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Updated ,first published
Education Minister Jason Clare says it “isn’t woke” to teach respect in schools after Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said teachers were running their own agendas in classrooms and Australians needed to be vigilant about a politicised curriculum.
Debate over consent and relationships education in schools has been revived after a slew of high-profile sexual assault allegations across the country, as Labor flags a crackdown on social media algorithms that serve up harmful content to children.
Pauline Hanson, who is breathing down the necks of the major parties after One Nation rocketed up the polls and claimed a safe Labor seat in a state byelection at the weekend, has previously sworn to drive “woke” ideology out of Australia’s schools.
Clare on Thursday defended the nation’s teachers, saying it was big tech companies that were “shovelling shit” into children’s heads.
“Teaching boys to respect girls isn’t woke. It’s just common decency,” he told reporters in Queensland.
“Teachers are the heroes that do a really hard, complicated job, and they play a really, really important role in helping to make sure that they don’t just build the skills of our kids to read and write, but they build character.”
Taylor weighed in on Thursday morning, backing up Nationals leader Matt Canavan who said on Wednesday that the “feminisation” of the curriculum was to blame for pushing boys into toxic online spaces.
Asked repeatedly by ABC TV, Taylor would not say that he thought consent should be taught in schools.
“Look, I think young men should be taught to be good human beings,” he said.
Asked again, he said consent was important.
“Of course it’s important. But I have got to say that the idea that we have a balanced curriculum at the moment, that there are not agendas being run by some teachers, I think is wrong.”
At a press conference later in the day, Taylor said he did think consent should be taught in schools.
Asked how young men should be taught to treat women with respect, Taylor said: “I want to see great young men growing up in this country.”
Canavan, speaking alongside Taylor in Melbourne, took aim at the Respectful Relationships program run by the states.
“In the own words of that program, it’s to provide opportunities for young boys to explore and reflect on their personal male privilege and power,” Canavan told reporters in Melbourne.
“These anti-boy ideologies have no place in our schools.”
Respectful Relationships is a program aimed at reducing family violence, taught from the start of school to year 12. Canavan’s office pointed to an education toolkit from family violence prevention organisation Our Watch, which says boys should be given the opportunity to reflect on their male privilege, though the resource is not an official part of the curriculum.
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said teachers were reporting children as young as six using misogynistic language peddled in the “manosphere”.
“Certainly teachers will tell you that the sexism and aggression is much more common in their classrooms today – against them as female teachers, but also obviously against female students,” she told News24.
Clare and Plibersek will attend a sexual violence emergency roundtable in Sydney on Friday, called by NSW after two assaults allegedly committed by school students.
Independent senator David Pocock said a focus on “toxic masculinity” over conversations around what made a good man had alienated some young men, but that teaching respect was about offering tools and support, not pushing an anti-boy ideology.
“Young people, and young boys in particular, need positive role models, need leaders in their communities and nationally showing what positive masculinity and respectful relationships look like,” he said.
“The rates of male suicide show boys and men in this country need more support. We can push for that at the same time as we acknowledge men’s violence against women and do everything we can to stop it.”
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Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
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