When does educate become indoctrinate?
I find the attached clip from a recent BBC UK news item quite bemusing.
If it’d been generated by any other group than “Demos” I probably wouldn’t have given it much consideration but the fact that it is ‘Demos’ sponsored gives me a shudder down the spine.
Demos is a U.K. “Think Tank” that was founded in 1993 by Marxists Martin Jacques and Geoff Mulgan (but naturally you won’t find this fact on their web site) http://www.demos.co.uk/about .The group was closely affiliated with Tony Blair’s government and a lot of the constituents of ‘New’ Labour’s manifesto was inspired by aficionado’s from Demos.
In fact Mulgan went on to work inside Downing Street in 1997.
Demos says it has no party political bias and to back that statement current British Prime Minister, David Cameron also works closely with the group.
It’s this cozy relationship with governmental policy making that concerns me. Isn’t it easier to sell the government line if you’re asserting that any internet derived research which throws up so called ‘conspiracy theories’ are to be mistrusted?
As educators, where do you draw a line between freedom of thought and an indoctrination of politically biased propaganda?
