Rule of the Mob - Batley School

Not sure about banning Religious schools. As much as I'm generally anti-religion, I do very much believe in freedom of speech and banning religious schools feels contrary to that. However, I don't think religious schools should be publicly funded and I DO very much believe that religion should NOT be taught in public schools. I'm also uncomfortable with the extent to which certain social and political agendas are creeping into how children are being taught. Schools should be about teaching academic and practical subjects and developing children to think critically and speak openly.

I completely agree - under no circumstances should protests be allowed outside of schools whilst children are in attendance.

 

I'm no doubt one of the 'woke lefties' that our resident right wing authoritarian @Tony Wilkinson is referring to.
My take is that it was stupid of the teacher to show the cartoons knowing full well, as an RE teacher, that this is totally verboten in Muslim culture and was (rightly or wrongly) bound to cause upset. Particularly as those particular cartoons were deliberately designed to offend and had previously caused international outrage. I can see that purpose of doing so was to illustrate intolerance, so in one sense it was well meaning, but the chances of this approach working, without provoking predictable angst, were next to zero, so it was extremely poor judgement by the teacher. There are plenty of other ways to illustrate how certain minority groups are discriminated against, without using those, already infamous, cartoons.
Having said all that, I dislike all religions and think they all get cut far too much slack. If you must believe evidence-free fairy tales about supreme beings and waste your life worshipping imaginary creators that's up to you. But I don't see why that means the majority who don't can't say, or illustrate, what we think about your lifestyle choices. There are far more real and important injustices to protest about than someone drawing a nasty cartoon about an ancient prophet. I can absolutely see the worth of teaching kids about comparitive cultures, but that shouldn't just be centred on religion. If people insist on indoctrinating their children about their particular brand of fairy tale, so be it. But I think that should happen at home or in churches, mosques, Sunday schools etc. Religious schools are an anachronism that provoke division and if it was up to me I'd follow the French example and ban the lot of them.

 

On this occasion you can be excused as you have a sensible grab of the situation under discussion, just the other 20 odd subjects to get right and 'til then consider yourself still on probation..

 

It wouldn't offend me, just like photos in books of wars and atrocities don't offend me.

 

Keelfy has hit the nail right on the head. All about context. Most of those 'protesting' outside Batley Grammar won't have had a clue what the context was. Look, if some want to get on their knees and worship a make believe sky pixie then i ain't gonna stop them. Just don't get upset when non believers pick you up on it.

 

A funny story from the other week, a lad i work with from time to time is in to this Jesus and God stuff, all the stuff about animals on arks and all that. His young daughter came home from primary school before lockdown and wanted to become a muslim because all her mates at school are. poor fella was distraught

 

That's the religious equivalent of my lad saying to me 'Dad, I wanna be a Leeds fan'.

 

If we are stereotyping they would be in a good place by asking a teacher for tips

 

Sure, I understand that most RE teaching, at least in secular state schools, is comparitive. But even calling it RE elevates religion to a status that I don't believe it should have. It's only one aspect of culture but is given a prominence that others don't get. And I wonder how much comparitive religion is taught in some faith schools, which are little short of indoctrination centres.

 

I don't mean to be disparaging of anyone's faith, as I know it can be a source of real comfort and purpose for some. However, it strikes me that religion is little more than an outdated concept, centered around a quest for determining mean and the origins of the world, and to establish control systems for the masses. I wouldn't mind so much if religion was taught on that basis - i.e. apply critical thinking to challenge the foundation of those religious beliefs and where they came from. Thinking back, when I was at school in the 80s, Christianity was broadly taught as gospel, Christian songs sung in assembly. It was strongly inferred that the bible was 'the word of god'. There was no reference whatsoever to it being a book written by a collection of people - in some cases hundreds of years after Jesus was apparently alive, with bits added and removed according to whoever held dominion of that particular faith at any point in time.

 

I would be too.

 

Talking of hymns being sung at school, one of the schools that I attended at morning assembly we used to sing "Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken".
Found out later in life that the Headmaster was leader of the local BNP.
It all makes sense now. We only had half a dozen Asians in the school and there always seemed to be one of them stood outside his office.

 

It's a fair point but there's no need to limit this to religion. It could and should come under a larger subject piece of "societal and cultural studies" which could encompass elements of economics, politics, religion, cultures, history, taxation, etc, etc. There is no reason for religion to be held out on it's own to the exclusion of all these other (more?) important aspects of how our world has been shaped.

 

He wasnt called Stanley Garnett by any chance was he ? my old form master at Lapage Boys School he was quite a character was our Stanley.

 

Would be much more useful to teach the kids more science, see and research pictures from hubble and then start the discussion..

 

It will not matter in the end, There are forecasts that in around 20-30 years with present population traits the country will be mainly Muslim and Christianity will be a minority religion if allowed at all

 

That would take some growth as currently 60% are Christian and less than 5% are Muslim

 

Sounds like some nonsense right wing conspiracy theory to me.