Religion in schools

the Afrikaner Culture is generally way too conservative.

Too True! I grew up in a house where my father was the ultimate conservative afrikaans speaking christian and my mother was the ultimate free spirit english speaking hippie. guess opposites attract or something. :-\

Being horribly rebellious as a teen is of course excusable in the eyes of the then older generation - after all, they tend to think: ‘oh shes just a kid, what does she know’. I have subsequently gotten myself into a professional situation where i would really no longer enjoy my bosses’ support if they knew what i really thought about their religious views. I commend you for raising your kids in such a courageous way, because i think it would have been much easier if i were able to toe the line (i find it exceptionally difficult to keep my mouth shut at appropriate times sometimes :-[) Instead i am pretty sure i am going to get myself fired pretty soon. Some things never change…

It would have been easier if I was able to toe the line too, I understand what you’re saying, as for the rest, well, I happen to be looking frantically for a new job for exacly the reasons you’ve stated.

We’re hijacking the thread a tad, is admin comfortable with this or want to divert this discussion to a new thread possibly? I personally would like to find out if the rest of us were rebellious teens and outspoken adults?

Just start a new thread and continue there, I’ll move the relevant posts if needed :wink:

Presumably the endorsement of a religion by a state school is unconstitutional? How does it work in SA? Are these schools just getting away with murder because of the overwhelming support for Christianity in this country? Is there a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by the state in terms of their schools endorsing particular religions?

My other question/issue: is this the mother of all wasps nests? Could challenging religious endorsement by state schools trigger a wave of resentment against the godless SA constitution?

It’s pretty obvious to any rational person that official instruction in a particular religion exerts strong peer pressure on religious minorities. Of course, South Africa is not exactly over-burdened with the rational.

My other question/issue: is this the mother of all wasps nests? Could challenging religious endorsement by state schools trigger a wave of resentment against the godless SA constitution?

This has already happened, in fact I’m surprised you don’t know about it. HUGE media controversy after he threatened legal action against such “state” schools. The wasps nest was so badly disturbed the skeptic making the claims (Prof George Claasen) had to retract his views and decided to just shut up about the whole issue (I’m guessing death threats).

Hmm… Missed that one. I follow the news but don’t watch TV. Might be the reason.

Shouldn’t the first baby step here be to publicise the plight of religious students of non-christian faiths and how they feel about being excluded from religious lessons in state schools? Make it all about the children. Good, religious children.

Maybe the way to go is to use the rights of the child to force christian schools to provide religious instruction to other religions. Since this would be unsustainable, they might then decide themselves to back away from the whole thing?

My son is in Gr 10 at a public high-school in Pta. All I did was write a letter saying we are not religious and that he should be excused from chapel (he goes to a study-session in the library instead). When he started at this school in Gr 8 he was nearly expelled for “satanism” - this is when I told the vice-principle that atheism is not anti-religion, it is the absence of religion. So, I considered fighting the system but have since realized that it would be as effective as trying to empty the ocean with a tea-cup. Most of the teachers are over-the-top-born-again-fundamentalists who took up a teaching career as a “calling” from Gawd. They still try and “reach” my son but he’s a bright kid and way out of their league (hehe). We now just keep our mouths shut and heads down and try not to rock the boat too much. Cowardly? Naa - I don’t think so. I just want my son to get his matric and have found that making waves will not change anything. Frustrating but realistic.

My youngest daughter matriculated some years ago at St Mary’s in Kloof durbs (private school). When she started there she started asking questions in RE (Religious Education) at my behest…like why is the course RE and we only learn about Christianity…so the school started the odd Muslim lesson…given by a fundamentalist Christian, no less…the next question: what about Judaism…no response…then ‘my father’s an atheist and he’s prepared to give a talk on why he believes there is no god’…she became a marked person; the shock of being seen to be ‘different’ and peer pressure started telling on her in boarding school and she became anorexic (I was in Dar es Salaam for a year). It took about two years to get her back to ‘normal’ after we removed her from boarding and today she’s a well balanced (whatever that means ;D) young woman. To end: We have four kids: One into spiritualism; one religious and two atheist. family discussions are way cool! >:D

People don’t want us to say anything about Atheism. I offered my services to a Pastor the other day. He has a Bible school and I said I would come and give a talk about atheism to the final-year students. He laughed and made a joke but I could see that there was no way he would allow it. My son is an outspoken atheist (I’ve tried to calm him down but hey - he’s 15 going on 16) and he has a very lonely school life. Other kids see him as weird and the teachers … well, let’s just say he’s not very popular (and he gets in the 90’s for maths, 80s for English etc).

