Surely this is teaching creationism? How can this be allowed?

[Redspottygranola]

Posted a thread a while ago asking for advice about taking my DS1(5) out of RE and worship as DH and I are atheist but we ended up with a strongly CofE school as we are not in catchment for any other school here and all of the local schools are oversubscribed.
The feedback I had was not to take him out this may have negative repercussions for him amongst his peers etc.
We had parents eve today and I got to look at his books. I was horrified by the RE book which had the following learning objective: I understand that God made everything in the world originally.
Not "some people believe..." Or "Christians believe..." But "I understand". His RE book had more of the same regarding the story of creation etc. It was all presented as factual. What's more a few weeks ago he told me it was a lie that people evolved from monkeys (yes I know it's apes really) because actually God made us and the world.
I am sending him to school to be educated fgs and this is what he is learning!
I spoke to the teacher about it and she said they teach Christianity and Judaism and that is it and she hadn't thought about the way the LO's are worded but she would speak to the RE department about it.
What can I do? Feel so so furious and helpless. Have another 2 DC to go through this and so I will have to deal with this school for 11 more years! Arg!!

Yes I do but Ive taught in city schools

I once attended a uni lecture where a linguistics professor was teaching the history of language development - his starting point was to talk about the tower of Babel and how human languages diverged after God scattered the people and muddled their languages up! This was in the UK and I was gobsmacked.

I would be furious if my kids were being taught creationism as fact. I am fortunate that they attend a community primary with no religious affilation, with other kids of many different faiths. As far as I have seen, nothing in their RE lessons is taught as fact, just as 'Christians believe that xyz' or 'Hindus believe that xyz'.

I'd go into school with a 'I wonder if you can help me please' approach - explaining that 'ds1 came home saying this, so obviously I explained that he had got the wrong end of the stick but being 5 he is obviously very invested in what his teacher says is Right. And obviously s/he wouldn't be teaching that given that so could you please just tell ds here and now that God didn't make everything in the world originally, that it's just a story in the Bible to help people a very very very long time ago to try to understand how the world came to be there, before they had science to help them explain what happened. I'm sure you're as keen as I am that the children don't want to be confused by this...'

And then put the teacher (or HT) on the spot in front of the children...

If they say 'but it's the truth' or even if they refuse to say that 'it's what some Christians believe' then you can email them afterwards to confirm their interpretation, and copy that to the Diocese and other appropriate bodies and let them deal with it.

Good call zipzap

I haven't got any advice but oh. my. god. I would feel as helpless as you do. I would have to take my child out of the classes I think but it's a tough call.

Good luck x

I think if I were at any more parents evenings and found similar things in my ds's work books, that I'd have a word with the teacher there and then - maybe having taken my red pen with me and amended the learning objective to show that 'some evangelical Christians believe that...' or 'The story the bible has to explain how everything came to be before science was able to provide a much better explanation' or whatever fitted in to show that you were learning about what Christians believe(d) and that you were happy with.

Then take it to show the teacher, get her to ok it in an obviously 'I know kids get the wrong end of the stick sometimes' way and again watch what happens. It is a problem if your ds has ended up with a teacher with evangelical/creationist views even if the rest of the school is able to teach it properly - why should your ds's class not get the same quality of education as they deserve?

When my ds1 was in Foundation, one of his topics was space. His half term homework was to find 10 facts about space using parents to google or find relevant books etc. He was adamant that his teacher had said he had to go into deep space to do the research and was hugely upset and angry that I wouldn't take him into deep space on half term for a trip because he thought it would be lots of fun so he could do his homework...

Obviously in this case I knew the teacher had not said to do this - not least because humans haven't yet gone into deep space, let alone offering cheap and easy half term trips there. Even this was not seen as a good enough reason by ds for not going as he was adamant that his teacher had said he had to go and therefore he had to as everything she said was The Truth.

She was obviously more than happy to clear up the misunderstanding on his return to school - but particularly in the first couple of years at school, the teacher can be an incredibly important figure to a child and if they are using that position to deliberately tell them things like creationism as a fact then it's very insidious and more difficult to straighten things out easily, instead of them being a non-issue that should have never existed.

loveandhate - where's the love? My options are to move country or stop being pathetic eh? Charming! This does really matter - why should DS have to spend any of his time at school learning God made the world stuff when he could be doing something more constructive? As for Father Christmas - yawn! Not relevant! How many adults really believe in Father Christmas? How many wars have been fought in his name? Children seem to have a nice time believing in Father Christmas while they are young and naturally grow out of that belief with no problems. Completely different to religious beliefs. Oh and I'm not walking around in terror actually, I'm equally baffled and cross that these lies are perpetuated to small vulnerable children in a so called place if education.
mrz I also have a very good friend who is an evangelical Christian and who spent a lot of time while we shared a room at uni trying to convert me because she absolutely believed I will burn in hell. She has a PhD in chemistry and she sincerely believes this. So these beliefs are more prevalent than you may think!

zipzap good advice - I will take that approach when I meet with them. I wish I could find out if any of the other parents noticed the LOs and feel the same way as it would be better to have a few like-minded people along...

I thought schools are not allowed to advocate one religion over another, they can only say "Christians believe this", "Muslims believe that", although they have to have a broadly Christian act of worship daily on site.

