#ChildrenAndEducation

[jafrancis-blog]

Religious schools urged to open up places to pupils without faith Published: 9 July, 2014 BY RICHARD OSLEY http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2014/jul/religious-schools-urged-open-places-pupils-without-faith? FAITH schools in Camden are being urged to open up their classrooms to more pupils who do not worship in a bid to help ease the borough’s strained admissions process. An independent consultant has reported that greater access to schools run by the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church would ease problems in areas of high demand.” I say: The actual solution would be to give parents the real option to choose non-faith schools, rather than being in the situation in some areas of England where all of the Schools in a catchment are faith schools. You could also begin a campaign to encourage middle class parents that local non-denominational schools are perfectly capable of educating their children - but that would have to come along with a promise to really believe in comprehensive education and put resources into those schools, and it would have to battle the prejudices of the populace. British people are not ready to face a debate on class division and on social inequality - they’d rather hide the issue behind faith schooling.

[jafrancis-blog]

While the idea of “Christian Britain” is largely imaginary for many, it remains entangled with the history of religious education. Such debates are now resurfacing amid a call from within the Church of England itself – by the Bishop of Oxford – to abandon the law requiring Christian worship in state schools. (.....) In the context of World War II, it somehow made sense to assert: "It will be of little use to fight, as we are fighting today, for the preservation of Christian principles, if Christianity itself is to have no future, or at immense cost to safeguard religion against attack from without if we allow it by neglect to be from within." It was oft-repeated rhetoric like this which fuelled the imagination of a “Christian Britain”, and enabled a direct link between the national cause in war, Christianity, and British identity. Soon afterwards the BBC began its long-running Religious Service for Schools, as well as a religious epilogue to its Children’s Hour. Ultimately, such rhetorical optimism led to the religious clauses of the 1944 Education Act, which included making collective worship in maintained schools the obligatory beginning to every school day. (....) .... the sometime bishop of Bristol, Frederick Cockin, pointed out that though the 1944 Act had stipulated that religious worship should take place daily, it nowhere required that it be Christian. He went on, somewhat ruefully to say: “we shall do no service to the Christian position by trying to insist on a position of privilege”. Even so, whatever form “worship” might take – and Cockin remained committed to its legal standing – he argued its value to the school community needed to provide the substance of the rationale for its place in the school day. Diverse perspectives of staff and students on religion also needed to be acknowledged and taken into account: Christian allegiance should not be assumed. By the 1970s, it had become even clearer that educational reasons alone could provide justification for continuing with the practice of compulsory school worship. It seemed no longer justifiable to make a key aim of worship to foster Christian belief. In 1975, John Hull pronounced school worship “dead” in its Christianising form, which Hull argued was “indoctrination”. Instead, in his book School Worship: an obituary, he proposed certain reforms, effective changes of tone and emphasis. These included that “assemblies” would encourage a reflective approach to living, demonstrate democratic values, and provide an objective experience of worship, without necessarily expecting children to give cognitive assent. In an increasingly multi-faith Britain, such proposals made pragmatic sense, winning widespread assent amongst educators, both Christian and not. However, the liberalising trends represented by Hull’s intervention suffered at the hands of cultural conservatives embued in the politics of the Thatcher era who were concerned to preserve posited British Christian identity. The 1988 Education Reform Act can be read in this vein. School worship has been made a feature of the totem that is the British identity and values debate. Fears of its erosion are implicated in a sense of loss of an imagined past. If Britain were ever Christian, it was not so in any straightforward and uncomplicated way, whether by measures of churchgoing, popular sentiment or demonstrations of civil religiosity.

Stephen G. Parker, Professor of the History of Religion and Education at University of Worcester

http://theconversation.com/christian-britain-has-always-been-imaginary-its-time-to-teach-children-that-28696

[jafrancis-blog]

People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that’s true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

http://slaughterhouse90210.tumblr.com/page/2

[jafrancis-blog]

Powerlessness and fear, combined with invisibility, are at the heart of the story of the mother and baby homes, of which we can expect to hear a great deal more in the near future. Remember that word “invisibility”. We have our own invisible people these days, but more of that later. (...) The mothers bonded with their babies, but had to get them ready themselves on a few hours’ notice to be taken away. “The night before he went, his clothes were left out and you were told to be up at 6.30am to bathe him and get him ready for going to America. I didn’t sleep that night,” one mother said. “I remember getting up and going in to bath him and dress him. I remember the little beige coat and the little bit of velvet on the collar, brown shoes and beige socks. “I carried him over to the door. The nun just said to me, ‘kiss and goodbye now’, and she just whipped him away. “Afterwards, not one came and said ‘are you lonely, how are you feeling?’.” The religious will say they reflected attitudes in society. They certainly reflected some attitudes, but they were supposed to represent a God who preached love, and yet many showed a complete absence of compassion to these girls.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/the-nun-just-said-to-me-kiss-and-goodbye-now-and-she-just-whipped-him-away-1.1833404

[jafrancis-blog]

The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.

Audre Lorde

[jafrancis-blog]

Students who are loved at home, come to school to learn, and students who aren't, come to school to be loved.

Nicholas A. Ferroni

reblogged from adventuresinlearning whose comment was:

"heartbreaking but often true."

