March all of them out of classrooms
3:54pm Friday 28th March 2008
At the National Union of Teachers' conference this week there was a call for the Ministry of Defence to be barred from going into schools to talk to youngsters about military life.
Members said military visitors pushed a partisan view of becoming a soldier which promotes the career prospects, training and travel while downplaying the "fatal realities".
At the same conference there was a plan put forward for all schools to offer faith-based instruction with imams, rabbis and priests being brought in to instruct religious pupils in their own particular faith as part of the curriculum. Having pupils from a range of faiths being instructed in them under the same roof was seen as a preferred alternative to single-faith schools.
So religious leaders don't promote a partisan view, then? Why can't the bright minds who are charged with educating our children see the similarities?
Personally, I agree with them about not using schools as a recruiting ground for the armed forces (and that is in no way to denigrate the excellent job British troops do). While I appreciate that military bosses currently have a big problem finding enough recruits to fight unpopular wars started by politicians, I would be concerned if I discovered that my child or grandchild had been subjected at 15 to positive spin in the school hall about life in the Army, with the possibility unmentioned of a spell in an endless Iraq or Afghanistan conflict.
But I'd also be unhappy to learn that the school was regularly visited by religious leaders plugging their own particular path to God, emphasising the divisions between the different groups of pupils.
There should be no place for military recruitment in schools, other than at established careers evenings when they take their place alongside the other options on offer. And there should be no place for religious instruction either, or for faith schools which also set different sections of the community apart.
Schools are places for secular learning. By all means continue to include religious education on the curriculum as part of that general learning, with non-partisan teachers enlightening all pupils as to what the various faiths stand for.
But they mustn't be places for partisan religious instruction. If that has to belong anywhere, it's in the churches, chapels, temples, mosques and synagogues outside school hours.
Still room for towers
How disappointing that English Heritage has again decided that the New Vic/Gaumont/Odeon building isn't of sufficient architectural interest to be listed. But that shouldn't necessarily seal its fate.
If it is demolished, it will be against the wishes of most of the Bradford people who have expressed an opinion about the former theatre-ballroom. Their elected representatives will now have a chance to have their democratic say when the planning application for New Victoria Place is submitted.
Before it's flattened to be turned into an undistinguished glass palace (if that's ever likely to happen, given the economic downturn), Bradford Odeon Rescue Group should be given time to further promote its interesting plans.
I like the idea of saving the iconic twin towers and even adding a third one, and replacing the brick frontage between the two existing towers with an expanse of glass. Inside the refurbished building, we're told, would be an auditorium capable of seating more than 2,000 people, conference facilities in what used to be the ballroom, a hotel with bars and restaurants, a nightclub, and a link to the Alhambra next door.
While much of that sounds fine, I have reservations about whether, even if Bradford begins to boom, we're likely to need all the hotel rooms which are either in place, being built or planned.
But it's a damn sight better proposition to start debating the merits of than the alternative, which is to flatten the Odeon and either replace it with a glass box or leave another big hole in the ground for years to come.
A touch of class
And now, a totally unsolicited pat on the back for a delightful local enterprise: Interlude, a 1920s-style café/tearoom in Westgate, Shipley (on the site of the first Agraah restaurant). My wife came upon it by chance when she popped in to buy an outsales sandwich and Eccles cake, and the other morning we ended a spot of Shipley shopping with a pot of tea and toasted teacake there.
What a pleasant, civilised, unexpected place: crammed with period bric-a-brac, music of the era playing gently, waiting staff dressed accordingly, a bell to ring or a bowler hat to don to indicate that you're ready to order once you've studied the varied menu.
Among our fellow customers were two girls aged ten or 11, sitting at a table without adults and chatting away as they tucked into breakfasts (one had two boiled eggs, the other beans on toast). And when they'd finished, they paid and went on their way after politely saying their goodbyes to the waitress.
This was the world as it should be, blessed with the standards of a kinder era. We need more places like this around the Bradford district, to cater for customers who appreciate a bit of class and like to escape from time to time into a world where nostalgia rules.
I'm wild about Johnny
One of the current "must-watch" programmes at our house is Johnny's New Kingdom, the second BBC2 wildlife series featuring eccentric Devonian and joyous enthusiast Johnny Kingdom.
What a pleasure to spend half an hour each week in the company of this apparently uncomplicated, almost child-like man who takes such a delight in the natural world around him. He's a superb antidote to the cynicism that darkens so much of television's current output.
Long may he and his hand-held camera continue to roam around his plot of land capturing the antics of the deer, badgers and owls, and of the bunch of wacky human pals he seems to have gathered around himself.