Morals and ethics are matters on which parents need to educate their own children. School is where kids need to spend their time learning the basics of maths, english, sciences, history, geograpahy etc.

And anyhow, do people really want their kids to learn morals and ethics from a third party? That is just lazy parenting; an abrogation of responsibility.

I'm with Phil Matimein on this.

There are almost as many traps for the unwary in delegating ethics to the classroom environment, as there are with "religious instruction", as it used to be called when I was at school.

Realistically, the quantum of the problem is fairly insignificant. In the same way that 95% of the class switched off during RI, the majority of kids will sleep through ethics.

However, the minority still needs protection, and exposing them to a stranger's view of morality in a classroom can only be a lottery.

The entire argument (for ethics classes) is a form of bait-and-switch anyway.

If we did not already have itinerant god-botherers taking up valuable space in the curriculum, we wouldn't even be considering what should replace it.

The main point, for me, in this topic was Wallace's point:

>>>... this stuff called “reason”. It’s not a bad idea that kids should think about appropriate ways to behave in tricky situations, or to apply the golden rule (long devised before Christians came on the scene) that it’s preferable to treat others as you would prefer to be treated yourself. With bullying a serious problem in our schools, some workshops in primary schools with a well thought out curriculum is a good idea. <<<

Schools can teach critical reasoning, a subject that many parents may have difficulty teaching, particularly if they have not had tertiary training themselves.

Critical reasoning does not have to come with an attachment of values, morals or ethics. Therefore, should not be an issue with religions or other ideological groups.

However, the risk for religions is that critical reasoning leads to people asking questions. Asking questions conflicts with uncritical faith. After all the argy-bargy that is being tossed around, reason is the greatest hurdle for religions to leap in their quest for the faithful.

Expecting religious authority to act reasonably when it comes to childhood indoctrination is asking too much.
Religion is about dogma, not reason.
Philosophy and ethics are actually threats to religion as they free a child's mind to question things and to hold contradictory ideas...not habits that any religion encourages or tolerates.
The sneaky way that church groups get access to power and influence in Australia is a disgrace.
Hopefully the internet censorship issue may raise awareness of the ongoing secret campaign of church groups against freedom of thought, transparency in government and free education.

More tiresome rhetoric from old mate Max Wallace. Wallace wants us to believe that NSW is "legally theocratic". He proceeds to list a large number of examples to back up this claim. Of course, none of the examples even go close to proving anything of the sort. Australia is not a theocracy, nor is it even in the ballpark. A quick look at the word and it's meaning will confirm this. In Wallace's world it would seem that a theocracy is clearly any form of government which allows the religious to hold any kind of voice in the public square. This kind of dishonest reinventing of definitions is typical of much of his writings.

One would hope that the citizens of this beautiful country, and this particular online community are smarter than the folly Wallace is taking us all for.

Agree Phil and Pericles, I'm just not convinced that an effective and non-partisan ethics curriculum (which, as you said only exists to fill a class that shouldn't even have been there) can be handled by a third party.

Especially when there is no concensus on what makes proper 'Australian' ethics.

Also, what happens if abortion comes up? Or asylum seekers? Or 'rescuing Iraq from Saddam'??
I might add that the full cognition to evaluate these issues does not come about till later in the teens for most people, so it would be easy to steer younger kids on a discourse of outright indoctrination of 'particular' values.

A class on manners and ettiquite (maybe proper driving logic), maybe, but teaching something so subjective, no.