Nathan Lee

Well this week was the start of something big: the first useful use of scripture time in NSW History (on the 20th April 2010). Not since sometime in the late 1980s  has anything even remotely of use taken place in scripture time. That momentous day was when the (unsupervised) non-scripture group I was part of discovered that we* could (if given a boost) climb up into the air-conditioning vent in the library. That was a one off experience and not of huge use except if one of those present later took up air conditioner repair as a career (I didn’t).

But now we have the hope of a more structured approach to learning (something other than taking the vent off the air-con ducting): the NSW trial of an “ethics course” alternative to scripture. Or as I like to refer to it “the long overdue first death nail in the coffin of religious indoctrination in public schools”.

What happens currently in Scripture

Well, I’ve outlined a some of my thoughts in an earlier post: Letter to Dept. of Education about Scripture. But basically scripture is an unfiltered vomiting of religious garbage in government funded, supposedly secular schools. While mostly offering a Christian denomination (picked by the head master/mistress), some offer a choice to parents.

The people presenting this have somewhere between zero and some training, not usually qualified teachers or even particularly well read people (beyond their own book of religion). I guess the lord is guiding them through their poorly controlled, poorly planned and poorly executed classes.

Parents have to write a letter if they want to avoid inflicting it on their children and the only non religious option (in our government secular schools I remind you) is to have kids sitting around doing nothing (I believe they are now at least supervised.. so no stress testing the tensile strength of aircon ducting attachments these days).

In the actual classes (which, if you’re Jewish and go to one particular school I heard about from teachers:kids have to paydonate sufficient amounts to be allowed in.. scumbags!) children are made to:

• say prayers or go through rituals of the religion,
• state they believe in God/Jesus etc and
• presented teachings of the religion as absolute fact
• fed all manner of information while the teachers hover around and try to keep order (because this routine is exactly the same as the previous session kids are bored shitless).

Kids naturally see the gaping holes in what’s been said and are only given childish answers in response. Teachers are unable to assure children that there’s no basis for the beliefs and it’s all reliant on having faith despite no evidence.

Best case scenario they just switch off, worst: they go home with the belief that someone is constantly watching them and has a long list of things they’re quite likely to be tortured in fire for all eternity. BUT they’re assured there’s a way out of that: just ask Jesus for forgiveness and believe in him.

Note: Kids at young ages still believe the Easter bunny is real, so when a grown up makes arguments from authority in a place of learning, they tend to believe them.

Hell, I almost went away thinking that if I just had enough faith I could walk on water (like the idiotic story we were told).

Other kids go away worried they’re going to hell if they don’t get baptised with magic water or punished for merely thinking something heretical.

Do kids get an ethical basis for dealing with strange situations? No, absolute morals (what little they teach) are always going to fall over in the grey areas. In amongst the good stuff (which is found outside the religions from earlier philosophers) there are damaging concepts and absurdities that contradict everything the kids are taught outside that hour or two.

I’ll concede something to the current approach: it does teach some kids a very important lesson: that religion is boring as hell, its followers often a little weird and that religion doesn’t make much sense.

So what happened on the 20th of April 2010?

A secular (despite the religious sounding name) mob from the St James Ethics Centre (and Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW) have developed an actual curriculum (unlike the “show up with a bible and wing it” that seems the norm) for discussing ethics and it had its first run through in front of kids.

This article gives an idea of the way the class would have operated:

Associate Professor Philip Cam, of the University of NSW, developed the curriculum and conducted the training workshop. Cam is an expert in philosophical and ethical inquiry for children, and recently co-authored guidelines on incorporating ethical behaviour for the draft national curriculum.

The two-day workshop was run in classroom mode, replicating the methods to be used when it is introduced to classrooms this week. Volunteers were seated in a circle and needed to have possession of the speaker’s ball before commenting. ”No put-downs” was also part of the rules.

Cam stressed that it was not the role of the volunteer ”teacher” to ethically instruct the children, but rather explore ethical ideas and facilitate a discussion among members of the class. Good listening, an awareness of when to intervene, and a light touch would be necessary.

He warned against buying into the discussion, as that could change the dynamic in the room and students would be listening for the ”right” answer.

”It is about dealing with kids making reasoned judgements, the business of thought. And learning to be reasonable with people you disagree with, not attacking them, and providing reasons as to why you disagree,” Cam says.

Now unlike this snooty moral high ground ethics course I don’t have a “no put down” rule on my blog (and I can hold my own balls when I want to talk on it). Perhaps that’s because instead of doing this ethics course I was twiddling my thumbs in the library.

I’ll happily call (and rationally defend calling it) what the churches have offered largely a useless pile of shit. It was when I went through school and teachers I’ve talked to think it is the same today.

Compare their offering which is person turns up, reads some fairy-tales which are presented as fact. If ethics even comes up (which is a bit if with all the time taken talking fairy-tales and praying to sky-gods): Kids are not encouraged to develop their own ethics if they step outside the drone’s interpretation of what their book says.

It’s certainly not a case of religious instructor indoctrinator avoiding buying into the discussion or avoiding changing the dynamic of the room: that’s exactly why they’re there to imprint young minds before they learn to question things too hard.