[jafrancis-blog]

Meet The Elements Iron is a metal, you see it every day Oxygen, eventually, will make it rust away Carbon in its ordinary form is coal Crush it together, and diamonds are born Come on come on and meet the elements May I introduce you to our friends, the elements? Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are Neon's a gas that lights up the sign for a pizza place The coins that you pay with are copper, nickel, and zinc Silicon and oxygen make concrete bricks and glass Now add some gold and silver for some pizza place class Come on come on and meet the elements I think you should check out the ones they call the elements Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are Team up with other elements making compounds when they combine Or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind Balloons are full of helium, and so is every star Stars are mostly hydrogen, which may someday fill your car Hey, who let in all these elephants? Did you know that elephants are made of elements? Elephants are mostly made of four elements And every living thing is mostly made of four elements Plants, bugs, birds, fish, bacteria and men Are mostly carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen Come on come on and meet the elements You and I are complicated, but we're made of elements Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are Team up with other elements making compounds when they combine Or make up a simple element formed out of atoms of the one kind Come on come on and meet the elements Check out the ones they call the elements Like a box of paints that are mixed to make every shade They either combine to make a chemical compound or stand alone as they are

They Might Be Giants,

'Science is Real' CD and animated films

[jafrancis-blog]

There is no significant pressure from religious students to censor atheists and Humanists on campus, rather universities and unions are taking it upon themselves to be offended on behalf of religious students. The irony is that free expression of religious and non-religious students are bound together, not least as many religious beliefs could be deemed offensive to any other religion. The right for a Christian to say that Jesus was the son of God is the same right for a Muslim to say he was a prophet or for me to say he was neither. The expression of all three views must be protected.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rory-fenton/atheism-students_b_5434739.html

[jafrancis-blog]

Remember to be a fool. Sounds crazy, because foolishness is, by definition, a person who lacks good sense or judgment— but I’m here to tell you that good sense and judgment are highly overrated. Wisdom is too often just a fancy word for cynicism. And foolishness is a condescending word for joy, wonder and curiosity." "Turns out, the world provides us with virtually infinite opportunities to be a fool…only a fool would risk failure. Be that fool." "Only a fool would work hard when there’s no clear objective. Be that fool…Be a fool and work hard at whatever is right in front of you." "Only a fool would deliberately scare himself. Be that fool…it’s the most potent catalyst for growth." "Only a fool would disregard his past and future. Be that fool. We should all learn from our past and plan for our future, right? Well, sort of. The problem is we often take it too far and we undervalue the present…staying present in the moment is counter-intuitive, but it’s worth it." "Somewhere deep inside, we all share the secrets of the world, the human condition, all of the arts and sciences. How you live your life determines how many of those secrets will be revealed to you. Pursuing knowledge and responsibility gets you halfway there. The other half can only be tapped by being a glorious and wonderful fool…the world out there cultivates conformity and cynicism, but you don’t have to. Take a stand, put up a fight and be a fool.

Ed Helms's commencement speech at Cornell University

I almost just quoted this "Somewhere deep inside, we all share the secrets of the world."

[jafrancis-blog]

As for education, schools in England and Wales are mandated to have daily Christian worship. What sort of state schools are forbidden in England and Wales? Despite the presumed anti-religious jackboot ruling over us, it’s not Catholic, Anglican, Muslim or Jewish schools: it is secular schools. You won’t find parents pretending to be atheists to get their children educated: “We had to go to lectures about Bertrand Russell every Saturday to make sure that we could get Cyril into our local atheist school.”

Robin Ince

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/01/christians-aren’t-being-driven-out-public-life-–-they’re-just-losing-their-unfair-a

[jafrancis-blog]

If you have children in a Scottish school, it is somehow understood that you want them automatically enrolled in religious instruction as well as in actual worship. To say “No thanks,” you have to fill out paperwork to permanently excuse your tykes from the Jesus-y goodness that is so kindly proffered. Why doesn’t the assumption run the other way — with the default being that no child ought to be subjected to state-sponsored religious indoctrination without active parental permission?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/09/08/scottish-national-church-is-livid-over-proposal-to-ask-parents-if-kids-should-worship-in-public-schools/

Hemant Mehta

[jafrancis-blog]

Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

[jafrancis-blog]

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

John Steinbeck, 1938 journal entry

Of Mice and Men having been dropped by exam boards in England after pressure from Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

'Paul Dodd, OCR's head of GCSE and A-level reform said Mr Gove "had a particular dislike for Of Mice and Men and was disappointed that more than 90% of candidates were studying it."'

source: The Herald, May 26th

[jafrancis-blog]

New Book As you open its lid your mind unlocks. The book itself is a brand new box. And you pore that book by day and night, For the book is a block of pure delight. Then when you're done and text is read and your eyes are tired but your mind feels fed, you may place that book on the silent shelf but a bit of the book has become your new self

Tony Mitton

[jafrancis-blog]

A blog about adult education and learning by Paul Stanistreet

"The students considered at length whether the ideas of the Enlightenment would have filtered down to working people, whether there was a strong desire for change in the wider population, and where working people would have gathered to discuss and debate. Lynn argued that while poverty made people angry, often the only way working people could express their feelings was through violent struggle, as in the Porteous Riots of 1736. That struggle though is inadequately recorded. Ordinary people did not have the time to reflect on their lives or on the way society is structured, often telling their stories orally through poetry and song. Even now, said community activist Anna Hutchison, the people of Edinburgh do not know the history of their own city – certainly not the real history."

[jafrancis-blog]

It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.

L.R. Knost