I think its important to distinguish between someone supporting creationism against evolution, which amounts to putting religion and science into contest, a contest which religion must loose, as religion not subject to empirical test. And the great majority of Christians in this country are not creationists.

However while Community Schools are not supposed to advocate for a religion as such, state financed Church Schools can, and do. While, of course, not teaching creationism.

I do not know what the position is with Free Schools and Academies, except that some free Schools and Academies are religious schools.

Mrz
My family lived in the 1950s & 60s in a middle class bit of south London and were very involved in the Catholic Church. My grandmother was Head at a catholic school too. The standard teaching back then in the Catholic Church was that non believers went to hell. Even CofE believers went to hell. Homosexuals went to hell. Divorcees went to hell. Pretty much anyone who wasn't a Catholic and asked for regular confession went to hell. Even unbaptised babies and miscarried foetuses went to Limbo. But now of course they've realised those views aren't popularist enough and it's all far more fluffy and watered down. Some of my family left the Catholic church because they found their views too extreme.

OP
My DC is at a CofE school despite me being an atheist. The school management is excellent and I don't believe for a second they teach the bible as fact, however because being young DC can't yet distinguish between fact and opinion and because they spend so much of RE teaching the Christian version, my DC is under the impression that "the world started when Jesus was born"!! Obviously not what they were trying to teach! I'm not saying that this is necessarily what's going on with your DC though. Do let us know how it goes after you approach the school!

My friend was educated at a well known creationist school in Sheffield in the 1980's. Even the proper science lessons taught creationism! Disturbing!

Really quite disappointed that creationism isn't being taught as just one narrative of knowledge about the world alongside others. Children should be taught that faith expects us to know something based on...faith, whereas science uses empirical evidence to justify knowledge claims. Children, and adults, need to know this in order to be able to distinguish non-evidence based faith statements from evidence-based thinking. OP, you can show your child these:

www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt

alongside the narratives discussed in the classroom, or, if too young, read to him from popular child-focused science books and explain that many people have claims to knowledge (believe that they know things) but what differentiates science from faith-based perspectives is systematic evidence. It's then up to the child to decide what they want to believe.

Once the said child becomes an adult...

I'd be very worried about this. I'd pull the DC out of RE. I'm a pagan and believe in the Norse creation myth that the world was created from a giant's corpse. It doesn't mean that I don't also believe in evolution though. Also, I try to teach the DC all the creation myths I know as well as the theory of evolution.

Needanadult but we aren't living in the 1960s. Half a century has passed and society has changed.

Well I totally agree with you that schools shouldn't be teaching creationism as fact. And I do sympathise - my dcs' infant school (our local community but CoE school - we'd have had to travel a significant distance to get to a non-CoE school) did similar.

I do think some of it was possibly down to little ones not really appreciating the subtle nuances of "some people believe" etc. I otherwise loved the school though so we just took the path of discussing evolution etc at home and presenting other viewpoints. My dcs are fine. I've been careful to present options but not influence their beliefs and they have all made their own minds up.

I like zipzap's approach if you're going to take it up with the teacher.

Mrs
Yes, things have changed. But if that view was normal pre 50's / 60s I imagine their are still many left who hold it. Plus AFAIK it's still common in evangelical churches? Not an expert on that though!

Lots if ideas that were common in the 1960s are no longer acceptable or commonplace.

Some evangelical churches but not all. There's a huge variation in beliefs and practice under the umbrella term of 'evangelical'.

There's at least one here that goes for the whole 'damned to burn in hell unless you are saved' that I know of. Although that's probably one of their least worrying practices ime.

I wouldn't worry too much. Ds2 & ds3 went through 5 years of 'god's beautiful world' & a year of world faiths & are devout atheists.

Mrz
to my knowledge the current official Catholic doctrine is that you can enter heaven no matter what your religion providing you have lived 'a good life' which I would interpret to mean that you happened to have followed the rules of the Catholic Church despite not believing?

So if I have not followed the rules because I've had sex before marriage and am unrepentant presumably I would go to purgatory or hell??

Comment from an informed Catholic would be useful here in case I have misinterpreted this??

Does anyone mind me quietly hijacking for a second by asking......

...if anyone here has NO state school options (within catchment distances, disregarding how terrible they may be) for Primary which are non- religious?

I always assumed this was very rare and that most people would have 1 non religious option but that it's often terrible enough to not be considered an option.

Forgive me if this has already been discussed!

So you're basing your "burning in hell" from your presumption rather than from actual experience?

My experience is that no one has ever suggested that I will burn in hell (or any other punishment) ...

Perhaps people are more tolerant here ??

Yes, need. I live in an area that still uses defined catchments. Our catchment school is the only CofE school in the area and children living in catchment is category 7 of 8. It hasn't admitted a single child in that category in nearly 10 years.

Until a couple of years ago this was fine as the neighbouring catchment school 0.5 miles away could take children living out of catchment. Increasing numbers of families in the area means they are now filling up with catchment children so a school over 2 miles away has had its pan increased to cope with the excess.

Need it's pretty common in rural areas, I think. Where we used to live our village school was CoE, as were the schools in all the neighbouring villages. We could have driven 6 miles to get to the nearest non-denominational school I guess but it was a popular school and usually full so I'm not sure we'd have got a place. And it would have left my children pretty isolated from the local community. So it didn't feel like we had much option.