Camden New Journal - News: Students demonstrate

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Camden New Journal - by SUNITA RAPPAI
Published: 9 August 2007

Pickets outside Kids Connections in Parkway

Students demonstrate against ‘blatant propaganda’ lessons

TEENAGERS dressed in blood-spattered overalls picketed an office in Camden Town last Thursday over new school lessons that they claim are “blatant propaganda” for the invasion of Iraq.
School Students Against War (SSAW), a 400-strong group based in King’s Cross, staged the protest outside the offices of Kids Connections in Parkway.
The agency has been contracted by the Ministry of Defence to prepare lesson plans called “Defence Dynamics” for 14 to 16-year-olds in schools around the country this September.
The lessons include a section called “Writing to Argue”, based on the ongoing occupation of Iraq, which encourages students to argue for or against the war.
But members of SSAW, who obtained details of the new lessons after calling the agency pretending to be teachers, say the course materials are “a blatant propaganda exercise aimed at justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq.”
Shouting “No military recruitment in our schools” and “No more lying in our lessons”, the 20-strong group, watched by two policemen, handed out leaflets to curious passers-by and tried to deliver a letter against the project to agency staff.
Tali Janner-Klausner, 15, who helped organise the protest, said: “The lesson plans are blanking out the facts. It’s the most pro-war biased pro-army crap - it’s trying to make the army look like some big computer game. It’s completely wrong.”
Kids Connections refused to comment but a Ministry of Defence spokesman described Defence Dynamics as an “innovative and exciting set of web-based resources designed to support teachers in delivering a whole range of subjects”.
He added: “The lesson that they referred to is an unapproved draft. It is an English lesson which is designed to help students develop their ability to argue a case from both perspectives.
“All of the lessons are currently being validated to ensure they are balanced and correct before the launch in September. No decisions have been made as to which of the draft plans will be used in the final product.”

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