The idea of chaplains in schools is nonsense. Parents should resume their responsibility of teaching "values" to their own kids.

As it is up to individual schools to ask for the service, perhaps it will die a natural death.

"Only the churlish or wilfully blind would deny that Australia's young people, across the board, could benefit from better values education"

From the parents yes, schools no. It isn't the school's job to instill values, somewhere along the line we've forgotten that.

Schools are about education. Maths, science, history, english.

If the author is implying that we need to inject more values education into the school system, then I suppose I am wilfully blind or indeed, churlish.

I tend to think this attitude of fobbing it on to the schools is what has led us here.

In WA we have had chaplains in senior high schools for many years, funded mainly from a state government grant to the Churches Commission who provide the chaplains. Individual schools, local churches, P & C's and other fund raising provide the salary after initial assistance from the Churches Commission.

The chaplains are usually simply good people who come from a christian background. Some work part time as chaplains and part time as pastors. They actually do a good job for many students.

There is no fuss about this programme and I believe that the Howard Government funding will be most welcome in many schools over here in the West.

As usual there will be opposition from the Howard haters who always believe that there is some kind of secret agenda behind any initiative that the Government introduces. However, most parents will welcome the initiative and, in the end, that is what really counts.

As a Christian I would have no issues with values not being taught in schools and left to the parents. The simple fact is that values are being taught everyday. Issues relating to sexuality, treatment of illegal immigrants, trade unionism, treatment of Indigneous are all topics discussed and view points put forth. Given that so many of the secular are so keen on pushing their brand of religion I am in favour of having Christian Chaplains. It is our Christian heritage that has made this nation great. I realise those who hate verything about our past does not agree with this.

Why chaplains why not budhist monks, humanists, muslim clerics, rabis and the like?

What happened to the Australian tradition of seperation of church and state?

I have never knowingly voted for callithumpians of any persuasion and I pray my local member looks after the interests of all his constituents not ony the interests of his fellow travellers

Can a school employ a chaplain who is a whizz at remedial maths and english but a bit hazy on the bible / torah / koran?

Let us pray that the chaplains provided by the Anglican diosese of Sydney will handle the situation of a 15 year old pregnant teenager pregnant to another 15 year old with compassion rather than dogma

No doubt Runner is male, I deduce this from his remark that "Christianity has made this nation great." First, this nation is most definitely not great - we have wrecked the environment and been merciless to the original inhabitants. What's great ? Second, values concerning good social behaviour are not invented by Christians but are common to all of progressive humanity. Third, Christianity, like the other patriarchal monotheistic religions, positions women as second class human beings. I'm fed up. How can we think of appointing thousands of chaplains when of late so much predatory sexual behaviour has been revealed as a result of so-called Christians being allowed access to children. Surely safer to have female psycholgists and counsellors if we really care about our children being taught decent values. As Richard Dawkins writes in his latest book "The God Delusion", religion is a form of child abuse in itself. The very thought of my taxes going towards the spreading of ignorant and male-centred superstition makes my blood boil.

can you imagine some of the regular online forum posters as school chaplains?

Kang's good for a laugh!Who's Richard Dawkins? As far as I'm concerned atheism is a form of child abuse. I hate my taxes going to finance the secularist drongoes that seem to control our state schools

Why not go all the way and install teachers at all schools. Something is wrong if a student graduates from Year 12 and spends the first few weeks of university life doing remedial English.

Well,

One things for sure, the (Quote: ‘cynical game play in the culture wars, set to inflame old and new divisions in Australian society - between Maoists and Mar[x]ists, between the secular and the sacred, between heathens and harlots and those deadset for heaven?’ will outnumber ‘Howard's new army of chaplains’.

Cica short-circuits the aged and tired arguments that besets the Left. The only thing I can see in the argument is the underlying GFN movement, which holds a self-belief that Women and the movement are the only ones who have a purchase on morals, rights debate and ‘social responsibility’. So what if a few priests of the modern era go to school? (which is way different from the dark-ages implication of Cica).

