When our daughters chose to opt out of the god-botherers preaching about sky fairies (Miss Ten’s words, not mine) at school, just before Easter, they were sent to pick up litter in the school grounds instead.
I’m finding it hard not to see that as a punishment for not being Christian.
Being bothersome for god-botherers turns out to be a family tradition. Mr Strange Land recalls that when he was in the third form at Auckland Boys Grammar, he was subject to mass religious indoctrination by a visiting preacher. When asked for questions, and being a precocious lad, Mr Strange Land (to be) stood up and said, “You know, most of these Jesus-stories seem to have their origin in the Egyptian legend of Osiris. So how do you feel about taking on a used religion?”
I had not previously known this about Mr Strange Land, despite living with him for twenty years.
Update:
For those of you who didn’t come here via Lauredhel’s post, she has had a similarly angry-making experience.
Sally wrote about Mumbo-jumbo, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy a few days ago, and she has followed it up today with a post explaining her position on teaching religion in schools, in VERY SIMPLE WORDS for those who couldn’t cope with the nuance in her first post. I pretty much agree with what she has said (I’m not so keen on her very last point).
Further update: here
38 responses so far ↓
lauredhel // Thursday 9 April 2009 at 11:29 pm |
WHAT THE FUCK.
Sorry, no other words.
Quickhit: “The wages of atheism”. — Hoyden About Town // Thursday 9 April 2009 at 11:33 pm |
[...] In A Strange Land: When our daughters chose to opt out of the god-botherers preaching about sky fairies (Miss Ten’s [...]
makarios // Friday 10 April 2009 at 4:57 am |
precocious AND ignorant – sad combination
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 6:41 am |
I can only repeat my advice, Deborah – get yourself on the school board of trustees and lobby to change the system. Chances are lots of other people don’t like it either.
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 6:51 am |
Sorry Deborah, that sounded a bit more terse than I intended. It’s just that .. you’ve made a similar complaint about the Christian default setting at your primary school several times. And I don’t believe that an exceptionally smart and articulate person like you can be powerless to do anything about it.
kate // Friday 10 April 2009 at 6:54 am |
The more I think about sending the lad to school, the less I like the idea.
Does this school have redeeming features?
Deborah // Friday 10 April 2009 at 6:58 am |
You’re right, Carol – we do need to do something about it. The law in SA is agin us – it specifies ‘opt out’ rather than ‘opt in’ for religious education, and the anti-discrimination legislation does not specify religious beliefs as a grounds for bringing a case for discrimination.
We have however, started a process to work this through with the school. The school policies say that you start by meeting with the principal, so we’ve sent her a message, stating our concerns, but also making it very clear that we are interested in a constructive solution. We see that as some form of apology to our children, ‘though we are relaxed about the form that takes, and an assurance that appropriate alternative activities will be offered in future.
We are being very polite and constructive at this stage.
Deborah // Friday 10 April 2009 at 7:06 am |
Does this school have redeeming features?
Lots! Other than this we are very happy with it. Very good staff and some who are excellent, good academic programs, good infrastructure, lovely spacious grounds. A bit too much sport for my liking, but that’s balanced by excellent music and art programs.
It’s zoned, but for the most part primary school zoning in the areas where we live is not such a big deal because the schools have enough space to take kids from out-of-zone without having to go through any rigmarole of applications and ballots and all that, but this school has just had to start a waiting list for kids from out-of-zone. So that indicates that it is perceived as a good school, and I think that it deserves that reputation.
Giovanni // Friday 10 April 2009 at 7:52 am |
When I was in high school those of us who were exempted from the hour of religious studies just got to loiter about. Why only two of us in a class of thirty decided to abstain, I’ll never ever ever ever understand. For Italians are religious people, but we normally put loitering well above that.
fuckpoliteness // Friday 10 April 2009 at 8:08 am |
At my son’s school they used to be able to draw but are now having to do extra math’s work. Not quite as clear a case of punishment for saying no to religious indoctrination as picking up litter (since that is quite clearly handed out as a punishment for *naughtiness* in schools) and yet you can’t help but feel there’s a bit of unfairness there.
