Islam, homosexuality and Christianity do not mix well
Dear Oona Stannard
As head of the Catholic Education Service in this country, you have probably been watching the increasingly fraught relationship between religion and public services with a keen interest. Christianity has come in for some rough treatment over the past few weeks and months as Labour drive home their ‘Equality’ and ‘Diversity’ agendas. Your fear that church schools could now be forced to promote Islam and homosexuality under a new legally-binding code of conduct for teachers is well-founded, but ultimately this latest debate comes down to an important semantic distinction.
I am opposed to all faith schools as I do not believe in this day and age that there is any justification for keeping people apart on the basis of their religion. In fact, I still have no idea how it is legal to do so, given the laws we have against discrimination. However, I am also a fierce defender of freedom of speech and expression, which often comes into conflict with my desire for a secular society. The recent story of a school secretary who was fired after her daughter expressed her Christian beliefs in class revealed that the General Teaching Council (the teaching profession’s regulator) has published a draft code of conduct that all teachers will have to sign. Principle 4 of this code states that teachers must “proactively challenge discrimination” and “promote equality and value diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions”. Your worry is that the code will undermine the religious ethos of Christian schools by promoting secular morality and will discriminate against devout staff. Furthermore, this code could be used by liberal groups or parents to discriminate against Christian teachers or target faith schools. An alleged lack of commitment to equality and diversity has already been used by a health trust to suspend Caroline Petrie, a Baptist community nurse, after she offered to pray for an elderly patient. You are concerned that “the call to ‘proactively challenge discrimination’ could be used to oppose faith schools per se, and the rights that they have in law, for example, to select leaders who are of the faith” and that “it would be unacceptable to expect anyone to be required to promote something contrary to their own faith beliefs and, indeed, it would not be possible for a person of faith to promote another faith – this is a matter of conscience.”
As with all of Labour’s equality and diversity rubbish, there is no question that it is targeted at Christianity rather than religions such as Islam. As discussed on this blog not too long ago, Islam is often given special treatment within our education system, much to my annoyance. That said, there is a much broader issue at stake here. ‘Promoting’ something is very different from ‘discussing’ something. I don’t care who you are or where you work – our education system has a duty to expose children to different concepts and ideas, some which they might agree with and some which they might not. There is no place in our teaching profession for anyone, regardless of their skin colour or religion, who refuses to discuss issues such as homosexuality, but by the same token no teacher should ever be allowed to ‘promote’ homosexuality and castigate those who disagree with homosexual relationships or marriage because that is just as bad as not teaching it at all. There is no reason why a Christian cannot teach or discuss something that they don’t agree with. Not all biology teachers believe in evolution, not all RE teachers believe in Buddhism or Hinduism – disagreeing with something is not a barrier to teaching it. I was taught RE by my school chaplain and he was a brilliant teacher of all religions, even though he was a Christian. You gave the example of teachers being forced to use materials designed by homosexual rights groups, which is completely wrong as they clearly have an agenda and seek to ‘promote’ homosexuality, but equally I agree with Christian teachers facing disciplinary action if they tell pupils in RE lessons that Jesus Christ is the only means to salvation because it is not the job of teachers to tell people that one perspective is right or wrong.
I know this is a sensitive issue and, even though I am not in any way religious, I do not believe that Christians should ever be forced out of schools for not ‘promoting’ other religions or agendas that they disagree with. Even so, if we are to create a tolerant and fair society it is essential that schools expose children to challenging ideas, some of which go against devout religious beliefs, and no teacher should be allowed to escape this duty. I know that a lot of recent events might make you feel hard done by, but do not think for one second that you deserve a special ‘opt out’ clause from giving children a proper education.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say except the title.If you left out christian and homosexuality it would be more accutate.
I am intrigued by the fact that ‘faith’ schools get much, much better results, to the extent that some non religious parents ‘take up’ a faith just so that their children get a better education. These schools must be doing something right.
If ‘faith’ schools were abolished wouldn’t we be throwing the baby out with the bath water to some extent?
If I left christianity and homosexuality out of the title, it would just say Islam doesn’t mix – was that the plan?!
Faith schools get much better results because they are selective. For a percentage of their pupils (which I think varies a bit), they can select on the basis of religion – but this is used as a lever to get better pupils from middle class families into the school and push themselves up the league tables. By keeping out the unwanted pupils, they become slightly more academic and have less issues with disruptive behaviour in general, hence the better results.
The question, therefore, is whether as a society we are willing to trade brainwashing and religious segregation for a slight improvement in educational outcomes.
The answer is, therefore, no. The slight improvement in educational outcomes only benefits the few, the loss of cohesion and integration in British society costs us all.
LFOT”was that the plan”Yes,sadly very true.
