Do children who don't opt for the religion classes really do 'nothing'? Our local public school keeps the non-religious kids occupied in a class loosely called Values Class, run by a teacher. They do activities drawn from existing programs about mentoring, anti-bullying etc - not very exciting but better than twiddling their thumbs, and they have to be supervised whatever they are up to.

Here we go again. I think that there's a place for both ethics/philosophy and religious education in government schools, but that religious instruction belongs at home, or in the church, mosque, temple, synagogue or whatever.

TBC's most recent post covers the issue well. While I'm not as familiar with the situation in NSW, certainly the ridiculous situation in Qld State schools needs to change. If parents want their kids to receive religious instruction they should organise that outside school hours, or send their kids to a church/religious school. Chaplains should be replaced by qualified counsellors.

The only reason the godbotherers get away with this anachronistic and inequitable rubbish is because apathetic parents let them.

Candide..not knowing which state you live in it is hard to comment accurately on what happens in 'your' school.

However, in Qld there is no requirement for students to be given any work at all.

This is an administrative creation, an internal nonsense of Ed Qld. It can be reversed tomorrow, if Bligh or Wilson were the least bit interested in 'education'.

They are not.

Some decent teachers take it upon themselves to use the time constructively. One school has a male teacher teaching studebnnts to play chess, which proves to be popular. Others just allow students to do whatever they like, homework, further study, reading.

It does not 'hurt' to have free time, even in school, but it is a bit slack of governments to leave it to schools to make-it-up.

Also, in Qld, there are some schools that run 'values' programmes. Parents have to look very closely at these so-called neutral classes. The Bahai's run 'values' programmes in some schools, but Ed Qld is so dishonest that no one tells parents the origins of these courses.

So, a student could be doing 'values' instead of RI, and end up doing a Bahai version of RI, not 'values' at all.

People who are interested should download this report 'In The Balance: The Future of Australia's Primary Schools', written for the primary school principals. Turn to pp.18-19.

"Religious education was allocated the most time outside the KLAs and more time than Science, LOTE and Technology. Teachers in Catholic schools allocated 158 minutes to religious education and independent schools 119 minutes.

"Government schools allocated an average of 18 minutes per week to scripture. Although 39 per cent of government schools reported they did not make scripture available, the remaining 61 per cent provided between 30 and 45 minutes.... teachers reporting that volunteers often missed sessions."

Typically, our primary school principals failed miserably to suggest that, in government schools at least, this 45 minutes of time that volunteers could not be bothered to turn up to, should be bulldozed away.

This is because so many of them are evangelical Xtians.

Trav
My apology for my unbalanced comment: “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 was only mentioning some aspects of a balanced education that I thought needed airing to balance the rather intemperate views of Webby. Nevertheless, it was careless and your criticism is fair.

In a separate article on Archbishop Jensen’s ten reasons for opposing the trial ethics course being offered as an alternative for non SRE children in NSW, I put it this way: “ … but the Archbishop is not asking for a study of religions but of God — his version of God. Children are entitled to be taught the relevant facts: that there are different religions in the world whose adherents strongly believe different things — even to the extent of relying on faith when there is no verifiable evidence available; that religions have been responsible for both good and evil; and that all children on reaching adulthood have the right to commit to a religion if, at that time, it strikes them as an intelligent thing to do. But that’s not what children are adjured to believe in SRE.”

Of course religion has been associated with lots of good things — sacred music and art and the birth of universities for starters. But it has been, and still is, associated with evil and brutally cruel actions that are unlikely to get a hearing in SRE.

BTW, are you saying that it's OK for religious people to commit murder if only a minority of them engage in it? Can you be sure that historically it's only been a tiny minority? And why is it education when you teach the good that religions do but "force feeding" when you mention the bad?

""so many of them are evangelical Xtians."
The Blue Cross, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 9:00:18 AM

Who? The Principals? (Or the volunteers?)

You imply the former - the Principals.

Glen C
There is a major flaw in the author’s and your intentions to eliminate religion in schools, and replace it with unbiased classes in ethics.

Who in the education system is capable of teaching unbiased ethics?

I think it well established that universities and many schools are predominately made up of left-wing academics, many of whom are quite open about it, and many of whom are also quite socialist, Marxist or feminist.

Their type of ethics would be quite different to anyone else’s, and many also seem to have considerable difficulty in believing in anything greater than themselves.

That’s the scary part.