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 8:23 am |
Is it a state school or a religious school, Deborah?
Is religious education actually part of the curriculum in Australia? It isn’t in New Zealand – instead there is an emphasis on encouraging secular values that include equity, social justice, community involvement and valuing diversity. I think it is splendid.
Does your school have a charter and does it include any emphasis on religion? Charters are supposed to reflect community aspirations. There are state schools in NZ that still have anachronistic practices such as daily scripture, but these are generally on their way out, as well they should be.
Pavlov's Cat // Friday 10 April 2009 at 9:52 am |
I guess the silver lining is that if not for this outrageous picking up litter thing you might not have learned that glorious fact about Mr Strange Land for another twenty years, if at all. But that story really is outrageous. When I was a kid and my father insisted that my sisters and I be exempted from RI — and this at a SA country school in the 1960s — we were just allowed to sit somewhere quiet and read. I bet when you investigate this you find some god-bothering teacher at the bottom of it.
M-H // Friday 10 April 2009 at 9:57 am |
Things are different in Australia, Carol. Rules about stuff like this varies from state to state, for a start. Deborah’s children are at a state school, but many state schools where I live (NSW) do have regular classes in religion that parents have to opt out of, and the children are often treated as a ‘problem’ if they do that. They may be left colouring in, or doing some other activity that is basically a waste of time – which seems to be Deborah’s experience in SA as well. I don’t think schools in NSW have charters that would help here – schools in this state are very backward when compared to NZ schools in many ways. For example, principals here can’t appoint their own staff; the state moves teachers around according to need. Antediluvian, but apparently impossible to change.
M-H // Friday 10 April 2009 at 9:59 am |
Makarios, your very nasty comment is made even worse by you hiding your identity. I’ll bet you’re really proud of yourself.
Deborah // Friday 10 April 2009 at 11:17 am |
M-H, I have just been thinking about whether or not to delete that comment, because it is abusive and nasty. And wrong. It’s easy enough to see the links between the legend of Osiris and the mythology around Jesus.
The person making the nasty abusive comment claims to be a Christian.
As it turns out, Mr Strange Land is one of those people who knows an awful lot about an awful lot. He has wide ranging interests and an impressive knowledge about many topics, ranging from cosmology to history (classical and modern, not so much medieval, though he’s no slouch there either) to statistics to politics and economics to poetry to … well, I could go on for a long time.
He also has more degrees than me. I find it hard not to regard that as a problem.
Pavlov's Cat // Friday 10 April 2009 at 11:36 am |
Deborah, if it was me I’d leave the Makarios comment there, on the ‘enough rope’ principle. I’ve just been to have a look at his blog, which features among other things the (perfectly reasonable in itself) question ‘Am I a good person?’, to which the answer is ‘If you deliberately go looking for anti-organised-religion posts on total strangers’ blogs so that you can leave self-righteous comments slagging their children, then no, probably not.’
Michael // Friday 10 April 2009 at 11:40 am |
Don’t forget Mithras!
What you described in the main post seems so clearly inappropriate I can’t see how it could ever have been allowed to happen. You seem admirably calm about it all.
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 12:26 pm |
Thank you, M-H, for that lucid explanation. I see I was rather hasty in assuming that parent power might be the answer; it sounds like the governance structure is rather different in Australia.
makarios // Friday 10 April 2009 at 12:52 pm |
[DELETED]
Deborah // Friday 10 April 2009 at 1:08 pm |
Thank you for your comment, Makarios. However I prefer to keep this discussion on track. I also prefer comments that do not make tendentious claims.
If you wish to discuss the Osiris / Jesus issue further, perhaps you could take it back to your own blog.
I will not approve any further comments from you on this thread.
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 1:11 pm |
Incidentally, what options are offered for children of other religions?
Jennifer // Friday 10 April 2009 at 1:13 pm |
Ironically, my first reaction to this post was “Oh my God”.
