This is not news. Studies have shown this in the past.
What interests me is the impact this will have on the proposed Ethics classes as an alternative to SRE in schools here in Australia. Where are they going to get all the volunteers from? Here at PBC we have great and committed teachers and we need a team of at least four just for Petersham Public School. All studies show that church goers volunteer much more regularly for this sort of thing.
There is a groundswell of public support for the idea of 'religion free ethics' but (ISTM) no one has thought through how to provide such a thing. My prediction is that there will be a flurry when it all starts but it won't take long until most schools find that they cannot find enough parents willing to come in (during working hours) to teach their kids every week during term time.
Teaching is hard work. Give it a few years and the government will find it has a stark choice: either pay teachers to teach Ethics (but what abut SRE?) or accept that only about 10% of schools can actually carry this off on a regular basis.
2 comments:
Hi John,
I haven't dropped in for a while but I was glad to hear your thoughts on the Ethics question. I haven't blogged on the topic yet (but I almost feel duty bound to do so and will soon). I agree with your central point that there will be precious few people lining up to teach the ethics classes and that it isn't a serious 'direct' threat to Scripture. What is more of a threat is the attack from within schools to undermine the place of Scripture. For me this is the key battleground. The key to this battle is for Christian parents to be involved in public schools (like you and Emily are) and for more Christians to want to teach in public schools. I'm happy for the Ethics class to be offered as an equal option but the danger is that longer term they might make it the only option.
Thanks for the post.
Trevor
I quite agree Trevor. I don't think this Ethics class is a direct threat but it will be just another thing used in the attempt to marginalize and remove Christian SRE.
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