to expect state primary's to accept/talk about Atheism?

[onebadmother]

my DS's teacher expressed surprise/anxiety (?) that he was very firm about God not existing when they were on a Nature Walk and talking about where all this Nature stuff comes from..

Happen to know that teacher is a 7th day Adventist..

a why were they discussing where nature came from?

b wouldn't she expect any 5 yo to be firm about his/her family's 'beliefs' - ie a Muslim/Christian child would not be expected to be 'maybe'ish about Allah/Jesus.

C Every possible religion's special days are 'celebrated' - why??? Why can't they just be explained?

d Who's telling the children that there's another option, and that some people believe God does not exist, and they're called Atheists. Atheists believe its amazing enough that Humans exist at all...and that we're not completely sure where the world came from but it's possible that .. blah blah.

This happened a couple of weeks ago, but I just can't shake it off. Did a really lame but simultaneously aggressive 'Well we as a family happen to think that belief in God is not the default position..' but sounded like a stupid prig, and wished I'd just said I'm sorry, I'm going to take this further, you are not respecting my son's spiritual beliefs and I'M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED YOU CRAZY CULTIST!!!!

Ok, calm now.

Hmm Evil. Really admire your calm demeanour, and my carrots and chuckling are second to none.

But worry at this whole God-exists default position in primary school.

Not all children have carrots and chuckling! I'd like some Christian/Muslim children (majority in ds' state primary) to know the options.

I agree harpsi.

DS1 frequently says
'You see all this, mummy' (using arms to wave dramatically all around him) 'Well, God made it all'
I'm not so sure!

I do think you're right though that many children go through this, i must be vvery difficult for a 6 yo to make sense of the world, and I guess this helps them until they are able to question stuff further.
DS1 probably thinks the Power Rangers are reall too ( I think he was born with the gullible gene!)

Reading this article from 2004 it should apparently be part of the NC by now

hi harpsi!
Me too with the courage screwing. Dammit, I'll do it if you do.

What props? What pictures? Bagsy the picture of Death with a big, dark void behind him, and Chaos beyond..

Hello Children! Today I'm going to be talking about..

'But worry at this whole God-exists default position in primary school.'

I do know exactly what you mean, onebadmother. The education sustem should be entirely secular, imho.

Good point. Why aren't children told about atheism/agnosticism/secular humanism when they are told about all the different religious faiths? It's Not On.

(Speaking as someone who is sort of going back to church a bit at the moment... )

wheresthehamster, that's really useful, thanks. At leasts gives me the framework for a question to the head.

Atheism SHOULD be mentioned in the classroom at all levels, the primary syllabus IIRC dmands that 2 beleif systemns are taught (the general cop out FWIW is to do Christianity and Judaism- and let Judaism cover the old testament ). But so many primaries have religious links that the atheism doesn't follow througha lways.

Its an interesting thing.... at Uni all teh wannabe priamry RE Teachers are religious, the wannabe Secondary teachers are either agnostic or Atheist.

At this stage imo the BiBle stories should be taught very mucha s part of our culture- eg Easster is because.... Christmas is because.... Diwali si because.... etc, debates into what epolea ctually beleive are perhaps for Secondary? But I dot hink meeting a wide variety of beleivers and non-beleivers is good... having an Atheist in to talk, as well as a hindu, Jain etc is a good idea.

Mingming - wonder why it's not secular? is it bcs we're not a republic like France?

I don't really know why it is not secular.
I guess that originally it stems from teaching coming from the church, and church schools. i guess it is just ingrained in our culture. We have not had the same level of upheaval as in France to enable us to break from the status quo
(though I am sure somebody much better qualified will come along in a minute and explain it better)

Well, we still have an established church in the UK - ie, the Church of England is part of the government, in a formal sense (bishops in the House of Lords, the monarch is the Head of the Church of England, etc). We are really quite unusual in this.

I think a great deal of it is to do with the ongoing influence of the established church in education

Is it time for someone to come along and call us a bunch of wrong-headed bigots?
I got that once in RL...

France became a Republic with an awful lot of vicious bloodshed. It's not a shining example of how to shift the status quo. If you want a relatively shining example, within a European context, it wouldn't harm to look to the UK.

That said, I admire the French for their secularism in schools. I agree that Muslim pupils should not wear the full dress when being educated by people who really need to gauge their facial expression. I believe that in the 21st century, prescribed expressions of any faith are wrong.

We have/are moving on to a different, more humanist kind of spirituality.

There is no need, in any school in this land, to mention religion at all, imo.

But if they do, then they do. We shall all go home, and take the piss. No harm done.

I struggle with this issue at DS1's school. It's a little state infant school, no formal church links, but in practice there are strong links with the local church, and the vicar is on the board of governors. On the one hand, all the people to do with this particular church seem very nice, and they raise a lot of funds for the school - but, on the other hand, there is a voice in my head saying 'but I didn't want him to go to a church school'. Then there is another voice that tells me that I should just be grateful that he's in a good school at all.

There are other voices, of course, but that's another thread.

Again Evil, admire your calm, but .. you;re being too optimistic. F\rom what I can see, we're not moving towards humanism at all - in fact, we're racing in the opposite direction..

policywonk - I have the same concerns as you. Didn't want to send DS to a Church school, so send him to local, state primary. On the whole I am very happy with it. But as I said below, local vicar is on Board of Governors, he frequently comes into school (once a month) to take assembly, and to top it all off he is the governor in charge of RE! How does that work?

I laugh about it, but really, what is going on?

Well, Policy, that harks back to a previous question.

I don't believe that the C of E schools are particularly invidious. They've just been around for a hundred years and more, and they've established a good educational record.

I think kids from a non-secular background take it with a pinch of salt. And like I said, knowledge of the Bible if general knowledge and can't do any harm in the long term.

It would be a funny world if none of our kids had ever heard of Jesus.

|But Evil why knowledge of the Bible at all?
If they're teaching Shakespeare at same time then brill! But the Bible is no more/less important than S..

Well I guess harpsi and others on this thread have it: we'll have to volunteer to go in and talk to the classes ourselves. IME, teachers practically bite your hand off if you so much as offer to clean the paint brushes, let alone give an educational half-hour talk. They'd sure as hell agree to a show-and-tell from a parent representing a major faith group, so they'd be really cheeky to refuse an atheist.

Might wait until next year though, DS has only been at school for seven weeks.

yes dd1 hasn't started yet she starts in January I may wait a while

onebadmother ... I entirely agree with you.

Unfortunately, I've been accused of racism a few times on MN, so I'm more cautious about what I say (not what I think). I'm happy that I'm not, but it's a witch hunt these days.

I don't like organized religion of any kind .. but if it must exist, then naturally I would prefer it to be the Christian kind. That is because it is the prevailing tradition in the country I was born within.

I advocate a laid back approach. If you don't believe, then your kids won't, ultimately. They will go through a phase, but it won't last long.

Let's just be totally inclusive and take the piss out of all of 'em.