Sep 8 2010: AS CHILDREN return to a new school year many of them will also be returning to the celebration of faiths they do not believe in.
That’s just one of the myriad of problems with faith schools, whether Evangelical, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or other.
I would ban all state association with faith schools, all of them. Education is about educating, it is not about indoctrinating.
We live in a free society where anyone can practice any religion openly and without risk of prosecution.
Why then do we allow schools to exist which openly preach one way of life is better than another?
There’s no place for promoting one religion above the other in a modern multicultural society and faith schools do nothing but encourage the separation of society and alienation of different groups within it.
As an atheist growing up and attending the local Church of England Schools, primary and comprehensive, I felt very alienated by the religious practices which occurred throughout my childhood. I was told by one pupil I’d “die tomorrow” when I confessed to not believing in God (admittedly we were about six) and, in the end, I just used to chant along, eyes shut, to be the same as everyone else.
I imagine it’d have been even more alienating if I’d been a Sikh.
There is a place for education on religion. It's called religious education.
That’s the correct place to discuss different theologies in a comparative context.
It's important to educate children about different religions because it promotes the understanding of different people and cultures. Which is exactly what faith schools do not do.
They teach one particular religion is worthy of more attention than others, which is wrong.
Many parents actively seek to get their children into faith schools. Often that’s more to do with results than religious beliefs.
Increasing numbers of parents, who are atheist or at best agnostic, find their children having to take part in the rituals of a religion they don’t believe in, in exchange for a decent education.
Because that is often the pay-off. Frequently faith schools are seen as desirable, because of the extra funding they get, from churches or religious philanthropists.
This desirability is a situation which perpetuates itself. And faith schools’ admission policies are often much more selective.
And so you get people exaggerating their church-going (a couple of times a year for weddings and christenings) or even claiming a faith which they don’t have to get their children into schools.
And there is another compromise, which is more worrying. Faith schools often preach under the guise of education which is to my mind indefensible.
Lets take Creationism.
Science is a discipline founded on the basis of provable fact and yet there are faith schools teaching Creationism as science.
This is simply just taking a belief system and placing it into a discipline where it has absolutely no right to be.
We may as well teach TS Elliot’s “This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper,” a scientific fact about the end of the world rather than “Armageddon”.
But let’s face it, it isn’t definite fact is it? It’s comment on the human condition and how we fit into the world, just as religion is a way of making sense of the world.
Religion is theory and conjecture, not fact – and science is based on fact.
Also faith schools can either knowingly, or let’s give them the benefit of doubt, unknowingly, preach levels of intolerance which are unacceptable in modern society.
Let’s look at the issue of homosexuality. You have schools preaching the Bible or Koran or Torah that same sex relationships are “wrong”.
Chapters 18 and 20 of Leviticus for example say: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.”, and “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them”.
Of course most people following religions are moderate people, and there are plenty of homosexual priests, but faith schools which preach the Bible as indefatigable truth are indoctrinating people and influencing people negatively.
It’s not like there is no other time for people to get involved with their faith either. That’s why churches have Sunday schools and there’s mosques and Hindu temples – pretty much every religion you know offers some kind of education for its young outside of school hours.
We live in an increasingly diverse society and our education system, which is largely based on equality, should treat faiths on an equal footing in religious education.
Parents who want to can always pay to send their children to a private faith school.
But state sponsorship is a different matter. Free education for all should be based on education only, not indoctrination.
Society has always worked best when it is integrated, when rich live alongside poor, when Muslims live alongside Christians. You separate people and you create a “difference”, which leads to misunderstandings.
My child will be able to follow his own religious path and I want him to make up his own mind. Inevitably there will be influence from my husband and myself and our cultural traditions – we celebrate Christian festivals for example.
But I don’t want him to feel the alienation I did growing up in a religious education system. I want his education to be completely non-secular leaving him to determine his own spiritual path when he is old enough to do so.
Five things to do this week
1: Visit Life Science Centre in Newcastle this weekend for one of their 20-minute presentations, celebrating the 10th birthday of Life and showcasing the best of science demos. The audience votes for what they want to see, so every show is different. Visit before 6pm all weekend, open 10am Saturday and 11am Sunday, 0191 243 8210, www.life.org.uk
2: Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema’s Children’s Film Club is showing Space Chimps (U) this Saturday. The hilarious animated story about a group of chimp astronauts blasted into space to a far away planet. £4 ages 15 and over, £3 for those below 15. Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult, 0845 217 9909, www.tynesidecinema.co.uk
3: This Saturday from 2pm to 4pm, visit Durham University Botanic Garden for an afternoon of arts and crafts, ideal for all children. Enjoy building your own bug or constructing an insect house in the play room. Free after normal admission, 0191 3345521, www.dur.ac.uk/botanic.garden
4: As part of the Heritage Open weekend, the Great North Museum, Hancock, Newcastle, offers free Planetarium shows all weekend. The Heritage Open Days allow all the family to discover the history of wonderful buildings and museums around the North, 0191 222 6765, www.twmuseums.org.uk/greatnorthmuseum
5: Between 11.30am and 4pm this Saturday, visit The Alnwick Gardens for an outdoor art school. Create a masterpiece to take home, this day is suitable for parents and children and is free after paying normal admission. Dress for outdoor or messy play, 01665 511350, www.alnwickgarden.com