At my sons’ school, there is a very vocal minority of religious parents, which makes it very hard to stop this kind of thing entirely. But the atheists have got more organised (although we are still much more polite than the Christians), and are starting to join forces about insisting that the rules for opting out are obeyed.
In our case, the rules specifically state that those who opt out are not allowed to do anything educational, and that they must be supervised. So we haven’t managed to get language teaching happening. But I think we’d be able to stop the playground duty!
I’m impressed with Mr Strange Land. My equivalent was much tamer – asking the religious teacher whether she believed the world was created in 4004 BC. I don’t think she’d actually heard that fundamentalist view before, so my question was a bit wasted.
Carol // Friday 10 April 2009 at 1:29 pm |
I like Jennifer’s suggsestion that parents of like persuasion join forces to fight for the right to a meaningful alternative to god-bothering. Change WILL come.
Deborah // Friday 10 April 2009 at 2:03 pm |
Here in SA, the Education Act 1972 gives the Minister of Education power to make regulations about religion in schools. The current regulations say that schools must allow parents to opt-out (in writing, to the principal). They allow regular religious education once a week (our school doesn’t do this), and they also allow the school to invite local ministers to come in once a term to offer a religious service. There are no regulations about what alternative activities must be offered. The school itself doesn’t have specific policies with respect to religious education, and Education Department policy doesn’t say what alternative activites should be offered, just that children must be supervised. Human rights legislation in SA is quite old, and it doesn’t outlaw discrimination on the grounds of religion, so we are reliant on the federal legislation, which brings Australian in under various UN declarations.
As for school governance – there’s a school governing council, but it doesn’t seem to have nearly as much influence as Boards of Trustees have back in NZ. Alas, the elections have just gone by, and in any case, I’m not the in-with-the-in-crowd sort of person who gets elected to be AN IMPORTANT PERSON at a school.
Carol, it finally occurred to me that you might be concerned that I was a little put-out by your comments, but I’m not! At all!! And indeed, that’s what I would do were I back in NZ. Parent power… there were only 8 children who didn’t go to the service, so I’m not sure how much parent power would be available. We are in quite a conservative part of Adelaide, and Adelaide is in some ways a very conservative town, and I suspect that many of the parents really rather like the religious services, or at least like having the opportunity for their children to get a little god-ju-ju without the parents themselves having to make the effort to go to church. So I think we will need to rely on our own resources to sort this one out for the future. I will certainly let you know what happens, though it could take a few weeks given the school holidays.
Jennifer // Friday 10 April 2009 at 2:32 pm |
It always seems strange to me that there are no “Australian” rules for education – the different states are almost as different from each other as they are from NZ.
At our school, you can get involved without being elected by turning up to the monthly P&C meeting – Mr Penguin (who does like that kind of thing) is our President. He will happily put on the agenda anything a particular parent asks for, and it’s then discussed by anyone who turns up.
A warning, though, if you have that kind of path available… when he put this specific topic on the agenda, he got the most enormous turn-out ever because of a three line whip from the local church (hence my comments about the atheists being MUCH more polite).
We have religious education every week, and only three of HungryBoys’ class opt out.
Daniel Carabellese // Friday 10 April 2009 at 7:12 pm |
What an outrage. I hope your children receive the apology they deserve.
Picking up litter was often used as a punishment for the delinquent children when I was in Primary School, it’s clearly an unpleasant activity, and it’s totally unreasonable to make that the alternative to a religious service.
M-H // Friday 10 April 2009 at 7:27 pm |
Great discussion. Thanks everyone. When I came from NZ (nearly 11 years ago now!) I found many things about Australia incomprehensible, and the way that education and health care are managed were two of the biggest. I still reel back from things I find out sometimes. It’s a bugger, emigrating when you’re over 45. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover!
Sally // Friday 10 April 2009 at 10:57 pm |
Unbelievable! Made to pick up litter? Do you know how many children didn’t go to the “sky fairy” talks? (Love that description, by the way).
