For a couple of weeks now, an ominous line has been appearing in the calendar of up-coming events in my children’s school notices.
“Thursday 20 March – Christian options”
“Right….” I thought. “What do they mean, ‘Christian options’?”
Then the full note came home yesterday.
Dear parents / caregivers
Once again, the local Christian churches (Interdenominational) are visiting our school, presenting a (sic) “Easter Play / Presentation”.
The presentation will take place in Week 8. If you have any objections to your child participating in this session please notify in writing to the Principal by the end of Week 7.
Oi vey! Where to start?
First up, this is likely to be theologically immature phaff, given that it’s “interdenominational”.
Second, it’s very exclusive. I would be happy enough for my kids to learn about religion, but not exclusively Christianity, and not as anything other than a sociological analysis of the things that people can make themselves believe in.
Third, it’s not an option at all. No other activity is offered. It’s christian tales, or nothing.
Fourth, this is supposed to be a state school, and this is supposed to be a secular state. If the Christians, and any other religions, want to get together and play little god games in lunch hours and after school, then fine. Whatever. My kids get to go and play chess and sing in the choir – I see no reason why other people shouldn’t be able to engage in other non-curricular activities at the school, outside of school hours. (Though if pushed, I will argue that there is a certain merit to chess and the choir that is missing from religion.) But I mind that my children get exposed to pious nonsense at a supposedly secular school.
But none of that is what upsets me most. It’s the opt-out procedure which I find to be so offensive. It’s coercive, and unlike any other opt-out procedure the school offers.
Typically, if there is an activity at school, any old activity other than normal classroom and school ground work, a permission slip gets sent home. On that slip, you can elect whether your children do or don’t participate. Usually, the permission slip will specify the alternate activity for children who are not participating, even if it is only, “Children who are not participating will be supervised in the school library.”
But this time round, there’s no opt in / opt out slip. Instead, all children are assumed to be participating, unless a parent takes the trouble to write a special note to the principal. So there’s a poor presumption about what children should do, and on top of that, an extra barrier to opting out. You have to do something special, something extra, to opt out.
The ‘extra effort’ for the opt in / opt out is applied to exactly the wrong side of the choice. If people want to peddle their fanciful belief systems in a secular school, then children, and parents, should be required to opt in. The presumed norm should be that the school is secular, and therefore anyone who wants to listen to stories about sky fairies had better actively choose to do so.
On top of that, the opt out letter must be sent well in advance of the event. And the note that came home from the school doesn’t even give a date by when the opt out note should be received. Sure, it specifies week 7, but I’m damned if I ever know which week of a school term we are in. I know when the school term starts, and when the school terms ends, and after that, I really neither know nor care whether it’s week three or week eighteen or week nine hundred and sixty two. It’s not information that I carry in my head, because I am not a teacher, not someone who is intimately connected with the organisation of the school. I am intimately engaged with my children’s education, but not with the daily detail of school administration.
So, lots of barriers in the way of opting out. But perhaps the only way that christians can get people to listen to them is through trickery.
If I can find out exactly what time this event is happening, I might just go and collect the girls, and run a wee class for them, and any others who are interested, on the Euthyphro dilemma. We might sacrifice a few Easter eggs while we’re at it.
Very well said.
My first reaction, to the note, was that they should have said… “if you’d like your child to attend, notify me in writing”.
The way they want to be notified stinks of alienation tactics also. To write a letter separates the writer from the pack and puts peer pressure on them to just go with the flow. A weaker individual would just let it happen. (I’m not picking on the weak… I’m saying they are preying on those afraid to speak out)
And I agree that the only way they can get people to listen is through trickery and manipulation. And their favorite targets are the young and impressionable.
This is great. I love that your secular school system is celebrating cultural festivals. One can only assume that you were given the same type of ‘opt out’ for the Chinese new year and will be for the solstace and a host of other festivals this year. What would be the ‘opt out’ activities for the whole month of Ramadam??
I guess the slightly good (in a relative sense) part is that it will be interdenominational so it’s less likely to be the gory guilt-inducing experience that Catholic interpretations of Easter often present.
What is the ethnic mix in the school like? I would imagine there are some communities, even in Australia and NZ, where families most familiar with the Christian tradition would be in the minority?
The presumed norm should be that the school is secular, and therefore anyone who wants to listen to stories about sky fairies had better actively choose to do so.
Absolutely. A lot of schools are out of control in their authoritarian ways – my daughter was finger printed without parental permission, would you believe. They said it was for library access. I was very angry, but very few other parents cared.