Just because the GFN have grafted themselves to the shadow government, doesn’t legitimise their self-assuaged monopoly on morality. We need only look at how Burrows burries herself in blinded rage, to see that not all women have what it takes, yet the GFN movement is gaining strength and wont keep quiet until it finds itself in charge of a mono-party, monological, left-wing republic.

Funny all that, the more power the shadow government gains, and the more the country swings to the left, the more trouble we see. It would be good to see some political stats that reveal this strange state of affairs. All that would be left then, is for the Left to reconcile its rage against the Right.

I think Cica’s article is a very tired rant indeed. Probly over thirty years old. Will it ever end?

There are a good number of teachers in schools currently, Sage.

What is needed over here in WA is doing away with Outcomes Based Education which has directed teachers away from the basics of writing construction, algebra, and so on. As a result really bright young men and women have not been trained to write basic things like reports, essays, etc and need remedial help when they start university.

I think that it far better to have a psychologist available to schools.

Most youngsters already know what are acceptable values and what is good behaviour. Most children that turn from these behaviours on a regular basis do so because of a lack of coping skills and other psychological factors such as low self esteem.

Also there are not many rebellious youngsters who will approach a religious person (chaplain) for help no matter how hard the chaplain tries to be cool. Help is help - not conversion, religiously-biased judgements and unprofessional advice.

Parents must not settle for less than professional, accredited psychologists for their children to help them work through any problems they may have.

And a lot of parents won't want their kids exposed to religion's idea of what constitutes a good value.

Moreover, a religious person by their beliefs are going to only be able to relate to people who share those religious beliefs.

John Howard take a look at this and learn a better way.

http://www.hlth.qut.edu.au/ph/resilience/index.jsp

Non-religious programs like this are a far more productive way of keeping youngsters on track. Like the kids say: "separate church and skate".

I guess it is all a matter of what you have experienced "ronnie peters". As a high school principal (before retiring 3 years ago), I had a school psychologist, a school chaplain, a Youth Education Officer and 5 year Coordinators (each freed up from 0.4 FTE teaching commitments) all working together in a Student Services Department.

They collectively helped with discipline issues, personal matters, career guidance; virtually all matters that might fall into the basket of things that might get in the way of students' academic progress or might help them with various choices.

The chaplain was an integral part of the service. Not all students wanted or needed the chaplain's help, however, some got help from the chaplain that they couldn't get from the school psychologist, or the year coordinator or the Youth Education Officer. But in an overall sense, in combination, and with good people, it worked extremely well, chaplain included.

Sniggid

The problem you have is that you have first hand experience and common sense. It is not what many of the detractors of Chaplains want to hear.Thank you for adding some unbiased logic to the debate.

Chaplains? I would not want "The last rights" in school. I would want reality, to hear from someone who has had a proper job! Someone who has had real life experiences.

G'day fellow High School drop outs

Perhaps I've missed the entire point on this, however, I can't help but feel that the exercise is a wonderfully cunning attempt for the Federal Government to gain its much wanted toe hold into one of the State run cornerstones, education.

Presumably the school itself would engage the proposed employee under some guideline/agreement dictated by the Federal Government in order to secure the funding to get the chap/chappette. Taking this one step further, one suspects that new employee would not belong to any State education oriented union and just might pave the way for future similar reorganising of state based education workplaces with this as a possible funding template.

I hope I'm not simply being dazzled by my own cynicism, atheism and farmerly isolation yet I can't see any other possible reason why the Federal Government would waste its time beginning such a wishy-washy, unimportant sideline debate such as this.

Simon Bedak
"Lorraine"
Wagga Wagga NSW 2650

Sniggid/Runner.

I take it Runner that you are "experienced" and a principal like Sniggid. If not then, using your reasoning supporters of government-funded chaplains mustn't want to hear better more logical non-religious options.

Also, Sniggid must be biased using your logic Runner- given that Sniggid favours chaplaincy. You Runner claim to be a Christian which suggests bias also. It works both ways. You also offer mere judgement which lacks supporting proof.

I have read and thought about it and along with my experiences decided that psychology would be a better option than chaplaincy. I stand by my previous post.

