While many adults have learned that ill-advised Facebook postings can affect their job prospects later in life, youngsters in the United Kingdom face similar consequences for playground spats.London’s Daily Mail newspaper reports that teachers are being pushed to brand thousands of children as racist or homophobic in a permanent database run by Great Britain’s Department for Education.Records of these juvenile utterances follow students when they switch schools, and can be used against them if a future employer or university asks the school for a reference.Teachers who do not report any incidents are criticized for “under-reporting.”
Using the word “gaylord” was considered a hate crime. One child was entered into the database as a racist for calling another student a “broccoli head.”
A total of 34,000 primary and secondary school pupils –and some children in nursery schools that teach children age three and under — have already been classified as bigots. More than 20,000 students under the age of 11 were reported for “hate-crimes.”