Not sure what to make of this

[Ken L]

I've just read this on the BBC.

 

My initial thought was to shake my head and despair at the teaching of this nonesense in schools but then this is religious education and not the indoctrination into a specific religion that is present in faith schools.

Having watched the excellent "Faith schools menace" on 4OD recently, it is clear that the faith schools (Now a third of all schools in Britain) have full control of their RE sylabus with no input or oversight from OFSTED.

Bringing RE back into the educational mainstream would mean a balanced cirriculum, an end to sectarian hate being taught in schools and external oversight of what is taught.

I can only dream of a combined ciriculum of religious education, ethics and critical thinking being adopted, but if it were, it could undermine faith schools from within by simple exposure to alternative worldviews.

[chesters1]

trouble is to ban faith schools would be to ban faith which is illegal today plus theres Christians sitting in the lords who may like the idea of jews and moslems being reined back you cannot just keep Christianity and ban the rest

theres some difference in how they are run though ,there's fully funded schools and part funded ,our local primary is part funded by the church so i guess their input is far different than if they were fully funded or not church funded at all

me myself would remove religion completely from the agenda

 

i suspect those that are godless has less "god" injected into them at school as kids can be told any old nonsense and "teacher" is always right at least in the kids first few years ,my mum was almost a bloody nun her convictions were so strong i just hope she got what she thought she would get when she died but i guess the god bit went in one ear and ut he other a bit like all education did for me

 

unfortunately it seems the people proposing more religion in schools for moral ? reasons forget religion (especially the christian one) historically has been the least moral of the lot and puts modern day Islamic "protestations" in the shade

Edited February 17, 2012 by chesters1

[Steve Walker]

I can only dream of a combined ciriculum of religious education, ethics and critical thinking being adopted, but if it were, it could undermine faith schools from within by simple exposure to alternative worldviews.

 

I don't think I'd do it that way. I'd teach ethics and critical thinking as philosophy and religion as anthropology. I would start the religion unit with that massive list of all the deities people have believed in, then talk about the major world religions and briefly cover the core tenets of each. Then I would go through creation myths, beliefs about death and afterlife, beliefs about divine intervention, beliefs about the nature of deities, beliefs about personal morality and behaviour, structures, power, wealth and social and political influence of religious organisations, proselytising, conflict and sectarianism, etc, in each case comparing across religions.

[snakey1]

Personally I dream of the day when all religious teachings and paraphernalia are removed from the education system completely and faith schools of all kinds are banned

[Chris Goddard]

Personally I dream of the day when all religious teachings and paraphernalia are removed from the education system completely and faith schools of all kinds are banned

 

 

Got to say I'm with your good self on this one Snakey1!! Just because I was christened and married in a Church doesn't mean I believe all about GOD like I believe that fairies are at the bottom of the Garden!!

[corydoras]

I don't like the "banning" bit. I'd vote for a ban on banning things.

 

Faith schools are fine, but they should not have any funding from the state unless they follow the national curriculum and are inspected by Ofsted like any other state funded school. If you require your school to do religious indoctrination on the side and don't want science taught in your kid's school, pay for it yourself.

[snakey1]

Normally I would agree with you on the banning aspect Corydoras however where religion is concerned the fewer centres for brainwashing kids they have the better in my opinion so I would make an exception in this case.

[corydoras]

Withdrawing state funding from faith based schools would be almost as good as a ban.

[Ken L]

Faith schools are fine, but they should not have any funding from the state unless they follow the national curriculum and are inspected by Ofsted like any other state funded school.

 

You see there's the problem, I don't think they are. There is no oversight (other than from respective religious organisations - some of which are based outside the UK) of religious education in "faith schools" and faith is also taught as an integral part of every other lesson. OFSTED doesn't get a look in and there is no national curriculum for whatever the school designates as RE.

In the program that I mentioned, Dawkins is taking to a group of girls who were being taught in science class that (as per the Koran) fresh and salt water will not mix.

One of the poor girls actually wanted to be a doctor and her basic understanding of the way the world works was being undermined at school of all places and by her science teacher.

In my own town, it impossible to find a school that is not expressly christian and where I lived until recently, the majority were muslim.

 

I wonder how some of the faith school apologists would feel if they lived in an inner city area and had no choice other than to send their kids to a school were their children are taught using Saudi produced antisemitic books.

[chesters1]

i guess your not on about CofE funding but "other" religions

we go to war to stop Islamic training grounds but under our nose..............................

believe me theres just as many weird christian "training centres" spouting rubbish as well

Edited February 18, 2012 by chesters1