Also it is clear even to the most biased Christian that the Liberal's are manipulating the system to entrench their radically-conservative ideology on our kids. Psychology is an unbiased, non-ideological or non-religious way of assisting children through their school years.

Sniggid your post suggests your school had a holistic approach (and heaps of funding). It offers the option of psychology which is great. Your insight is appreciated.

However, what kind of experience informed you? Was your school a multi-denominational school? Was there Islamic kids enrolled? Were they mostly youngsters from the flannel-shirt brigade or were they all wealthy Christian families without any real stresses or experience in struggle town? Was your school public or private? There are all sorts of experiences in life and being a Principal gives you insight from a particular perspective in relation to your a specific situation. No doubt you have also read and formed opinions from other sources and your apparent religious leanings may have also informed your position. But experiences also inform my position.

Runner don't try and discredit other opinions with charges of bias and illogical thinking based on nothing more than your biased opinion. If you want to argue with posters Runner at least try to present some sort of logical argument rather than offering up empty assertions.

Sniggid I think chaplaincy in a Christian private school is their business. But in public school, I think the better way is to leave it to the parents and have qualified psychologists on hand.

Actually ronnie peters, the school was a government high school with about 800 students from years 8-12. It was in a lower socio economic area. Without huge resources the Student Services arrangement was managed through a "clever" re-arrangement and the maximizing of the effecient use of overall teaching resources. We had a significant proportion of "interesting" students who needed plenty of support if they were to have any chance in life. Helping them also helped students with none of their problems as the arrangement minimised interruption caused by erratic behaviour that was evident prior to the Student Services set-up. Nothing is perfect. We still had our fair share of problems.

I am not a religous person.

Our chaplains were "christian". That suited the dynamic of the student population. There were no organised "prayer meetings" or "missionary work" or something similar. I would have been against that but it never became an issue. They did bring an added perspective to the overall work of the Student Services group which helped many of the students.

I would have no problems with a non christian chaplain. You would choose a person who fitted in well with the overall student mix. Broadening the range of support people, if it is well managed, and you have good people, really helps all students even those who don't need support.

I get the impression that you are totally opposed to anything that might be called "religous" being involved in a government school. However, as a principal one needs to create the atmosphere within the school where students are well supported. I have heard teachers say things like "I leave my problems at home when I come to work. Students should do the same." I don't subscribe to that view and instinctively know that students will often arrive at school impacted upon by what is going on in their lives and need to have support if they are to be able to give their attention to schoolwork. A good chaplain, as part of a good student services team which includes a good school psychologist, is a big help.

Sniggid. Yes you seem to have the best interests of the students at heart. A refreshing change from some politicians. And I would not have a problem with chaplaincy of the kind you mention -so long as they kept their religious nonsense to themselves.

However, I see the Liberal's push for chaplaincy to be nothing more than social engineering. Given that the government is only talking of funding for chaplaincy, I think it would have been better and less divisive and truly in the interests of students to broaden the possibilities to include other less potentially manipulative methods of assisting students - such as psychology. Did you check out the resilience link?

You say that your program worked extremely well. How do you know that? How do you know of the kids that fall by the wayside? How do you know of the kids that have been hurt both physically and mentally by bullies or unprofessional staff? I read somewhere once that schools should never claim to be free of these problems? Having said this, I must agree that with a watchful eye your system is a great model.

You have also lessened some of my cynicism. I live near a religious private school- certain often disrespectful people, including the principal, have a rather mean-spirited, holier-than-thou attitude to the wider community and have been dishonest in their dealings with me.

I wouldn't want my children exposed to their religious teachings which has children referring to others as "evil" and groups that "chant street bum, street bum" to a lad dressed in dirty work clothes while a teacher looked on and said nothing. Not to mention the students who told us to "go back to where you came from" or the years of harassment for daring to stand my ground on other issues. If a kid is harmed in this system where reputation, I think, is more important than integrity, I can’t see the parents ever getting a just and fair outcome.

