Instead of a second layer of MORAL BRAINWASHING (at the discretion of contemporary PR policy) classes, how about instead, we have classes that instruct children how they are meant to BEHAVE in society manners and ettiquite- how to give way on the roads and footpaths, how to treat other people they meet in their day-to-day lives.

Wouldn't that be more productive and less contentious than having another pseudo-religious-but-technically-secular indoctrination of values?

It really disappoints me how short-sighted some of my fellow atheists are that they would fail to see the immediate similarities in the alternative class they endorse to the one they KNOW is wrong.

My mistake- in this case Haddad is actually part of a Christian group- otherwise I really must insist that the "ethics classes" and the scripture classes BOTH need to be aborted in the public system; surely we could actually use that time to teach something useful?

In fact, we could actually teach politics and civics in those timeframes- although I can't imagine many higher-ups would be too happy scrapping a brainwashing program for one that instead informs future voters exactly what their rights and voting capabilities are.

For rational-debate and yuyutsu
And for anyone wishing to know something about the full potential benefits of discussion between young students of open ended questions as raised in ethics classes you can now read the report of the Scottish trial of this concept at;
http://onlineopinion.com.au/documents/articles/Clackmannan.doc
The editor of OLO has kindly made the article available and I thank him.

not happy with more violence, more immorality, more teen pregancies, more abortio0ns, more suicides, more child abuse, more pornography the usual secular fundamentalist want more of their rotten fruit producing dogmas placed on our kids. No wonder the private sector is growing at a very fast rate. Even thinking secularist can't help but send their kids away from these zoos. Next they will be wanting to preach their failed dogma in private schools. Just wait for it.

If we are to introduce an hour a week of philosophy, where does that hour come from? I suggest that the philosophy program should replace RE altogether in state schools (or public schools, depending on where you are [as the wording is apparently all-important]). If parents want RE for their kids, there are plenty of religious high schools in almost every mid- to large-sized towns, and there seems to be a Catholic primary school (usually called St. Joseph's, from observation) in pretty much every small- to mid-sized town as well.

Imposing that hour on the Civics and Citizenship curriculum won't work. The Australian Curriculum - due to be released in its final form on the 8th of December - has already given priority to History in the SOSE area. Schools like mine, which devote about 3 hours a week to the entire SOSE learning area, will have to give most of that time over to History in order to meet the curriculum requirements. Take 2 hours off for History, 1 hour off for Philosophy and you are left with nothing for Civics and Citizenship, Geography, Environmental Studies, etc. Re-jig the timetable to give more time to the Humanities, and the time has to come from somewhere. English? Not likely, given our maniacal obsession with literacy. Maths? Also not likely, given our concern with numeracy. Science? Given that the sciences are where all the grant money goes, it seems unlikely that they will lose their priority status anytime soon. The Arts, LOTE and other 'soft' subjects already have precious little time. And HPE, well, despite being a priority area in our nutritionally-challenged and obese nation, there isn't much time for that either.

I like the idea - don't get me wrong. But it's not like we're sitting around, twiddling our thumbs and asking 'what shall we do today?' as it is. As our curriculum becomes more jam-packed with 'special projects', the basics slide further and further into obscurity.

Otonoko, your description of the practical problem of time-tabling for Philosophy is realistic. But I've spent the last 41 years teaching in schools (with a finger even now still partly in the pie) and the problem was always the same: everyone always said we can't take time from the "basics" (whether the proposal was to form a choir or introduce a vegetable garden or try media studies or anything else). Yet there were many projects that did become permanent components of the time-table because a couple of dedicated people managed to demonstrate the value to the right people in the right place, and then the idea spread to other schools. And there are some schools in Australia already doing Philosophy.

Of course, I'm thinking mainly of primary schools where things are more flexible. In secondary schools like yours the system has always been much more rigid and teachers have always tended to not see outside of their respective disciplines. But using projects like the Scottish one and others in Australia as examples it should be possible to get community and authorities to consider the idea seriously. If it can significantly benefit learning in all other areas surely it's worth taking a few minutes a week from each of English, Maths and Science to create the Philosophy session?

Then of course I say the same about Music, which is now my specialist area...