Bye, bye November

It's been fun, I've written 12 times as many posts as I did last month making it through my third NaBloPoMo with relative ease and, I think, only minor irritation to my family.

We have 2 and a half weeks of school left for the kids, that's only 12 days of primary school to go for David. I got his high school orientation info pack today, so many pieces of paper, so many forms to fill in, fees to pay (I'm interested to see that these include a voluntary $100 per student donation to the P&C - wonder how many people pay that?), new systems to learn, it's all a bit overwhelming.

There's a nice vague handout about the Religious Education program at the school with references to "inter-denominational" "non-threatening" and "significance of religion" which as far as I can see equates religion with Christianity and completely disappears any other faith, or lack thereof. I'll be interested to see an outline of the lesson program (the handout offers one on request). It's a program that was introduced when I was at the school, I remember it as being monumentally tedious, and that was when I was heavily involved with one of the churches that developed and still financially supports the program. There's a notable lack of references to the optional nature of Special Religious Education and no indication of what kids who opt out would be doing during that time - I'm not surprised by this and I don't believe there are any regulations that require that information to be offered, but it's interesting.

I'm tired. My head is full of little, and not so little, things I have to do, or remember, or talk to people about, or go to, or shop for. I have speeches and reports to write for the P&C. Work is relatively busy. November was a fairly hectic month for us and I really just want to stop for a while, but December promises to be just as full-on. I'm so looking forward to the holidays, I plan on sleeping and reading and playing games and not being in a hurry to do anything.

More thoughts on Scripture in schools

I started to respond to comments on my previous post on the subject but it was getting kind of epic, so I thought I'd better chuck it all in a post of its own. This may be a little disjointed! (BTW, Scripture = Special Religious Education, or SRE, but no-one calls it that.)

A couple of people made reference to the thumb-twiddling in the library being not such a bad thing, I must admit I very nearly included a disclaimer in the original post to the effect that I was quite sure the kids were perfectly happy with the thumb-twiddling :-) Actually I believe my kids' school encourages reading which is something I'd have been very keen on as a kid had I been at all aware that Scripture class was optional.

My memories of Scripture are of some poor sodding volunteer coming into a classroom full of kids who saw the lesson as something they were not required to take seriously, like being a substitute teacher, only worse because you have no hope of convincing the kids that anyone cares if they don't do the work. As for the subject matter, it was pretty much exactly the same as we were getting at church in Sunday School, very much of the indoctrination of impressionable minds variety.

From what I see of the stuff my kids do in Scripture now it's also very definitely of the teaching dogma variety and not at all of the comparative religious studies style, and really why would it be anything else? These classes are largely being taught by volunteers who are doing it because they believe it's important to bring the kids into the fold not because they want to equip them to understand the various world religions. When your kindergartner comes home on a Thursday afternoon and tells you very seriously that all the houses in your street were made by God, or that Adam and Eve were the first people, or that the whole world was flooded and wasn't it a good thing that Noah was around it becomes very clear that myth is being taught as fact and that I have a problem with.

It's quite true, as Toni mentioned, that some schools positively encourage kids to visit all the different Scripture classes, my nieces have done a bit of swapping around between Protestant, Catholic and Buddhist classes at their school. Perhaps the nature of the classes is different in other schools, perhaps there are whole cohorts of enlightened Scripture teachers out there delivering lessons that invite a critical analysis of the subject matter, which incidentally is perfectly possible even with 5 year olds. Hey, my Mum has done a bit of Scripture teaching in the past, but the last time she did so (filling in for a friend) she was so disgusted with the curriculum materials and the lesson plans that she was expected to follow that she swore never to do it again.

From St James Ethics Centre on Facebook:

Those schools that have completed an expression of interest in being a pilot school are confirmed as participants in the pilot. They are Darlinghurst, Crown Street, Ferncourt, Rozelle, Hurstville, Bungendore, Neutral Bay and Baulkham Hills North Public Schools. Another school is 80% through the process. There is room for just one more.

Don't suppose there's much hope of grabbing the last spot for our school.

Ariane mentioned one of my big doubts about this whole exercise - where are the volunteers to teach ethics classes going to come from? I know the churches often have a fair bit of trouble filling the volunteer roles to teach scripture and they have a presumably highly motivated pool of people to draw on. I, of course, find myself answering the question in my own head with "perhaps I should..." at which point the other half of me jumps up with a cartoon sledgehammer yelling "don't you DARE think about volunteering for anything else" and squishes the idea flat. It's all very well saying "What a wonderful idea, we should definitely have ethics classes offered in all schools" but that's not going to be much use if there's no-one to teach them.

Mind you, even if there aren't enough teachers to go around, there'll be some no small victory in breaking the anachronistic hold of the churches on that half hour of SRE a week should the trial be deemed successful and the NSW Dept of Education and Training' policy on the matter changed to allow the classes to be offered across the board.

Ethics classes to be trialed as an alternative to "Scripture"

This is fantastic news. It's about time there was something better for the non-scripture kids to do than go to the library and twiddle their thumbs.

When my oldest first started school I hadn't quite given up on the church, I'd long since moved away from any belief in god but I still saw value in the ethical teaching and the community that a church fosters. So off he went to Scripture classes, as did most of his classmates. It wasn't long before I was rather regretting that decision as I found myself dealing with the some of the less-nuanced ideas that came home from the classes. I console myself with the thought that at least he'll be well equipped to understand any biblical allusions if he ever ends up reading various classic novels and poetry. My other 2 have also gone to Scripture classes and I freely admit it's because it was easier to go with the flow and let them be with their friends. Especially as the alternative was so unsatisfactory.

Every so often I offer my kids the option of not going to Scripture class, none of them have taken me up on it, they'd rather stay with their friends and sit through lessons about things they do not believe than be bored. If something like these proposed ethics classes were available at all schools, not only would I jump at it now, I'd have been thrilled to enroll the kids in them way back in Kindergarten.

From the SMH:

ETHICS classes will be introduced in NSW schools, offering an alternative to religious studies for the first time in 100 years, the Premier, Nathan Rees, will announce today.

The St James Ethics Centre has been working very hard for some time to get this project up and running. "Towards an ethics-based complement to scripture in NSW primary schools" gives an overview of the issues involved and of the proposals being considered.

I am so very pleased to see this trial getting the go-ahead and I will be presenting information about it to our next P&C meeting at school. I only wish there were to be more than 10 schools involved in the trial. Ah well, teaspoons. Hopefully it will be a huge success and we'll see further progress in the near future.