The birds and the bees
Extending compulsory PHSE lessons to younger children could provide mixed messages, thinks Simon John
Everybody knows what’s taught to children in school these days: Maths, English and Science. But Sex and Relationships? Our Government is currently on the verge of making sex and relationship lessons compulsory for everyone from the ages of five to 16, partly to strengthen compulsory education and partly to combat teenage pregnancy and rising teenage abortion rates in the UK.
Recent polls have found that out of 1,000 people, more than two thirds supported the implementation of these lessons. However, with rising pressure on education authorities to squeeze in so much compulsory education into such a short space of time, it seems more necessary to question if these Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons are more important to our children’s wellbeing than learning how to count or read?
Save the sea kittens?
Emma McFarnon thinks PETA have got it all wrong with their new campaign
When you take a look at this photograph, what do you see? It’s a stupid question, but while most of us are quick to respond with: “it’s a fish, obviously” it seems that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would give you quite a different answer. They would tell you that this slimy little creature is in fact…. a sea kitten.
Yep, that’s right, a kitten – of the sea! It’s all part of their latest campaign to re-name fish in an attempt to discourage people from killing them for food and hooking them for sport.
Marmite madness
Banning yeast-based spreads is quite low down on Paul Stollery's list of things to do to improve the nation
Marmite: you either love it or hate it. Apparently Ceredigion council feels the latter, as it’s recently banned Marmite from the school menu. The council say they have taken it off the school menu as it contains too much salt. Does anyone see a severe lack of logic there? Because unless the canteen in the Ceredigion Council Hall serves marmite by the bowlful, it’s really not going to be an issue.
So here’re the facts that the folks running the council failed to see: Many breads have salt levels of up to 0.7g per slice, and in the recommended child’s portion of Marmite, there is 0.1g salt. Despite not living in Ceredigion, I really do hope that the people in charge up there can tell which out of those two numbers are bigger. They have lost all sense of perspective, and haven’t considered that you don’t use much Marmite on your toast. Put it another way, if anyone can find me the address of the council member who banned Marmite, I will buy them a year’s supply of the stuff; one jar.
Why Gordon should go green
Jonathan Evans believes that environmentalism is not just good for the planet; it's good for the economy too
Are we nearing judgement day with the economy? According to a new report by the New Economics Foundation we have already passed debtonation day. It is not yet in a conventional dictionary or in textbooks, but its obscurity does not detract from its significance to us in a time of financial meltdown.
Debtonation day was August 9th 2007, and was the point when the UK reached another tipping point in our ‘boom and bust’ cycle of debt, which Gordon Brown said he had put to bed
The American Dream
Charlie Callaghan on why we really need Obama
On August 28 1963, Barack Hussein Obama had just passed his second birthday; as a young African American he would have had little idea of the significance of this day. Fast-forward 45 years to the day and you would find this same African American giving the speech of his acceptance to be the Democratic candidate for the 2008 Presidential Election.
This time, Barack Obama recognises the significance of this day: it is not only the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous speech, but a day when once again hope is given to millions of Americans as it confirms the first time there has been a black man running for the Presidency. But, amid the celebration, a bitter irony remains: the irony that this man who represents the hopes of millions could be snatched away, just as the man that represented the same hope 45 years earlier had been.
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