I have taught in government schools for 18 years and I can assure the author that I have seen a fair few unqualified youth liaison / intervention folk who really have had no idea how to help kids where they need it most - the answer to pastoral care for students doesn't lie solely in this area. I've also seen fantastic efforts being made by both secular Pastoral Care Co-ordinators and Chaplains. To generalise that all school chaplains are only evangelistically-minded and incompetent isn't really the stuff of objective comment.
Christianity has been the driving force of public education when we look at history - the influence of evangelical Christendom predates the education Act which legislated for compulsory secular education in the late 19th century in Australia.
A purely secular worldview which rules out religion is a narrow worldview, but also, it becomes a form of religion in and of itself. It is a very limited education that rules out God. It simply doesn't stand up to reason to argue that secular science can't empirically prove God, therefore, He doesn't exist, therefore, He's out if the classroom. If God could be proved, then the mechanism for proving Him would itself become god - when you think about it, only God can actually testify to Himself, hence the Bible (God's Word) as a record of his actions among men, and the argument for His existence from creation (in itself a telling argument - a sunset surely points to Someone else. A Mozart symphony surely indicates a Creator behind man's genius.)
A purely secular education is a very narrow one, and really not a part of the broad-based and supposedly rounded education that liberal education theorists have prided themselves on since the 1970's.
TAC.

GeorgeKaplan

There is no impediment to changing the rules right now.

There is no 'law' that says 'teach the kiddies nothing' while the evangelising goes on.

Like the prayers in Parliaments, this is just an administrative nonsense.

So, it can be changed quite simply, without getting rid of evangelising for those parents who what to continue abusing their children.

The 'ordinary' lessons should continue, and those who need to be abused by volunteer evangelisers can go to a 'separate location' and have their heads filled with whatever the churches want... they then make up whatever they missed during their absence from class.

This is what happens to every child in a Qld state school right now.... who learns an instrument in a state school.

And it works just fine.

The model is there to be copied right around Australia.

You see... Qld... The Smart State (even though we are denied a secular public school system at the same time)

GlenC, you've given the game away:

"What children should be taught is that there are many people who hold many different religious beliefs, that some of them are so wedded to these beliefs that they are prepared to kill others for not sharing them, and that when they grow up they will be able to commit to one of these religions if they conclude that it would be an intelligent thing to do."

I notice that you're keen to emphasise to children that some (actually: a very, very small minority) are prepared to kill for their cherished beliefs.

But you didn't ask that children be taught the other side of the coin: The good that religion does.

Perhaps children should also be taught about the history of great universities and charities started due to people being inspired by their religious faith? Or what about the contribution religious principles have made to our legal system and our shared values as a society? Or how about children also be taught that religion generally inspires people to give more to charity (as proven by numerous studies which show that the religious donate more time and money to Charity)?

But no, GlenC isn't keen on mentioning any of that, it seems. He's more intent on force feeding the idea that religious people kill for their beliefs, even though it's only a tiny minority that does this.

TAC, to say "a sunset surely points to Someone else" and "A Mozart symphony surely indicates a Creator behind man's genius" are fallacious arguments from design. To say God cannot be disproved, therefore God exists is a fallacious argument fro ignorance (and that is not calling you ignorant).

A purely secular worldview includes religion, while religion alone is a narrow worldview.

Christianity provided early childhood education in Australia (in the mid 1800s), yet has not been a driving force since then, when key administrators could only wrestle education away from the churches by having to concede the half hour SRE.

Webby: a state religion is not a good ideal - you seem to have misread the few simple sentences I wrote sincerely (we went "there" with the dark ages, and Gallileo's internment & Bruno's inquisition and subsequent burning at the stake).

By "worldly", I meant how the world *is*: in terms of human creativity (arts, literature, music), culturally, societally, and scientifically - biologically, anthropologically, astronomically, etc. ... I respect the curriculum and oversight of the Australian education departments, especially the NSW DET, to provide for all - even for parents who would narrow their childs education too much if those parents had their way.

Hence, parents are not always the best 'primary educators of their children'.

Meg Wallace accuses those who support the current trial of secular ethics classes as evangelising in the war of beliefs. Evangelising literally means the preaching of the gospel according to the New Testament. Metaphorically, evangelising means advocating your own particular set of beliefs. However, the difference here is that religious evangelism depends on the acceptance of religious beliefs on the basis of faith, i.e., accepting the Christian God, and the inerrancy of the Bible, whereas secular "evangelism" means the promotion of certain viewpoints or beliefs on the basis of a combination of evidence-based precepts and leading a life based on the Golden Rule ("Do unto others ...etc"). That is, religion-free, non-theist beliefs based on scientific reasoning. According to the 2006 census about one-fifth of the Australian population profess no religion, though, by my observation, the proportion of non-theist Australians would be higher. Many Australians have turned away from religion and religious "explanations" of phenomena. There is no "feigned innocence" on the part of those of us who desire a Socratic discourse amongst children in secular ethics classes. Rather the obvious current strong support of this present trial is symptomatic of the frustration felt by many Australians about the long-standing tenacious grip which the religiously inclined have long held on the education of children. We are not evangelising. We are simply logically advocating the encouragement of critical thinking in today's school kids. We continue to advocate a complete separation of church and state. School education should be religion-free. Parents have ample opportunity to send their kids to church and other religious instruction outside of school hours. Evangelism is the domain of the religiously inclined. Critical thinking is a way of keeping humans honest.

phenologist... you misread the intended message of the author.

She is not saying anything other than, allowing the religious class to go ahead, with the ethics class, is to continue an endorsement of the religious class.

Here, at the end of the article, she says, "Rather than participating in a system of discriminatory, faith-based exclusionary practices by introducing secular ethics classes as an alternative to religious instruction, proponents should be agitating for all students to be exposed to the benefits of the evidence-based reasoning they espouse", and that is all.

Your obvious support for the ethics class, quite understandable if you do not want your child to spend hours doing SFA while others are being evangelised to at the connivance of the State, is perhaps blinding you to the clear message offered, that what is needed, is no CRE or SRE or RI or RE whatsoever.

I've heard LOngstaff talking, and he has no intention of openly challenging the status quo beyond getting this small alteration in.

And, good on him and those who do support this minor improvement too, yer dun good, but this cannot be the end of it.

Rudd and Abbott are 'at one' on this nonsense, with Abbott wanting the same Bible lessons given that Qld has had since 1910 in their non-secular public school system.

Rudd is guilty as hell here, for his part in giving Scripture Union a free kick to enter Qld public schools, long before Howard dreamed up his NSCP scam.

Parents, and citizens, need to take the governments on, and tell them that 100 years of sanctioning mumbo-jumbo is over.

Chaplains and religious volunteers need to pack up their swags and take off, clear the decks, move over for education at last.

The problem seems to be with those here who mistake 'secular' for 'atheist', and believe that a secular school will be 'teaching atheism' instead of religion.

Hardly, any more than BHP teaches atheism in their 'secular' workplaces, or any other employer for that matter (apart from religions and faith schools of course).