Speaking at the Firearms Legislation Community Consultation at the Dubbo RSL on August 15, Hanson told the audience “I encourage each and every one of you to go to the school, confront the teacher, confront the principal, and drag your kids out of school”.
The commentary came just weeks after thousands of students skipped school to protest against Hanson and One Nation.
AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe has slammed Hanson’s ‘ignorant’ remarks, calling them a direct attack on the nation’s hardworking teachers.
“For Pauline Hanson to urge parents to go into schools and confront teachers and principals, undermines the important partnership between parents and their children's school,” Haythorpe said.
“Further, it could actually place teachers in a dangerous situation where conflict and aggression may be exhibited by parents.”
The union leader went on to argue that Hanson is stirring up fear and anger based on “completely unfounded claims” of schools brainwashing students.
Recent research has revealed an escalating tension between principals and parents, with experts warning that Australian school leaders are now so wary of parents mobilising online and carrying out targeted campaigns that they have developed painstaking routines of ‘constant documentation’ in order to fend off legal consequences and other serious harms.
“One of our leaders described parents, and this was literally her quote, ‘rallying the troops online’,” lead researcher Dr Carolyn Wade told EducationHQ.
“And they literally mounted a protest – it was during COVID and the school leader was implementing government-enforced restrictions, and a few parents disagreed with them.
“A Facebook group post encouraged other parents to turn up at the school gate, literally rallying the troops to protest and march onto the school grounds.
“I know it’s wild, but this is literally what we’re talking about.”
An ‘anti-boy’ ideology
Meanwhile, Nationals leader Matt Canavan has taken aim at the Respectful Relationships framework and what he says is an ‘anti-boy’ ideology being taught in Australian schools.
“I think this anti-boy ideology has no place in our schools,” he told reporters last week.
“They have counter-productive results and then drive young boys to toxic voices online because they’re looking for someone to provide them with respect and support.”
The Respectful Relationships national framework aims to help boys and young men to “explore concepts of masculinity in healthy ways”.
Yet as Professor Amanda Keddie from Deakin University notes in a piece for The Conversation, there is no evidence to suggest boys’ attraction to the manosphere is related to consent and respectful relationships education.
Rather, she says research tells us that boys and young men are attracted to the manosphere for a number of complex reasons, including uncertainty around masculinity, sex and relationships, as well as a search for validation, belonging and recognition.
Keddie points to evidence that shows some young men who feel rejected, lonely and insecure may be particularly attracted to the simple messaging of the manosphere: that the world has turned ‘anti-boy’ and that women, feminism and gender equity are to blame for this.
Call for more male teachers
Canavan did not offer any alternatives for respectful relationship and consent education, but did reiterate a call for more male teachers.
“Maybe we should look at getting more male teachers in. That used to be an agenda, I don't know what's happened to that. But maybe we should have more male role models in schools,” he told Nine.
“I just know young boys often feel that they don’t get any kind of instruction, leadership. They’re not cherished there,” he added.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare had agreed with Canavan on the need for more male teachers.
“…We want more male role models in our schools,” he told reporters on Sunday.
“…I think probably about 25 per cent of teachers are blokes at the moment, and the more we can get, the better.
“I’d make the general point that this is, for me, just simply about respect. We want our kids to grow up respecting their mum and dad, we want our kids at school to respect the teacher at the front of the classroom. We want boys to be able to know that they’ve got to respect girls and vice versa … teaching boys to respect girls isn’t woke, right? It’s just common decency,” Clare said.
Keddie, however, argued concerns around boys needing more male role models in schools are “decades old” and based on the misguided belief that male teachers will improve boys’ experiences of school.
“…this assumes men are better role models and teachers for boys than women. It also ignores how some male teachers can reinforce harmful gender norms. For example, by ignoring sexual harassment by male students of female peers,” she argues.
“In terms of raising boys’ educational achievement – as with all students – the focus should be on quality teaching and supportive teacher-student relationships rather than the teacher’s gender.
“There is very little empirical evidence supporting the claim that boys benefit from being taught by male teachers,” Keddie concludes.
Commenting on LinkedIn, leading psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg weighed in on Canavan’s comments.
“I have spent forty years in schools and consulting rooms, and I can count on one hand the boys whose difficulties traced back to the sex of the person teaching them. I can no longer count the ones whose difficulties trace back to what they are watching on a phone at midnight,” Carr-Gregg shared.
“The evidence on this is not contested. We know where the misogyny is coming from, we know how it reaches thirteen-year-olds, and we know that the teachers in front of those boys are among the few adults trying to interrupt it in real time.”
Respectful Relationships education is not an ‘ideological project’, the expert added.
“It is one of the better-evidenced prevention programs we have, and it works best when it is taught early, taught consistently, and backed by the adults around the school rather than undermined by them.”
Carr-Gregg said what troubles him the most about the senator’s remarks is not the error, but the effect.
“Every boy who hears a national figure say that his female teachers are part of the problem has just been handed permission. Every young woman teacher who reads it has been told, by someone with a platform, that her presence is the fault. Neither will forget it,” he concluded.
Clare has blamed the big tech companies for “poisoning” the minds of children, saying they were “the bad guys” at the root of the issue.
“They’re the ones poisoning our kids, right, with algorithms that are just shovelling shit into their heads. Sorry about the language, but that’s what algorithms do.
“It is about money through algorithms selling advertising. And who are the victims of this? It’s the kids in our country. I reckon if we’re going to zero in on this we need to focus on it.”
There are agendas underway in schools: Taylor
Liberal leader Angus Taylor has also suggested that some teachers are indeed guilty of politicising the curriculum.
“The idea that we have a balanced curriculum being run at the moment, that there are not agendas being run by some teachers, I think is wrong,” he told the ABC.
“We do see those agendas being run."
Commenting on Reddit, one teacher noted “I love how quickly politicians bounce between ‘teachers are useless they can’t make students listen to them’ to ‘teachers are brainwashing students who are listening to every word they say’.”
Haythorpe said Australian teachers have been unfairly targeted by Hanson, Canavan and Taylor.
“Rather than recognising the enormous contribution teachers make every day, they have chosen to attack the profession and the people who dedicate their working lives to educating and supporting our children,” she said.
According to the union leader, their comments are “either a malevolent mischaracterisation of Australia’s education system for political gain”, or amount to a “display of complete ignorance of how the teaching profession operates”.
