As I write there is a news conference in progress on
the case of Dewsbury teaching assistant Aisha Asmi
covering the decision to award her £1000 damages
for hurt feelings and her stated responses to it.

She has lost her case against Kirklees Council for
discrimination and harassment but has won damages
for victimisation and hurt feelings. This suggests that,
in true human style, whether it is push coming to
shove or a disagreement turning progressively nasty
in a purely psychological manner either linguistically
or by way of paralinguistic semiosis in terms of dirty
tricks played within the artifical, closed, environment
of the LEA, we still struggle to give no better than we
get.

However, it seems there are several aspects to the
story that have been downplayed or for which there
has not been sufficient qualifying information for the
public, who presumably are interested, to form any
reasonable opinions.

We do know the children in the class in which she
assists have special needs of some kind or another.
Indeed it was cited as a reason that she need unveil
her face that it was crucial to the development of her
charges that they see her lips move.

Now, this is indeed a cornerstone of coaching deaf
and hard-of-hearing people in the art of face-to-face
communication.

But David Blunkett learnt to speak just fine. And he's
never seen a mouth in his life. Simlarly, myopic kids
do learn to speak as competently as any others. It
may be they benefit from the provision of books and
it may be that until the school eye-tests are less
wary of family egos, especially in terms of perceived
slurs against genotype amongst some Kirklees clans,
such children do fine learning to write but struggle
with the progression to computer literacy.

However, they learn to speak just fine whether they
can see the board or not; and if they can't see the
board can they really see the teachers' lips?

As such, it seems that without more information on
the range of the difficulties and challenges faced by
the children in her classes, the citation by those-in-
the-know that these children need to see her lips is
going unchallenged within the wider debate on the
subject. It needs, in other words, verification.

In terms of culture and religion, however, children
are surely exempt, at Junior School age, from any
presupposition of uncontrollable lusts and urges
against which a veil, preserving modesty, is a wise
precaution? The girls might be starting puberty earlier,
although I'm sure there was anecdotal talk of one or
two having commenced menstruation before the end
of my own primary education, but it really would be
political correctness gone mad to treat all the boys
as rapists subject to the crude male drives that make
the world such an unsafe place in which to live?

I wouldn't know what the official line is on such
matters but, as this is a test case, it seems that in
the minds of the public, including those in hiring
posts in other areas without access to the details
of the class in question or contextualising knowledge
of the school's demographic, there is a great risk
that quite capable teachers and assistants will be
passed over at a point in time when many schools
claim they need all the good staff they can get.

On the other hand, looking at it from, but not being
a subscriber to, a traditional Western Judaeo/Christian
interpretation of gender roles and cultural values, is
it not shameful that she has no husband or family
to support her, and has to work?

At a time when comment on education is quite clear
that primary children do benefit from good male role
models at all rungs on the ladder does it not seems
that maybe indivdual parties on all sides of this dispute
have got their priorities confused?

NB: follow-ups are directed to news:uk.education.misc

SIPSTON

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