Take its GCSE English lesson: pupils are first shown a distressing image of a monkey in a lab before being presented with articles arguing that all animal testing should be banned. The material includes highly contentious claims with no scientific references or evidence such as:

Scientists trying to discover details of human neural networks by studying a different species are very likely to be led astray, wasting time and money. Worse still, treatments that have worked well in monkeys have frequently failed when tried on people, sometimes with tragic consequences.

There is no mention of how animal research has led to breakthroughs in cancer, HIV or vaccine development. No acknowledgement that monkeys make up less than 0.1% of animals used in research. No discussions of ethical safeguards. No context, no nuance. Just dogma, dressed up as education. PETA’s founder even once said that if finding a cure for AIDS required animal testing, she would oppose it.

PETA education lesson, ‘Zoos: Prison or Paradise?‘, follows a similar pattern, equating animal enclosures to prisons. It fails to mention the vital work of zoos in species conservation, or their educational value to inspire future vets and scientists. And why would it? Balanced information does not serve its extremist narrative. Instead, pupils are encouraged to see zoos as cruel spectacles, and zookeepers as prison guards.

As a former chairman of the English-Speaking Union Scotland I was involved in preparing a Scottish Government funded discussion pack to promote debating around the subject of climate change. It presented evidence from different positions of the public debate and asked critical and inquiring questions of all arguments. It was a genuine teaching aid that then allowed young minds to form their own opinions based on evidence and reasoning. The PETA teaching materials do not conform to that balanced approach and should not be allowed anywhere near classrooms.

Of course alternative views to PETA’s could be placed before children at the same time, but that is asking a great deal from teachers already overburdened with delivering the curriculum and is putting a great deal of faith in hope before the realities of teaching

PETA’s primary school programme aimed at five to 11 year-olds, called ‘Share the World‘, teaches children that animals are “just like us” and should never be eaten, owned as a pet or used in farming. Forget science or age-appropriate material. PETA’s objective is clear: it seeks to shape children’s worldview before they are old enough to question what they are told.

Worse still, when questioned, a PETA spokesperson admitted the organisation has no idea how many schools are actually using these materials – or how children are responding to them. It does not monitor usage or track impact, despite the provision of education being one of the organisation’s key charitable objectives. It just fires off lesson packs and walks away. It takes no accountability or responsibility for what comes next. Is this the kind of organisation that should be allowed anywhere near a classroom?

This prompts the question: if PETA is allowed to spread one-sided misinformation in schools, who else gets a free pass?

If we allow a campaign group that equates pet ownership with abuse and spreads pseudoscience to enter the classroom unchallenged, that surely opens the door to any single-issue campaign.

Do we hand the whiteboard to Extinction Rebellion next? Should we let fringe activists design one-sided lessons on gender identity or the monarchy? If PETA can preach in schools, why not every other political pressure group?

There is a clear line between education and indoctrination. PETA has crossed it repeatedly and unless the Government acts, others will soon follow.

Schools should be places where facts matter. Where complex moral and scientific issues are explored honestly, with age-appropriate, balanced, evidenced-based materials – where children learn how to think, not what to think.

That is why PETA Watch believes the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson MP, should prevent PETA and other extreme groups from pushing their propaganda into schools. Once we allow ideology to replace education we lose the very purpose of schooling, as it erodes trust and we ultimately fail the next generation.

Children deserve the freedom to explore ideas, not to have them imposed by campaigners with no qualifications, no mandate and evidently no interest in the consequences of their continued influence on our children.

The classroom must be a space for informed debate, not a platform for political entryism. That means, in short, saving kids from PETA.

Brian Monteith is former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments now writing regularly for the Daily Telegraph and the Scotsman.

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This article (It’s Time to Kick the Extremists Out of the Classroom) was created and published by Daily Sceptic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Brian Monteith

Featured image: Alamy