FAITH SCHOOLS! If you don't agree with them, step this way, my dears.

[onebatmother]

What can be done?

It seems to me that many of us don't agree with them, and some of us (not I) are quite knowledgeable about the ins and outs.

Could we not start a movement?

It's all so wrong, really, isn't it?

But ST, why do children have to be told your particular idea of Good News, not someone else's? Do you think it is OK for them to be taught Muslim beliefs in an Islamic school? What about if they were taught at school that fairies made the world? Or that we are all descended from aliens? You should be happy with all these, because they are all equally valid and based on no empirical evidence whatsoever. maybe some of those ideas sound like nonsense to you - but that is what your ideas sound like to me, a rationalist atheist. Whereas we can all agree that Lima is the capital of Peru. It's a simple difference that I'm trying to point out. School should be a place for learning about shared, evidence-based reality, and not one single spiritual viewpoint.

Greyriverside, I have variously described myself on here as Liberal Humanist/lapsed Catholic/Christian Atheist/Fundamentalist Agnostic, but that is one dumb link.

Good News- what exactly is good about a god that encourages mass-murder,infanticide,homophobia,incest and prostitution of children?

IorekByrnison, like I said some might be offended which is why I made it a link and said so. It's put in a silly way, but the underlying premise is the same.

Fiodyl, by your logic children shouldn't be exposed to religion at all ... which is fine if they are your children and your beliefs but obviously makes no sense if the parent does believe. A child only has choices if he is given the options. You can't choose a religion if you know nothing about it.

I don't actively teach about hte Christian faith. If someone asks me, I will give them my point of view. If the pupils have an interest in where science fits in with religion, I give the old, "some people believe...".

I don't object to bringing up other faith's beliefs in my lesson. For example, recently we were talking about the Christian view of something (can't remember what but it was Y7), and I asked a Hindu girl in my class what her beliefs were (I asked if she was willing to share first). Anytime we discuss religion, it is always initiated by pupils. I do not go in with an agenda to impose my own point of view.

Greyriverside -

libidoless, you can choose to expose your children to religion at home or in church. We just don't want you to choose to expose our children to your belief

I think you will find that those things have been committed far more in the name of atheism than in Christianity.

The Good News, btw, is that Jesus died for your (yes your) sins freeing you to have a right relationship with God. When he rose again, he conquered death for all time.

Except that he didn't of course. It's just a made up story and that's why we want to seperate the stories from the facts in schools where they go to learn facts.

Greyriverside, thanks, it made me laugh. I've seen other similar things but of course, they are for the likes of you and me, not religious people who are obviously going to resist them!

Iorek, I never said evolution wasn't being taught in faith schools. I was responding to ST saying she discussed other "arguments" (ie genesis) on the topic with her pupils, and I was saying I don't think a religious viewpoint should be taught or raised alongside a valid scientific understanding, as it is in faith schools.

I'm happy for my children to be "exposed" to a healthy balanced range of belief systems, rational and otherwise. Even secular schools would teach this, just as they manage to teach history without pretending to be Vikings or invading Poland

There is a rather large gulf between "exposing children to religious ideas" and "taking advantage of your position as a teacher of impressionable children to present your highly subjective opinions as fact"

Gosh this is really kicking off - sorry onebat!

Swedes - of course, we all have taxes spent on things we don't use. But nobody actually turns anyone away from the art gallery, the library, the museum, the hospital or the bus station on the grounds of having the wrong kind of imaginary friend. Or tries to press the ways of one particular superstition on them there.

Wow - i only went the post office and took me half an hour to catch up!
GRS - to come back to your proposal for 'compulsary purchase' of the land and buildings from the Church - who is going to pay for that? Where will the Govt. find the money? Also, many faith schools are subsidised by the Church - this would mean more money to find if they were secular.
I still think there is a place for faith schools (of all faiths) but there does need to be much more choice for humanists & atheists.

Time again for

my favourite diagram

Greensleeves, alas my taxes are spent on a lot of things that I am not happy about and a lot of services that I don't use but I accept that (in the case of the latter) that isn't really relevant.

With regards to beliefs being peddled to your children, you have control over that. Don't put them in a church school, just like you don't take the church.

roffle UD, that's fab

Snowleopard,

When we discussed Genesis, I was addressing pupil questions. I figure that when teenagers have something on their minds, it's mostly a good idea to tackle it there and then. I'm that kind of teacher - I will always have time for questions, even if they are off-topic. Teenagers do not need to be fobbed off.

Jackstini, I take your point about the one off cost, but if we can't afford to pay for enough schools without charity contributing then presumably we are not putting enough in.

"Most of the practising Christians I know are generous, liberal, broadminded people...not hate-fuelled, bigoted snobs "

I agree. And in my own reasons for not agreeing with state-funded religious schools I have no criticism of either religious people, or people who send their children to faith schools within the current system.

But I don't think that it is reasonable for schools which accept money from the state as any other community school, to operate an admission system any different from any other state school.

And I don't think it right that a religious school be the only available village school for a child to go to. However much I appreciate the origins of church schools. They did their job - they paved the way for education for all, the state should take over.

And I think that 'acts of worship' should be removed from the school timetable - rather than being compulsory as they now are, even in community schools (I know it isn't compulsory to attend , but it is for them to happen)

If I ruled the education system I would:

Declare that by 12 years time voluntary aided faith and foundation schools should have to decide whether to:
Adapt and operate under the same rules as all community schools
or
Go private
or
Close down and sell up - with the borough being obliged to pay market rates to the church which owns the buildings - though the school could sell to whoever they liked, of course. But if no other preferred buyer, the state give them the money.

Also (earlier than 12 years) RE be replaced by 'philosophy, ethics and belief' as a curriculum sibject.

and

Class size be reduced, and secondary schools be no bigger than a 4 form intake each year.

Money to come from ....I'm not sure, but I think we could afford it!

GRS - how can you KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that it is a made up story?
No-one can know that!

Church is a choice. Bob's going to church does not deprive Fred's child of the choice of what to do on a Sunday morning.

This cannot be applied to the state school system. One child's place deprives another. Therefore places should be allocated on as fair a basis as possible.

The brand of superstition preferred by the child's parents - and of whose philosophical refinements the child will not be fully aware - is not a fair criterion.

You might as well segregate people by the football teams they prefer. Or their political affiliations.

Or skin colour.

But Christians IME specialise in the art of fobbing off awkward questions. The number of times I have been stuck into a really good meaty debate with a seemingly intelligent and robust Christian, and the discussion inevitably hits a logical point at which the Christian viewpoint has been utterly and completely discredited - and that's the point at which the Christian smiles beatifically and says something like "Ah, well you see that's where faith comes in". Always such an anti-climax.

"The Good News, btw, is that Jesus died for your (yes your) sins freeing you to have a right relationship with God. When he rose again, he conquered death for all time."

ST, you seem to be stating this as a fact which suggests you can't really see the point of this thread.

That is a religious view, one of many conflicting religious views.

"Facts" as taught in schools should IMO be things we can all agree on as based on the empirical evidence available to us - eg water expands as it's heated. We can see that, we can test it again and again, we can make sense of it.

I might as well post "The Good News is that I have four heads and we all came from Mars and eating chocolate will get you to heaven". It's meaningless, no one else can see the evidence and it has no place in rational discussion. If it's what I believe, you can't take that away from me but that doesn't make it something that should be taught in school.

Please tell me that as a science teacher you can see the difference between these two categories of information!