Common problem it would seem, my youngest is 14 and has similar problems, he had a spat earlier this year with his two friends, patched it up briefly, but are now “friendless”. He’s optimistic though, he feels High School next year will bring more opportunities with regard to like-minded friends. Fortunately he’s okay with being on his own. Its tough at their age. My eldest was fortunate enough to have had friends with likeminded parents since primary school and these issues never really became a problem for him.

Off the topic somewhat…but who is God going to support for the Super 14…everytime a try is scored by Brian Habana or Pierre Spies and some others…the finger is high in the sky? sickening demonstratism. Keep it to yourselves poephols! ???

who is God going to support for the Super 14

You’d have to check with your local bookie. I’m guessing God cares so much about tries being scored because he’s a gambling addict, one that always wins.

Naaw! he’s gone fishing!

Things will definitely improve for these kids when they leave school. Especially in university, religion may abound, but it certainly loses its dominance. In UCT it was a joke (although not enough of one yet).

It would never cross my mind to accuse a parent of cowardice for avoiding the viciousness with which the religious will demand their unjust privileges. I propose that we use baby steps - primarily focused on agitating for RE to be done on a sectarian basis within religion. Draw attention to Catholic children forced to experience RE taught by non-Catholics. Methodists taught by Anglicans, etc.

Taken against individual Christian sects, the non-religious are one of the biggest groups in the country (if not the biggest). The problem comes when Christians of all sects forget about their usual antipathy to join against us. Can we not find means to demand the rights of religious kids to be taught by those from within their sects (“This Anglican teacher is teaching that evolution is real and fits in with Christianity.” or “This Baptist is teaching that gay people will go to hell.”)?

Couldn’t a strategy be devised to draw the attention to the common ground of children being indoctrinated by those with different views to their parents? I think a lot of them want the same things we do. How would they react to find that their kids were being taught Mormonism in school? But the problem then is, if you have to provide separate instruction for each sect, it becomes infeasible, firstly, and secondly it becomes much harder to argue that atheist kids should be able to have their legitimate equivalent time. We might even find allies among religious moderates who’d be prepared to push for their kind of religion to be co-taught at more fundamentalist schools.

In South Africa though, always baby steps. I think if atheists were to have a public service campaign, the first step would be “good without god,” because I’m sure the average Christian thinks that we endorse any kind of evil the moment we’re not scared of the dictator in the sky. The “Satanist” argument.

“Good without God” sounds brilliant. I will put my thoughts into this and maybe do something through Religion-Free Africa. Good idea - get public awareness up, initiate dialog, etc. :slight_smile:

BTW, I see Faerie’s “vloermoer” (Reply #5) got stuck as a Google tag for this thread (see bottom of page). Very educational!

I’m moerig.

My youngest lad applied the beginning of the year to be included in the leadership council - the way it works is that all the children have the opportunity to apply for a “job” on the leadership council, and all will be accepted. Certain duties are then dished out and if they complete said duties they will get “promoted” in their “jobs” and receive a purple shirt to indicate their promotion. Well, my lad didnt get his purple shirt start of the second term and in discussion with me indicated that he thought it was because he was late in reporting for duty one morning, we left it at that.

Come second term though, he put all in to achieve the longed for purple shirt, he volunteered for extra duties and I did the whole pick-up and drop-off thing over week-ends and evenings to aid him in his goal. He was overseen again this term, so I phoned the school now and enquire their reasoning. Oh-sorry, he doesnt attend the bible study group that was established for the leadership council and therefor it excludes him from progression…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Jissis it makes me furious.

Jesus Christ, what a load of horseshit!

Faerie, does their leadership council have some sort of “constituion”? Does it say that atheists are excluded?
This looks like an opportunity to bring up the topic of discriminating against other people’s beliefs or lack thereof. Do Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/Hari Krishna kids get passed over when it comes to “promotions”?

mdg

you’re justified in your moerig-hate: I would write a letter to the Governing Board and advise them that this type of discrimination is unconstitutional and unfair in the education of a child. Maybe somebody needs to take this further in a test case!

I’ve made an appointment to go see the headmaster as well as the council’s managers (teachers), and their explanations will have to be damn good. He already buckled under pressure to read a passage from the bible during assembly in the mornings (he justified it to himself/me that regardless of what he reads, at least he’s getting experience in speaking in front of crowds-and I let him be on that one). They are aware of his secular status - and he himself describes himself as an evolutionist, and they certainly did not tell either of us that by not joining the study group he will be bypassed for promotion, if that was the case, he most likely would’nt have applied for the position in the first place. Its just the DISAPPOINTMENT of a 14 year old who still believes that the world is a good and just place. It makes me want to fold up into a blob of jelly and cry for him.