See the following link for "Guidelines for Chaplains in State Primary Schools in Tasmania" - sponsored by Tasmanian Department of Education and the Tasmanian Council of Churches Commission for Christian Ministry in State Schools. Its very ecumenical, but only for Christian religions.
http://www.anglicantas.org.au/pdfs/primary_guidelines.pdf

And then there is this interesting exchange of correspondence between David Nicholls from the ATHEIST FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA INC and the Saintly Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie.

In his letter to Pastor Beattie Nicholls cites the commonwealth constituion where it states at 116.

"The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

Happy reading!

Hi ronnie peters. During my over 40 years in schools I have met some of the sort of people you refer to. In a school with around 80 to 100 staff you will always get a range of types, but most have the best interests of students at heart. Teaching is a horrible business if you don't have a genuine interest in kids.

Most want to teach their subject to students who are keen to learn and my Student Services model is designed to help troubled kids to put their troubles into perspective and recognise that if they work and progress in their studies it will give them a better chance in life.

The model works well without a chaplain but a good chaplain complements it.

Just as in the community there are a range of types that go into politics. They always come down to the school at a variety of times throughout the year, and you can pick out the good people from the others. They usually have children themselves and mostly are OK types.

There are principals I have known who I wouldn't have near my children, but by and large they are pretty genuine. There are bureaucrats who are good and bad as well as others who you have to work with as a principal. Not always bad people, sometimes it is nervousness and shear ambition that gets in the way of supporting sensible initiatives.

By the way you know whether an initiative like the Student Services one is working by the way the tone of the school is operating. I've always spent plenty of time with students and been visable around the school. And I have been an active part of my Student Services team. Sometimes an older adult person somehow can get through, particularly when you find some contact or resource that does makes a difference. You do have failures of course.

I have also found that school psychologists vary in their effectiveness. Mostly good, some however, just like with other class of people, are not too hot.

Good to read some experienced comment Sniggin. Old teachers never die...

If you want your children to be taught christian values in school then send them to a christian school.

I think you mis-understand free thought, there is no teaching associated with a chaplain. The person is just another support resource for students.

Sniggid, sorry but I spent to long around the christain church to believe that particular theory.

Many of the churches treat chaplains as evangelists. Their role is seen as much more than just providing support for kids, it is marketed within churches as an evangelistic one.

That may not be the case in all churches but it's certainly the case in any church I've been around which is involved in school chaplaincy (that includes a number of demoninations).

R0bert

R0bert, my experience is as a principal and a person who is not a churchgoer. Of course there might be some spin off in terms of some students becoming interested in religion but I have witnessed teachers having some religious impact on students, often indirectly because the "life" they exhibit in their work appeals to some students who admire their values.

The trick is for the principal to set the boundaries of the chaplain's work and to keep a key eye on what is going on as one does with all things that are going on in the school.

In the end as a principal when you recognise the need for students to be supported in an overall sense, you have to look for an integrated support operation that can be afforded and helps students cope with a huge variety of personal situations and circumstances. By doing that there is a greater chance that they will better cope with matters academic, the core business of schooling. You don't have a chaplain as the central plank of the support mechanism, but as one of a group of 5, 6 or 7 to help those who need it among a student population of around 1,000 there is usually a good result.

Don't be too hung up on your religious experience, chaplaincy can managed and can be part of the overall support mix.

Can't a trained councillor do the same job. Religious groups find children to be easy targets for what they have to say. Churches don't go sending chaplains to work places to try and convert adults.

Any well trained good person could also be a help, councillor, psychologist, etc. The ideal support group is made up 5 teachers freed up from some class responsibilities, a full time "youth Education" Officer/Coordinator (also a teacher) a school psychologist, plus others part or full time which could include a chaplain. And, of course the principal and deputy principals are really part of the support group.

The chaplain is not absolutely essential for the system to work well but they are far less expensive than all others and extend the use of available resources.

My experience is that this role has not been used as a "religous preaching" platform. If that had been the case then as principal I would have on to it.

The point I have been making from my first hand experience is that the chaplain is not a pastor but a person who lives a good life and has a strong commitment to his or her religion. I did experience one chaplain who was a part time pastor. But, quite frankly each chaplain became part of the support team, worked with them and not separate from them.

That is why I have no reservations about this initiative.