The following is an edited extract of an interesting article from here. Emphasis is mine. Choice is all very well, but not at the expense of education Irfan Yusuf February 26, 2008 IT WAS July 2007. I'd almost reached the end of an interview with feisty neo-conservative ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the main attraction at the Sydney Writers Festival. I thought I'd throw in one last question to see how she was settling into her new life at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. I asked what she thought of the debate about teaching intelligent design (a more sophisticated version of creationism) in American schools. Hirsi Ali's answer wasn't exactly diplomatic. People who teach creationism in schools should be imprisoned, she said. It's unlikely this was what Professor Barry McGaw, a senior education adviser to the Rudd Government, had in mind when he suggested faith-based schools were leading to the development of more and more isolated sub-groups in our community. Yesterday's Age reported that [in Australia] more than 200,000 children — almost 40% of non-government school students — attended a religious school outside the main Catholic, Anglican and Uniting systems. Some are taught creationism as part of their science studies. A teacher at one small Christian school was quoted as saying that evolution was taught as a theory. This is exactly how I was taught about evolution by my year 9 science teacher at a Sydney Anglican school. Another critic of faith-based schools, psychologist and educationist Louise Samway, believes faith-based schools are leading to a whole lot of disparate sub-groups that are suspicious of each other. Such views are not limited to supposedly more secular professionals. In January 2005, I was in Melbourne at a workshop led by Swiss Muslim scholar Dr Tariq Ramadan. Now you'd expect that the grandson of the founder of the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood), the Arab world's largest Islamist movement, would support Muslim minorities establishing their own schools. Dr Ramadan, however, suggested that the whole idea of Islamic schools was problematic as it implied that secular schools were somehow less Islamic or even anti-Islamic. He asked participants to consider whether the long-term process of mainstreaming their faith in Australia was being helped or hindered by having their children attend schools open only to Muslims. Dr Ramadan also insisted that learning mathematics and sciences were just as much a requirement of religion as learning how to read the Koran in Arabic. If only his advice had been heeded by the management of Muslim Ladies College in Perth. The college was closed last year by the Education Department because its staff allegedly focused too heavily on teaching theology instead of the established curriculum. According to a 2005 publication on Islamic schools prepared by the NSW branch of the Association of Independent Schools, about 10% of children from Muslim families attend Islamic independent schools. One can only presume similar figures would also apply to children from other religious minorities. But sometimes it isn't independent schools representing an unnecessary clash of values. In August 2005, as education minister responsible for the funding of independent schools, Dr Brendan Nelson blew his dog whistle hard by publicly lecturing Muslim independent schools to teach Australian values or "clear off". Nelson reminded these schools they must display the "National Framework for Values Education", superimposed over which is a silhouette of Simpson and his Donkey, which is at the heart of our sense of national emerging identity. Nelson's advisers forgot to tell him Simpson was an illegal immigrant. ... And what about the students attending such religious schools? How will they cope at university or in the job market where they will be faced with pluralism in religion, culture, ethnicity and sexual preference? Are faith-based schools doing their students a disservice by insulating them from the pluralistic society they will have to operate in when they grow up? What do you think?
This issue is being addressed in India through madrassa reforms that provide a more pluralistic education. Since madrassa education is sometimes the only education that poor families can afford, there is an attempt to make them more suitable for social assimilation.
I went to faith based schools for 7 years, before changing to a public school for one year and then charter for high school. I know for a fact that only teaching religious ideals and never even mention other ideas that are different from these ideals does a great disservice to the students. Because evolution was only insulted in my class and never taught my test scores the following year at a mainstream public school were terrible. Teaching children morals in black and white, can make them rigid and unbending, which makes you intolerant. If my parents had not been open minded themselves I would have faced a terrible problem in high school where I went to school with Jews, Mormans, Buddhists, Catholics, and Atheists or Agnostics. Children should believe in a religion because it satisfies them not because adults tell you that you have to and that there is no alternative.
First off james i would like to say i have some knowlage about this issue because my mother is a teacher working in the catholic system and i have BEEN in the catholic system I was NEVER taught creationsium (infact they taught us that the bible stories were analogies that made sence when put in there historical context) Also this would breach the education department guildlines which would mean a school lost its right to teach compleatly Im a little confused as to the artical actually james.
It all depends on the curriculum they have at each school. I don't think many of those types of schools only teach religion but many aspects of life and education stuff. Although there are some of them that only adhere to their own religions viewpoints I don't think in America there are that many.
The fact that I was put in a catholic school as opposed to just... oh... I don't know... a fucking school (!) is something I still find hard to realize. A 5 year old carted off to learn that Jesus is the miracle working son of god, undertones of creationism... separated from 'protestant' 5 year olds ensuring sectarian divides continue for another generation... Hirsi Ali is right. Imprison these people who are trusted with a childs education and feed them lies. Religion if it's indoctrinated in schools should be made illegal. By all means teach religion as part of history and literature etc. etc... But less of the 'catholic' schooling please.
I attended a C of E (Church of England) school, and there were morning prayers and hymns, and after I grew in confidence, I stopped praying, and singing, to fit in. I'd never believed, but until I was about 12, daren't deviate from the norm. We had R.E. (Religious Education) lessons, but these were not confined to Christianity. We learned about all major religions, and I recall thinking "how come everyone thinks differently, but thinks they are right?", so I fear that in Faith Based Schools, that only teach one religion, pupils won'g get exposed to other religions, and won't womder why people differ, they will just be told their faith is right and no more. Schools have a responsibility to produce adolescents that can integrate into society, so one dimensional religious education flies in the face of that. I would prefer religion to be kept out of schools altogether, and be left to be indulged in as an extra-curricular activity.
In terms of methodology the public schools I went to were faith based. We were told a great number of truths, which we were supposed to accept, and very rarely were we allowed to use Critical thinking. In fact it was often punished. Social Studies was a wonderful example of this where nationalism and a strangely one sided history of the US and world was presented to us. Other subjects as well were run along faith based lines. We should have faith in what they told us. I go into greater depth on the issue in this post: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1763785&highlight=public#post1763785 I think before secularists, a group most monotheists would lump me in, get too high and might about, for example, christian schooling they should focus most on their own pedagogy. I think they often confuse content and form issues in education and think that the education is not faithbased because the content is secular.
I'm presently attending a faith based university, and I can see how that fear would be raised. However, provided the school is not attempting to shelter the student from the existence of a pluralistic society, then there is no reason to think that having a faith based education wouldn't help the religious person as opposed to hurting him.
