Not Tonight, Thanks

“The end of Sir and Miss? Teachers told to drop gendered language”
(The Telegraph 14 February 2022)

In a training session, teachers in the United Kingdom have been advised to stop using terms such as “boys”, “girls”, “son” and “mother”. Today’s world would rather see the gender-neutral words “pupils”, “students”, “child” and “parent”.

We can only agree with this important attempt to correct an ancient wrong.
First on our list is the United Kingdom. There is no king, and it is hardly united. Let us call it the Disunited Queendom.

There is much work for the teachers to do. We have many words that need to stand up and be heard for “equality”. Let us take a look at just a few examples.

Manipulate/womanipulate, manage/womanage, manhandle/womanhandle manhole/womanhole.

I, myself, sometimes make mistakes. Observant readers will have noticed that I wrote “We have many words”. This should be many/womany words.

Dr Elly Barnes, the chief executive of the Educate & Celebrate charity, told the teachers attending the training that they should ask pupils what their preferred pronoun was. She went on, to say that her charity worked with “trans” children as young as three. She did not, however, explain how a three-year old could know that they were “trans”.

There has been some push-back from bodies such as the National Education Union and the Safe Schools Alliance, mainly over the use of members fees to pay for training.

Of course, we must be sure that our discussion is germane/gerwomane in today’s world. When I was young, admittedly a long time ago, sex was definitely binary. There were just two possibilities ……
“Yes, please” or “Not tonight, thanks.”