The problem with faith schools
16May. 09
There was an article published on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website this morning reporting on the outcome of a legal decision in the Land and Environment Court to allow the building of a new, 1200-student primary and secondary Islamic school in Bass Hill, NSW.
The building of the new school was opposed by residents and planning permission was refused by Bankstown City Council. The group behind the school project appealed the decision and won their case.
I’m not terribly well-versed in the particulars of this specific case so I won’t comment on them, although there was an interesting comment from the judge presiding the case and quoted in the SMH article:
The judgement also referred to “the elephant in the courtroom” or “whether the council would have raised quite as many contentions as it did if the application had been for an Anglican school”.
Ooooooh… Way to play the prejudice card and hint at racist undertones.
As an aside, it’s worth pointing out that to criticise Islam is not to be guilty of racism. Islam claims to be a universal truth transcending race and ethnicity which is why anyone can become Muslim. Of course, the “uniform” (for want of a better word) has very strong roots in Arabic tribal custom and therefore it’s very easy to equate the religious practise with the tribal tradition — but this is a mistake and it’s worth making the distinction.
Having said that, the judge makes a fair point — if the proposed new school was affiliated with the Catholic church there would probably have been little objection raised. Australia’s religious heritage is Christian in nature (specifically Anglican) and another school with Christian connections is hardly out of the ordinary.
But this is precisely the problem. A Christian school would have gone through on the nod and the objections against the Muslim school would have been equally valid if levelled against a Christian school. Minority religions are often right when they claim to be the victims of bias and prejudice, but the answer is not to grant them the same level of rights as the majority faith, but to strip back the incumbents until they are forced to operate at the same level as every other faith.
Why? Because of the concept of “faith” — the true elephant in the room. Faith basically means belief in something for which you have no evidence. It is generally accepted that if the existence of any deity could be proven, faith in that deity would evaporate like a puddle in the Sahara, because there would no longer be any need for it. Why believe in something you know to be true?
Which is why the very idea of faith schools is a disgrace. Bringing children together to tell them what their beliefs are, before they are old enough to make up their own minds, is as abusive as any other practise which we hear about in mainstream media. It’s not the children who want these schools, it’s the parents — seeking to prevent change and dislocation within their communities defined through the contexts of religion, as well as the community “leaders”, seeking to prevent any challenge to their authority or to accepted dogma by isolating the next generation.
“Faith” does not equal “good”.
Does this mean that I think religion should be excluded from schools? Not at all. Religion has formed ourselves and our societies for millennia. Ignoring religion is akin to ignoring the importance of slave ownership in many economies throughout history — just because it doesn’t happen any more (much) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know everything about it. Comparative religion is an intensely important thing to learn, but not as “faith” and certainly not as “truth”.
My own path to non-belief actually came from learning about comparative religion at a Uniting Church secondary school at the hands of an intelligent and kindly clergyman. I’m sure that’s not the outcome he would have hoped for, but I’m grateful nonetheless.
What do you think? Is this just another “strident atheist rant” which will be condemned and dismissed as such? Are we the ones missing the point, or are we the only people who can see the Nidhogg the wyrm gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil?
Tags: atheism, Faith schools, Religion
May 17th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Some very interesting and valid points. Comparative religion is very important however, it is normally taught by a biased individual who’s special pleading is face smackingly evident to us but perhaps not so much to a grade school or high school student. In other words they have the tendency to say all these are religions are false except Christianity, even pointing towards references to Babylon the Great and the Harlott in scripture as a prediction of false religion.
I think you would agree that for some strange reason, which puzzles me to no end, faith has become somewhat of a virtue… Puzzling indeed. Nice post.
May 17th, 2009 at 10:11 am
In America, these days, we’ll take any school we can get. At least the Jesuits WILL educate you. Public schools here don’t do it very well anymore.
Many of them are in such bad shape that they ought to condemned. The rest are so overcrowded, the teachers spend more time dealing with troublemakers than teaching anything. Then you can’t fire the bad teachers, because the unions make it impossible.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
My own personal objection to any sort of religious school is the indoctrination that is re-enforced not only by teachers, but also the student body.
It is precisely the kind of environment that leads to life-long prejudices. It is absolutely essential for students to learn about a religion while interacting with people of other faiths and beliefs. Otherwise you have the ugliness we see in the middle east.
On that ground alone, I oppose any and all religious schools.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Okay — I’ve taught in five different religious denomination schools. To say that they are ALL the same and all need to be opposed is misleading.
There are varieties. The majority of schools here in this state are adopting comparative religion courses like ‘Religion and Life’ as a new course and the ‘Philosophy and Ethics’ course has been taken up by many schools too.
