Humanist curriculum in Australian schools
Des Vize
http://www.theage.com.au/national/religion-in-schools-to-go-godfree-20081213-6xxs.html
VICTORIAN state primary school students will soon have an alternative
— religious education lessons taught by people who do not believe in
God and say there is "no evidence of any supernatural power".
The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum, which the
State Government accreditation body says it intends to approve, to
deliver 30-minute lessons each week of "humanist applied ethics" to
primary pupils.
Accredited volunteers will be able to teach their philosophy in the
class time designated for religious instruction. As with lessons
delivered by faith groups, parents will be able to request that their
children do not participate.
Victorian Humanist Society president Stephen Stuart said: "Atheistical
parents will be pleased to hear that humanistic courses of ethics will
soon be available in some state schools."
But the body that accredits Victoria's 3500 Christian religious
instruction volunteers, Access Ministries, says humanism is not a
religion and so should not be taught in religious education time.
Access Ministries now teaches in about two-thirds of state primary
schools. Other accredited instructors teach Judaism, Buddhism and Baha'i.
The Humanist Society does not consider itself to be a religious
organisation and believes ethics have "no necessary connection with
religion". Humanists believe people are responsible for their own
destiny and reject the notion of a supernatural force or God.
Fundamentalist Christian group the Salt Shakers panned the idea of
humanists being given religious education class time.
Research director Jenny Stokes said: "If you go there, where do you
stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism?
"If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim
to be taught in schools."
But RMIT professor Desmond Cahill, head of the World Conference of
Religions for Peace, the body appointed by the Government to accredit
all non-Christian volunteer religious teachers in state primary
schools, has praised the humanist curriculum.
He said he could foresee no problem with approving it. "Our view would
be that humanist studies are a legitimate world view just as
Catholicism, Anglicanism or Islam is, and that none are any more
provable than the rest, just as theism or atheism are no more provable
than the other."
Professor Cahill also intends to approve a proposal by Muslim leaders
to allow volunteers to teach religion in state primary schools.
"I think there's a greater realisation that Australia's emerging as a
multi-faith society, which means the acceptance of non-Christian
religions … there's an increasing realisation that the notion of
religion has expanded to include all kinds of spiritualities and
associated world views, including atheist and humanist world views."
Humanist Society education director Harry Gardner said he had designed
a course to be taught from prep to year 6 called "Applied Ethical
Education — Humanism for Schools". It covers subjects such as the art
of living, the environment, philosophy, science and world citizenship.
The curriculum is likely to be submitted for approval next year.
Dr Gardner, a former CSIRO research scientist, said his course adopted
the "honesty ethic of science (that is, not fudging results)" with the
intention that children would be inspired to think for themselves.
"If accredited for use in schools, the Humanist Society of Victoria
envisages that the volunteer teachers would develop a comradely
relationship to the regular religious instructors in adjacent rooms,"
he said.
But Access Ministries chief executive Evonne Paddison said while it
was not her decision as to who should or should not have access to
state schools, she did not think humanism fell under "the relevant
legislation to be classified as a faith-based religion in religious
instruction in the way that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and
Hinduism" did.
Ms Stokes said humanists could not expect to have it both ways. "It
doesn't make sense because they proclaim themselves not to be a
religion," she said.
Religious instruction in state schools should be Christian because
"basically we are a Christian nation", she said.
Callan
should be secular and if that's not possible at least a rational world
view should be available as an alternative to religious instruction
(which I think should only be taught from an impartial cultural/
historical perspective in state schools)
Could anyone enlighten me on the legislated religious stance of NZ
i.e. are we officially (constitutionally) a secular nation as I
understand we are?
I ask as I am curious about the technicalities regarding the public
funding of religious schools...
My brother is studying to become a teacher in Canterbury and is the
only atheist in his class, he is literally ridiculed for his atheist
world view, for example in an astronomy component when he mentioned
the popular theory that the moon may have been formed after another
planetary body collided with earth he was asked "what makes you think
that mate... evolution?".
I personally find it disturbing that such an apparently high
percentage of the people who are going to teach our nations children
are of firm religious inclination.
On Dec 15 2008, 11:09 pm, "Des Vize" <des.v...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >http://www.theage.com.au/national/religion-in-schools-to-go-godfree-2...
David Stott
seems it would be time to argue for this stance here if it's not already the
case (I do remember that my son was the first in his class to be excused
from religious teaching in the mid-eighties). However, it seems that the
Australian move could be used as a great precedent, especially since the
stats show NZ has a much higher proportion of atheists and a lower
proportion of Christians.
In our last census, NZ was half Christian and one third "no religion", with
the remaining one sixth split finely. The trend over the last ten years
shows Christianity decreasing by 1% of the population every year, and "no
religion" increasing by 1% every year. At that rate, they'll both have the
same numbers in about 8 years. It's very likely that Christianity has by now
dropped below the 50% mark meaning the claim that we are a "Christian
nation" is no longer factually correct in New Zealand.
In Australia, the rate of change is almost as dramatic with Christianity
dropping from 68% to 63.9% from 2001 to 2006, and "no religion" increasing
from 15.5% to 18.7% in the same period. (However, in Australia, there is a
large component (11.2%) which is labelled "Not stated/inadequately
described" which may mask the rates of change.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Australia
David
Helen Breeze
Jeremy Butler
From: NZbr...@googlegroups.com on behalf of David Stott
Sent: Fri 6/02/2009 9:00 a.m.
To: NZbr...@googlegroups.com
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Des Vize
Des Vize
www.the-brights.net
THE BRIGHTS: ILLUMINATING AND ELEVATING THE NATURALISTIC WORLDVIEW.
(A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview, free of supernatural and mystical elements.)