Lets not forget the bureaucracy and politics in schools that would affect what gets taught, what may offend, and of course, that for students, so-called open debate is actually guided by fear of saying the wrong thing in what they would assume be in the eyes of the teacher marking them, and of course their fellow students to whom they must try to get along with and fit in with as much as possible to make their next however many years or months of highschool up to exams.

Absent of political issues there are not many philosophical topics worth setting aside lessons for, and WITH politics, the politics of school and P&C input takes over and skews the lesson.

The sad part is I would actually strongly endorse philosophical classes in schools- unfortunately I just don't trust any of the people or institutions that would set the curriculum properly.

Runner
Your views ignore evidence. Religiosity has been examined to determine how it effects many aspects of community life such as crime and disease. You should have a look at the chart at http://i.imgur.com/kpb5A.png
The chart shows clearly that the higher the religiosity in each USA state the more likely that crime and other societal disadvantages will also be higher and general well being lower.
In 2005 the New York Times commented on George W’s attitude to sexual education. The item stated, “George W. had a sex scandal. His sex scandal is not personal like Bill Clinton’s. George’s is his government funded “abstinence only” sex education campaign”. The NY Times comment was, “There’s good deal of evidence that the result will not be more rosy-cheeked young virgins- it will be more pregnancies, abortions, STDs and deaths from aids.”
Due largely to George’s funding and the fundamentalist’s push 25% of sex education teachers (in USA of course) now take an abstinence only approach compared to only 2% in 1988. While it is believed that teenage sexual activity is comparable in the USA, Europe and Canada inadequate sex education in the USA results in girls in the USA to be seven times more likely to have an abortion than Dutch girls. Young Americans are five times more likely to have H.I.V. than young Germans and the teenager’s gonorrhea rate is 70 times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands or France.
“Abstinence only” seems a sure recipe for more misery.
Please read and try to absorb the lessons from the Clackmannanshire trial kindly made available by the OLO editor at http://onlineopinion.com.au/documents/articles/Clackmannan.doc
King Hazza
The Ethic and philosophical discussion concepts have no pre-decided curriculum. In the Scottish trial the students themselves decided what questions they wish to discuss after they listing the questions they saw as being raised by a story or play.

Foyle, you are very patient with some of the commentators here who suffer from synaptic gaps problems. Well done.

The NSW ethics trial is touted as something new and wonderful, but in Brisbane, the Buranda State School principal Lyn Hynton worked with Prof Camm to produce a philosophy program that looks very much the same as the St. James effort.

The difference is that this state school ran entirely on this philosophy model.

The results were impressive, so impressive in fact that Ed Qld has wound it back because it exposed all the rest of their/our schools as being the pits-of-despair most parents seem to prefer, and all politicians love.

Let's be honest about NSW. The ALP are so desperate for every vote they can gather up they have clearly decided there are more votes with ethics than Pell and his farm-animal-like supporters can muster against them.

We do not need any form of SRE in any state school, in any state, and we probably do not need separate 'ethics' classes either.

What we do need are schools like Buranda SS, which may well be similar to the one in Clackwhatsit that you nominate, that offer an 'educational' basis, with far more emphasis on 'the peripherals', such as music, art, dance even, and also the two main underpinnings of our society, maths and English.

Our schools are there to squeeze children into a work-ready model of citizen at the moment, which is why they get all sorts of programmes dumped on them. It's time to dump that single motivator, and start to think of 'education' as an opportunity to broaden horizons, not limit them as Gillard and whoever thinks they represent 'education' in the Coalition, is it that jumped up prig Pyne?, and all our failed state/territory premiers and their rather feeble education ministers all favour.

Thank-you Foyle for the document, which I enjoyed and appreciated.

As Blue-Cross mentioned, the current government will not allow such school-programs because it is afraid of students that are capable of critical thinking. All it wants is for youngsters to be work-ready, part of their work-force, perhaps technocrats, but nothing beyond, nothing that can threaten their hold on power.

If anyone should be accused of that fashionable slogan "child abuse", including indoctrination and the denial of skills to think clearly, it is the government, not parents.

"Not teaching children to think clearly" is a very dangerous phrase: does a child who fails to understand that it is good to die in battle for one's country a case of "not thinking clearly", or maybe a child who fails to see that there is no higher happiness than worshipping the leader/fuhrer, has their thinking-process clouded? In some fallen countries this is just the case!

Parents love their children. You may point out rare exceptions, but as a rule, nobody will ever love a child more than their parents, certainly not the government. Parents therefore ought to represent their children's wishes until they are able to express them themselves. While governments decide what's best for a child based on their general interests (in the case of Australia, economic interests, other countries may want cannon-fodder), parents are attentive to the child's particular true wishes, which could be different than material or social success for example.

If one, lets call him Gabriel, were to come into this world with goals other than being a model-citizen, a part of society, a busily slaving-away work-force-member or an addicted consumer, if Gabriel had higher standards and aspirations than that, then where would Gabriel go? where could he be born? Obviously Gabriel would be attracted to the womb of parents with similar ideals, so they can represent his wishes. Teaching Gabriel differently than, or even against, what contemporary society expects, would therefore be an act of loving kindness, not an abuse.

Now I knew you would discard this last idea as "unproven", yet you have not proved the opposite.

Yuyutsu (Mon 22 Nov 5:35:59 PM)

One of the key points in my post was "education authorities and experts *conciliate* to present [current knowledge and understanding as peak bodies see it]. I was referring to the extragovernment democrtic processes that probably outway government (or the "state" as you blatently refer to it).

In probably all western democracies like Australia such peak bodies are made up of industry and organisations derived from the community, not government, though probably with some govt representatives.

There is no assumption "everybody ought to be part of [McReal's] society" - they are part of the wider society I referred to, including the increasing global one.

There was no expectation in my post anybody came into this world for a purpose and certainly no expectation I had a purpose for anyone (I don't). You made that up and hence it is a strawman fallacy.

As far as violent disregard and respect, that applies to your post. Particularly reference to fascitst and paternalistic in the context my post was about a democratic multi-faith (multi-belief?) society such as Australia, the UK, India, the USA, etc.

There was no reference to "difference in outlook of life", other than by you in such a fundamental way, and to conclude "they can only be resolved on the battlefield" really refers to a battle in your mind.

An abstract thinking course would be by far the best thing a school could teach. Sadly in my English classes, the countless times we micro-analyzed a newspaper, we were only shown petty features like the need to make texts different sizes, and how pictures get more attention- never, not once, was there a single moment where we were even hinted to actually dissect information integrity or detect bias.

We were probably taught how to FORMAT a paper than READ one.

However, I do not believe ethics should be included in this