To assume that a religious school means that they will only address one religion is misleading. To think that students won’t leave a school without the option of being atheist or minus a better understanding of the world around them is incorrect. Schools vary. To say they are like ‘The Middle East’ is quite misguided.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Podblack — yes, good point and of course you’re right…not all schools are the same and just because a school has a religous affiliation doesn’t mean it can be (or should be) considered a “faith school”. It’s easy to generalise and in discussions like this there is often no such as black and white, just many shades of grey (or white which has become grubby).
Having said that, there are schools who teach their particular faith as truth. This needs to be fought, and as skeptics I think we have an obligation to point out the absurd relationship between education and that sort of religious teaching.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:18 am
I suggest people go check out what Harry Gardner is attempting to set up via his Ethical Education site. Specifically look up the history or religious instruction as it is extremely interesting. Here is a particularly telling part -
’Currently a non-theist organization can only get accreditation to teach the children of its supporters if it can be described as a religion. ’ Harry and others are working hard to get this changed.
There is also now a separate initiative for Christian chaplains to enter schools which has been steadily growing. Another quote — ‘Chaplains provide a Christian presence in, and service to, schools through education and pastoral care programs.’
This two pronged method of preaching the word is now present in what was supposed to be a secular education.
http://www.ethicaleducation.net/index.php?pr=Religious_Instruction_RI_in_Victoria
May 19th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Well said, particularly in regards to the whole ‘racism card’ thing. I sent a link of my piece (UN v The Right to Blaspheme) to a good friend of mine in the UK, she sent back a couple of links to ‘Understanding Islamophobia’. Such a shame, cause she’s really bright, but she bought right into that whole PC relativist wank. She even said ‘those Danish cartoons were really offensive’, looking straight past the violent reaction to them. Madness, I say.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I just happened across this site and your article and felt I could share my thoughts and experiences. Particularly with regards to the teaching of other religions in schools.
I attended a school very much aligned to a specific religion, which was run by religious figures. Religion, along with English and Maths, were the only compulsory subjects right through to year 12. Science had recently been stripped of this privilege and students could take alternatives.
I don’t recall learning about anything which contradicted the holy book. Science seemed to be made up of entire semesters of learning the names of all the muscles in your body, the periodic table and how to play around with the insides of a rat.
My biggest regret at school is not forcing myself to take one of the sciences, despite how much I’d hated the classes. But this says more about the way it was taught and the way it was presented to us. I also reached the end of my schooling certain I’d never do Art anymore because I’d had enough of drawing and painting (we didn’t do anything else…weren’t even taught how to do those), and now I work as an artist.
I recall one term (of I guess 10 weeks) in my final year we learnt about the religions of the world. This was the first time I’d been interested in religion class in years. ‘You mean this term we don’t have to memorise the same dates and passages?’ I thought. We touched on them so briefly, but I do remember thinking how ridiculous the beliefs were. This sounds typical I know, but I’m quite sure the teacher I had was actually quite impartial. She just seemed to want to get through the syllabus and that’s all that mattered.
After that term at school I recall knowing more about other religions than basically anyone I knew. And I admit, I only knew people within my religion. I just seemed to take it all in and be really curious why other people believed this stuff.
Next term religion class went back to normal, and I finally started to really question. Before that everything was just habit and to think otherwise…well what child really wants to go against everybody he’s ever met?
I remember asking why it was that we were expected to read the same passages over again, instead of them actually just once explaining to us why it was we believed these things? If there’s convincing evidence, I’d love to spend just one class hearing about it. I found myself scratching my head every time I experienced a conditioned thought about how all these other people in the world who follow the wrong religions were unlucky.
There needs to be a change in what our children are taught. I worry for my niece who has her Confirmation coming up. Her mother has never been very religious, but she sent her daughter to the same school she went to as she felt at least she knew it wasn’t a bad school. Friends tell me not to worry as she will grow up and can think for herself, but I don’t think all the poison is harmless. I don’t want her to grow up being encouraged to have voices in her head. Also, telling children about a place called Hell is child abuse, without any shadow of a doubt.
So to get back to what is taught at school, my favourite subject was Modern History. Yet I was always lead to believe it was less important…well it had less weighting in final results so that’s a pretty good indication.
I feel there needs to be a solid grounding in fundamental science; history, including all religions and not just from where the the date religious doctrines state we should begin, but way back, so people can find out where the concept of religion came from; art history (kids learn to draw at 2, I’m talking about why the first images were drawn) and how its influence provides us with the bulk of what we know of our ancient history; and philosophy and its roots…maybe if children learn from a young age that without reason there’d be no such things as humans, they might want to learn.
I suppose I just offered my own ‘strident atheist rant’. Nonetheless, I didn’t view your article as such and thank you for sharing.