Look forward to hearing what you’re going to do next – and do you need any help as I’m sure there are many of us who’ve commented here who’d be happy to write letters to the appropriate places.
ThirdCat // Saturday 11 April 2009 at 5:14 am |
Our (SA) school from memory didn’t really have opt-in/opt-out – I *think* it was just the general excursion slip with the ‘I do/do not give my permission for child to attend’ and you just stay in your classroom if you didn’t go doing a ‘free choice’ activity – picking up rubbish is outrageous.
This all took me by surprise, because we didn’t have a skerrick of religious instruction at the schools I went to (all of them state schools). I don’t even remember any nativity plays.
ThirdCat // Saturday 11 April 2009 at 5:47 am |
Well, thinking about it some more, I suppose just because I don’t remember it doesn’t mean we didn’t have it…
also, the picking up rubbish is so very outrageous I can’t help saying it again.
cameronreilly // Saturday 11 April 2009 at 6:44 pm |
When my family and I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane about a year ago, and my kids started at their new public primary school (in grade 3), I was initially shocked to learn that the Religious Education system up here was opt out and not opt in. I had to sign a form to say my kids were not to be involved in their RE program. The next shock came when my kids were the only ones in their entire class who left the room during RE! They were already feeling like the new kids (we moved in time for them to start in 2nd term) and then having to get up and leave the room just made them feel more isolated. Fortunately, they were more in shock about the fact that the rest of the kids in their class believed in sky fairies.
One of my boys (they are twins by the way, now aged
said to be today, out of the blue:
“You know, I would love to believe in God. Who wouldn’t want to live forever in heaven when you die? But there’s just no evidence, so I can’t believe in it.”
stinginthetail // Saturday 11 April 2009 at 7:14 pm |
i hope you get this stopped – it’s persecution which wouldn’t be allowed if your kids were say Jewish or some other abrahamistic sect – they’d be allowed to read.
Adventures in atheist parenting « Penguin unearthed // Sunday 12 April 2009 at 9:26 am |
[...] April, 2009 by penguinunearthed Inspired by Deborah’s great series on atheist parenting within the public school system, I share with you this conversation with [...]
Tracy // Sunday 12 April 2009 at 1:00 pm |
I love Miss Ten’s remarks – although obviously it sounds like something you and your partner have said – as most children and young teens tend to share or parrot their parents beliefs – in my view people don’t awake to their full consciousness until they are away from the influences of their parents – e.g. that 14 year old “Republican” that was in the news a while back
Sarah // Monday 13 April 2009 at 2:03 am |
I remember growing up in Hamilton (it’s me, the MTNW’s guest poster) and being excused from RI, as it was called. We were sent to the library, where the librarian gave us punitive tasks. We had to sort and shelve books for her – she made it clear that it was a reprisal for not being in RI. As a form 2, I remember telling her that I wasn’t going to do her work, just because I didn’t go, and getting into a lot of trouble. I also remember mouthing the words of Xmas carols because the deputy principal threatened detention for anyone whose mouth was not seen to move and I was too scared to object…..
Captain Benno // Sunday 19 April 2009 at 10:24 am |
As an Adelaidite, an atheist and a parent with 2 kids at primary school I am shocked (bordering on disgraced) to learn that RE is even an option within the public schooling sector let alone ‘opt out’ in your situation, I would have assumed secularism being the default?
I would be interested in finding out the school and other schools where this is occurring, it would be a handy resource for other worried parents.
I have a few kiwi friends living here now and I am well aware of the progressive and secular culture they are used to which is why I often find myself apologising for this type of embarrassing situation… so on behalf of all like minded Australians – sorry.
Linkety links « blue milk // Sunday 19 April 2009 at 5:54 pm |
[...] in atheist parenting: here, here, here, and here from In a strange [...]
The Twelfth Down Under Feminists Carnival « Zero at the Bone // Sunday 3 May 2009 at 4:56 pm |
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