Why the churches are shit scared of this Ethics course

Churches love scripture in public schools, it gives them a very young, largely gullible audience on which to peddle their wares and slow their flock’s decline (if the census reports are anything to go by religion is dying). Without it they immediately lose access to imprint the idea that god exists from 2/3rds of the population and I suspect they realise that means a massive increase in the “no religion” group.

Given their revenue stream (e.g. necessary to keep the pope in gold bling, bullet proof cars and castles) often depends on poor saps believing that God wants them to give up X percent of their income to these paedophile harbouring rich beyond belief scumbags (ok, I’m picking on the catholic church here): they’re worried they won’t make quite as much tax free money to further promote their religion. Plus it’s pretty cost effective going after kids in schools.

If kids actually discuss ethics in a matter of fact way amongst their piers they’ll learn a bunch of things hopefully:

• ethics and morals are created by people (even kids!)
• there are many different ways of justifying different behaviours (equality, self interest etc)
• exploring ideas yourself is much more satisfying than hearing religious books regurgitated
• the act of considering all of the above gives you a framework to handle new situations

These lessons make it quite tough for religious indoctrination. A healthy scepticism in kids? Worst nightmare for religious “teachers”.

Realising this the religious leaders are lobbying hard behind the scenes because if they lose this they’ll lose the “by default” crowd and be left with the same lot they already have for sunday school. People will also get to see that the world will not implode: in fact perhaps less people will be seeking the comfort that religion often gives in a world torn apart by religion. Just imagine! If kids have a well developed sense of morality on which to test run their decisions against: perhaps crime/anti-social behaviour etc might fall.

Religious leaders want right to censor/restrict the course

What really gets me mad about recent articles is that these religious leaders demand rights to censor/vet the secular ethics course. I don’t recall the Catholic church allowing Muslims to dictate what they teach kids. Or perhaps a bit on Xenu from our friendly scientologists would go well with the zombie Jesus story?

Where’s my say as a secularist/humanist/atheist in their dealings?

For a start I’d rewrite some bits in the interests of harmony (and if you’re going to tell a crazy story, at least put some time travel in it!):

Back on track: So basically they want to keep their stranglehold over access to children and want to remove the choice. One particular knob end (Fred Nile.. that’s not a put down for him really if you have been following his trail of fail over the years.. homophobic, sexist, racist etc voids his right to be described politely) type reckons he was given assurances the course would only be offered to those who have already opted out! Why would one set of kids get the offer and not another?

Fred Nile and other religious leaders involved in this “not in MY school’s religious time” whinge: what you’re advocating there raises some ethical questions. Or perhaps you need to ask the St James ethical centre what “ethics” means?

Firstly you’ve brokered some sort of back room deal to suit your own completely out of whack morals to the exclusion of others and then you aren’t in any way giving concession to non Christians.  Secondly where’s the fairness in your model: you provide one viewpoint, so do the other religions therefore it’s natural that you can expect a secular one. To be honest your version of ethics hasn’t worked out too well in the past and present so perhaps you should keep your gob shut.

What is next (in the ethics course)

Here’s the list of topics for the course. Notice no need for fairy-tales and prayers (although perhaps the ethics of lying to children like that might come up):

• Getting started
• Fairness
• Lying
• Ethical principles
• Graffiti
• The use and abuse of animals
• Interfering with nature
• Virtues and vices
• Children’s rights
• The good life

I like to think I base my ethical framework on fairness (the good old “fair go” policy). It seems to me to be an important part of empathising if you can put yourself in other shoes and consider whether you’d like it. This idea has been around far before any of the bunch in scripture scrawled it down. It’s an intuitive concept. I’m glad it’s topic number two, because consideration of it is important across any situation. Sure they might get that from the bible (in amongst the praying, outsourcing to scape goat, loving enemies, praising men willing to sacrifice their children etc) but it certainly isn’t necessary to read the bible to get this. Any number of philosophers or earlier now dead religions had this message. There’s also a cost associated to almost any action, which is something worth considering.

There’s a section on lying, I guess if religious leaders want their material in there it can go under there as a case study in lying. Could also do the topical “religious scandal of the day” where kids discuss whatever the latest stupid Muslim Cleric or Idiot Christian pope has said and to what degree of poor ethical base it comes from.

I’d be interested in knowing where “the good life” discussions would go with a group of kids and the children’s rights would also be interesting. The Church leaders complaining about this course obviously don’t understand that with freedom of religion (essential for them to stay employed) there’s also freedom FROM religion. “No religion” is an equally supported stance under our constitution.

Really, the whole thing is damned interesting I really wish this programme had kicked off a hundred years ago. Never mind, that’s what late night discussions at the pub or BBQ are for I guess, but this is one thing that kids starting early would be great for society.

* Well, we sent a guy called Arron up into the vent as he was most keen. I believe someone blabbed later which cemented the non scripture group as agents of the devil and untrustworthy. Although I do recall something about our off the street local churchie scripture teacher being later embroiled in some sort of child abuse accusation (something which I actually was pretty upset hearing that the accusation was floating around as he seemed like a nice man, albeit spouting rubbish.. anyhow.. Note: I have no idea what happened, could have been baseless or just a rumour or the guy could be in jail now, I dunno..) Yes, we in the unsupervised non scripture group were the untrustworthy ones of course because we were bored and locked in a tiny room with nothing to do.