Intelligent Design (What should be taught in schools?)

by rightarmover , Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 10:37 (5728 days ago) @ a retired teacher

As a current teacher I thought here might be the best place to share some of my onservations from working in both church and non-church schools. - Firstly, it is worth noting that these terms in themselves are misnomers. In England there is no such thing as a non-church/non-religious/secular school. Every school in England is legally required to have ''a daily act of broadly christian worship''. - Those schools that are listed as church schools go far further. Children are expected to pray to the excepted God before lunch and often at the end of the day. Ofcourse, it could be argued that this a matter of parental choice. It is, if you live in a large town. It isn't if you live in an area where the only school in a church school. Again theists would probably argue that children can be withdrawn from these activities. They can. But the social damage that this does to the ''child that doesn't say prayers with us'' or doesnt go to assemblies, is considerable. - In one assembly I have seen a local Christian preacher perform a fantastic magical trick of which any demi-god would have been proud. He folded a piece of paper and made a few small cuts in it. He unfolded it to reveal the word Jesus. Wonderful. Then he used the remaining pieces to make the word HELL. Because if you don't have Jesus, you have HELL. Would any of you really want your five or six year old to be told this? - This can't be healthy or even safe. This is pure indoctination. "We are right. They are wrong." - Although, by no means a total advocate of Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most salient point he makes in his recent writings is that there is no such thing as a Christian child. Or a Jewish child or a Muslim one. There are children of Christian parents but NOT Christian children. Children do not have the capacity to decide what they do and don't believe. To put this into perspective I wonder what those who adovcate religious preaching in schools would say about politics. How would you feel if I told you my 5 year old was a One Nation Conservative or my Year 3 8 year olds were all Marxists. Why not? Is the Communist Manifesto really more complex to read than the Bible? Not that Bible reading or understanding is necessary for describing children as Christian - it can't be given that most 5 year olds struggle to read books with much more than a line or two on a page.
How about a school sponsored by Wig Tories? Or a Socialist Workers Party school?
These are of course rediculous ideas, but how more rediculous that children should be told by their teacher to pray to a God in a religon that they can't possibly begin to understand. - I'm quite happy for different religions to be taught in a school. To understand our world children need to know that different people believe different things. And they need to know that we are really fortuate to live a country where it is ok to have different beliefs. 
The problem with this, is that if following a lesson about Islam the children then have Mass before lunch it gives the children a very clear statement that ''THEY are wrong - WE are right''. - 
How much longer were the problems in Norhtern Ireland maintained because the children of the opposing sides were segregated? I believe that schools should teach about religions but should NOT advocate one over any other. We have a pluralist society in our wondeful country and long may it continue. - 
Now, where is that government-funded Rastafarian school I demand to be able to send my children to?