Kevin Donnelly and Andrew Bolt – what a double. Bolt’s work is well known, but Kevin Donnelly’s is less so. Most of Donnelly’s writing seems to fall into the broad category of rants along the general theme of “the socialists have taken over the school system and are corrupting our young.”

Following the story that a NSW teacher asked Year 9 students to imagine that they lived in a world where heterosexuality was the exception and, as a result, they were surrounded by gays and lesbians, Donnelly writes (here):

Should parents be concerned? If the NSW teacher’s actions were an isolated incident, then parents would have little to worry about; unfortunately, this is not the case. The reality is that governments and teacher groups around Australia, for some years, have pushed the rights of gays, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people on the basis that there is nothing wrong with such lifestyles.

On the way beginner teachers are prepared for the realities of the classroom, he writes (here):

Long gone are the days when learning was about introducing students to what Matthew Arnold termed the best that has been thought and said. Teachers are not simply there to impart a thorough grounding of history, literature, biology or mathematics, but rather to critique mainstream society and to fight for greater equity and social justice.

On government wanting control over curriculum in non-government schools he writes (here):

Once control over what happens in schools is centralised, then teachers are forced to follow whatever is the latest education fad. As parents know, state sponsored fads like whole language, fuzzy maths and values-free education have dumbed down the system.

On schools taking a holistic approach to preparing children to handle the world (here):

Even the way teachers taught changed to favour girls and to disadvantage boys. Teachers no longer stood at the front of the class and taught, preferring instead to have students work in groups on open-ended tasks. Competitive assessment disappeared, learning relied more and more on strong verbal skills and self-directed learning.

I suspect that the pre-selectors who have so often preferred other candidates are also terrified of Kevin Donnelly’s views. But the Liberal Party in Kooyong and the surrounding electorates who have rejected him may be just another bunch of doctors’ wives who have fallen victim to the thought controlling, politically correct, poofter loving, greenie socialists. Go Petro..