I’m a happy athiest but one reason faith schools do well is the children are more disciplined,they are usually brought up in stricter homes.I’m talking about those practising their faith as opposed to those using it for births,deaths and marriages.They are the ones more likely to know what their children are up to or where they are outside school.They are also more likely to have the work ethic so not likely to be corrupted by the welfare state into laziness like the white children you wrote about yesterday.
LfaT. My local faith school is not selective. It has excellent results.
Bill, there will clearly be variation between schools but faith schools at a national level frequently cheat the system.
From the Telegraph in December 2008: “A report by the schools adjudicator found that two-thirds of schools controlling their own entrance policies – most of which are faith schools – failed to follow the code on admissions. A large number were found to have asked for extra information from applicants, prompting critics to accuse them of seeking to discover parents’ incomes and marital statuses in order to “cream off” middle-class pupils who tend to do better academically.”
From today’s Times: “Faith schools and academies should be stripped of their power to choose pupils, according to research that suggests that some secondary schools are flouting new rules designed to prevent middle-class pupils dominating the best comprehensives. …The researchers found that some schools were operating a form of backdoor selection by asking for personal information about parents’ marital status, occupation and educational background and even children’s hobbies. It also found that a significant minority of nonselective schools – 5 per cent – were selecting pupils on the basis of aptitude for a particular subject.”
My local faith school is not selective.
This must, logically,be wrong.
Minimally, faith schools select on ‘faith’ criteria (membership of a self-selecting sky-fairy worshipping group). Many were found last year to be selecting on other social and financial criteria (insisting on married parents, ‘requesting’ financial donations and refusing pupils who’s folks didn’t cough up and so on)…
As a rabid atheist, I cannot deny that Roman Catholic schools appear to be better than the others (bizarrely, three out of my four kids attend or have attended such schools), despite spending far too much time on Skye Faeries.
The myth that anybody ‘promotes’ homosexuality is a nonsense, I am sure gays accept that they are in a small minority, all they are doing (rather unsuccessfully, if the past several centuries are anything to go by) is to point out that being homosexual is perfectly natural. Not ‘normal’ but ‘natural’, mind you.
Apart from that, I think dmc nails it. I don’t remember there ever being any arguments between atheists and Christians over taxpayer-funded faith schools before the Muslims came along.
Shaun
There are 42 children eligible for reception.
36 have been accepted. There isn’t room for any more.The remainder go to another faith school. There are no non faith primary schools locally.
I have nothing in favour of faith schools except that they operate on a model of teaching similar to private schools. This is clearly superior to whatever the other method is. I believe 33 out of the 36 can read at a 5 year old level. At least 10 can read at an 8 year old level.
Dumping the good schools to make the others less bad seems a kind of Ed Balls proposal? Its fair. Everyone has an equal chance to fail on their own merits.
Dumping the good schools to make the others less bad seems a kind of Ed Balls proposal?
Indeed it does; I advocate that ALL schools be able to excercise selection and that the ability to selct of fatuous religio-social criteria just be replaced with the right to select.
I’m from the working class. I know how ferral it is, how poorly education is regarded among the British poor. But among them there are always people like my parents who understand the value of education and ensure their children benefit from it. The problem was that my ferral peers decided that because I (and others) dared to actually work, to do homework and to aspire to succeed, we needed the sh*t kicking out of us to see the error of our ways. Their parents were universally dole monkeys on sink estates but through violence, they enforced a culture of ignorance.
Should schools be able sto select pupils from backrounds other than that? Yes, in my opinion, and let those scumbags rot. Teach them to write their name to sign their name to sign on or register for bail but don’t condemn decent kids to suffer in the name of some ideology about not streaming. Let the cream float and the crap sink; it will happen anyway so save money and accept it. Bring back grammar schools to provide an escape route for the talented poor and restore social mobility to 1960s levels. Never thought I’d say that.
Sorry. Had a rant. Going now!
Remembering how people used to call you things like swot & geek?
It happened to me too. But I had the last laugh.
We’ll save the grammar school debate for another day.
Know how you felt Shaun and Asquith,had a real hard time in the secondary school till I stopped going.The head knew what was going on as I was never forced to go again,would have been awkward for him..
Yes, my dad stopped attending school when he was around 14, & never got any paper qualifications, apart from the fact that he’s become fairly skilled through on the job training as a result of being trusted at work & known as someone who will work well & will respond to training & that.
It pretty much ruined his self-esteem for life as he still views himself as stupid & wouldn’t dream of engaging with any form of education, even though he could do so with contemptous ease given his level of natural intelligence.
It will be interesting to see how things change during this recession when hitherto well-off people become economically working-class but not culturally so. There has always been graduate un- & underemployment but I gather it has only affected a minority until now.