What on earth have fingerprints got to do with library access? That’s outrageous Ruth! I would expect the Privacy Commissioner to have something to say about that, surely?
I don’t know how SA works, but in NSW at my sons’ school, you specify at the beginning of term whether your child is a “non scripture” child and they are supposed to exclude them for you from this kind of thing (and weekly scripture classes).
But last year in the Christmas equivalent, they didn’t do it well, and a whole lot of the atheist parents got quite upset at the fire and brimstone their kids came home with.
So this year, there is a renewed push to find something that they can do during the scripture hour every week.
Anyway, longwinded way of saying that I feel your angst about this, and share it, and wish that (in our case) a deal done more than 100 years ago with the religious authorities to try and push children to learn religious stuff during class time wasn’t being perpetuated on state school students today.
Atheists are still opressed and punished – even in Australia
No open atheist will be a Premier or PM any time soon for example
I think part of it comes from the teachers. When my mother worked as a primary school teacher in a state school in New Zealand, she used to like Friday morning’s ‘voluntary’ Religious instruction because it gave her some time out for planning and stuff. But on principle I beileve that it should be an opt in rather than opt out if it is a specific religous instruction.
I did think about some of my activities when I was teaching in Asia where despite a strong christan element, a lot of the kids where bhuddists sharminists etc. and we did some christmas activities. I was very careful to make sure that there was no reference at all to the birth of Christ and did more secular activites and the kids loved singing jingle bell rock.
I just want to add that my parents are Russian Orthodox but they did not try to force it on me – they let me make my own decision and when i asked them they said talking to me about it would influence me
I hope that your and other children can do the same – a decision on whether to be atheist or theist on their own – regardless of their parents theism or atheism
It might be worth pulling the girls from school for the day after winter solstice on the basis that they’ve been up all night dancing. If the school objects explain that you think it’s important that they receive a religious education
And frankly, a decent feast at midwinter followed by dancing seems way, way more sensible than celebrating the birth of a prophet of middle eastern appearance by feasting in midsummer.
The good thing about Christians is that they celebrate the retirement of their prophet with some rather delicious buns.
I’m regularly shocked by stories of religion in state schools. It wasn’t like that at the one I went to. There were opt-in religion classes for the few parents who asked for them, like my mother. There were Easter and Christmas colouring in/decorating the classroom type activities, but it was all pretty low key.
I tend to think that churches/temples run masses/services/funded schools where it is fine to talk about holiness and the life of Christ/Bhudda/Mohamed with a view to recruitment, and state schools are places where all children need to be safe in their beliefs or lack of them.
The way your kids’ school is doing it sets kids up to be bullied for not conforming to protestantism. I think that’s definitely worth complaining about. My kid gets quite enough religion from his Grandma and he doesn’t need any more at school.
I’ve never come across such anti-Christian views in a blog. They may be shallow and hypocrticial but they are no less strident for all that. It makes for remarkable reading.
Why are so many non-Catholic parents falling over themselves trying to get their children into Catholic secondary schools?
I would suggest it is – at least in part – because secular education is failing us. Badly.
kiwitoffee – i doubt that the quality of education is directly linked to whether the provider of that education believes in god. it may be a factor in social education and it may not, but the main difference between private religious schools and public secular schools is the private school factor. the curriculum is alternative to what the state provides, and the people who can pay for it happen to be, in majority, religious or at least non-objecting to religious education. i would agree that to some degree, an education utterly devoid of religious aspects may be lacking, but only because pretending religion doesn’t exist is one of if not the worst possible way(s) to go about promoting tolerance for people’s different beliefs.
as for the notion that opting out of specific religious nonsense must be the minority’s choice and done deliberately, that’s the first ever i have heard of such a thing in a supposedly secular school, but then again i had a public school education in the northern hemisphere. we weren’t allowed to call it a “christmas” concert because the board preferred to ignore all religion equally – and boy did they get a reaction!
Well I went to a Catholic school for quite some time. When I left I was failing several subjects. When I started at my new school they accidentally streamed me into the top classes for those subjects, and I later passed them all with quite some room to spare. So my personal experience is that Catholic education is not necessarily any better than other religious schools, or indeed completely secular schools.
That’s just what happened to me of course, however Kiwitoffee I think you’ll find many state (secular) schools in NZ foot it with the religious (private or integrated) schools for scholarships, entry into med and law schools, etc.
Kiwitoffee, I would make a distinction between anti-church views, atheist views, and anti-christian views. I’m an atheist – but Jesus is alright with me.
My own view is that Christ’s message doesn’t depend on divinity. In contrast, I think the messages of some churches don’t depend on Christ.