Judeo-christian values and quality of life

So Ethics classes are a hot topic in the media again. On Saturday it was all about a New South Wales government inquiry, and Fred Nile still wanting to put a stop to the classes.  I actually get excited every-time Fred Nile jumps up in parliament and rips on the secular ethics classes. It always starts this whirlwind of debate about religious education and the benefits of philosophical ethics for children. I think Fred Nile is creating a bit of the Streisand effect, and unwittingly promoting the questioning of the current laws surrounding religion in schools across the country. And so, for a nice change of pace, it was Queensland in the paper today.

Personally I hope that more states follow New South Wales' lead and introduce a secular alternative to scripture (RE, SRE, RI or whatever else you want to call it). But, I digress. The title of this blog, "Judeo-christian values and quality of life" pretty much sums up what I wanted to blog about. There is a common argument that Western countries, like Australia, are some of the best places in the world to live because of their Judeo-christian values. I have read this time and time again. I have a couple of observations about this. If it is indeed Christianity which has helped us out so much, I'm at a loss explain the enormous divide in the quality of life between my country and those in Latin and South America. And check out the Gaza strip. Plenty of Jews around there, and surely they at least have the "Judeo" part of the values.

I'm not saying that  "Don't steal, Don't kill, Don't lie" aren't pretty good guidelines and that Jesus didn't have some pretty neat proverbs to help with understanding morals and ethics. What I am saying is that this can't be the only thread of morality holding our society together, and probably isn't the reason for their success. I'm going support this argument with another personal observation:

Civil Rights. Free Market. The Enlightenment

Bugging my MP about Primary ethics classes.. again

Rev. Fred Nile thinks he has the upper hand an declared war on Primary Ethics classes, again. And again, I have written to my State Member. I urge you to do the same if you are appalled that Rev Nile would use our children as a "trump card" to manipulate the government to get his own way.

The following is an adapted version of my letter:

The issue of Primary ethics is one close to my heart. I've been following it since April last year. I watched the success of the pilot. And now I teach the ethics class at my local school.

I understand that politics often involves power plays and manipulation, it come with the territory. Rev Nile has always made his opinions regarding the Ethics classes well known and this stunt really wasn't surprising. But please allow me to give you some quick facts about the Primary Ethics program and my experiences in the classroom. As of June 2011, Primary Ethics had started 180 Ethics classes in 128 schools across the state, teaching about 2700 students in Years 5&6 each week. Primary Ethics managers claim that there are about 100,000 children whose parents opt their kids out of SRE classes, and we are offering an alternative (it is not compulsory) to that section of each school. 

These classes promote higher order thinking. They are philosophy classes. Ethics is the study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning: good, bad, freedom, virtues, rationality... etc (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy). In these classes children learn to investigate how they behave in a moral context, and why they choose to do it. The curriculum puts a strong emphasis on reasoning. Without realizing it (or being able to define it in the same way as a university philosophy text book might), the students in my class have learned to recognise "circular reasoning". Rather than state "Your premise assumes the conclusion", they'll say "you've just said the same thing twice". But in its most simplistic form, the class is learning to see logical flaws in others arguments. While this may have created an issue 6 months ago, being a potential chance to "put someone down" they have also learned to respect each other. Fallacious arguments are pointed out with care and consideration. Students will often then reflect upon the comments of their classmates. Furthermore, the children love the classes. They are held right before lunch recess, and yet there is a communal groan when I tell them it's over.

Now, for my personal opinion. Keeping in mind the critical analysis skills these students are learning, the fact the ethics teachers require formal training and ongoing monitoring and that the curriculum has been approved by the DEC (formerly known as the DET) I can see possible validity in the argument, from those who oppose the classes, that the SRE children are disadvantaged by not attending the ethics course. I disagree that cancelling ethics is the answer. Surely the solution would be to fight for inquiry based learning, and higher order thinking to become more widely spread throughout the entire general curriculum, rather than scrapping the only subject based on philosophy.

I then finished be asking my PM to fight to keep the Liberal Party's promise not to cancel the program.
I ask that you write to your member if this issue is important to you too.

Over, and Out

National Identity replacing Religious Identity as a way of forming "Imagined communities"

This link will take you to the ABC Drum where there is an audio interview with Scott Stephens. Mr Stephens is the Online Editor of Religion and Ethics for the ABC. In this interview, at about 11:10 Scott Stephens mentions that only stupid people would not acknowledge the important role of religion in 'binding people together or creating associations".


Perhaps in the past.


Baldwin, et al, Recognize the decline in organised religion in western societies and that westerns tend to create their "imagined communities' around ideas of National identity instead (2004, "introducing cultural studies" Pearson Education Limitied. pp157-158, 167, 289)


At this point I should mention that in sociology, a nation is an imagined community because the members if this community will never meet most of their fellow members, nor will they visit every historically, culturally or geographically significant place. But neither the less, members of this national community find a sense of identity and belonging to each other and these places. "It is only in the imagination that collectivities of this scale can exist" (Baldwin, et al, 2004, p158)   


But it's not like this new 'national identity' isn't without it's issues. It's built just as much upon exclusion as any other imagined community, including religions. But they are territoriality based exclusions. And the idea of national comradeship glosses over any inequalities experienced by the peoples of that nation. And in effect this lessens the social awareness of the plights of marginal groups. But this idea of mateship between Aussies seems to fit more snuggly in with the Australian world-view, than 'Christian based values'. 

Christians might think that the string of tragic world and local events in the past few months will drive more people to church in search of answers this Easter. And maybe so. But I argue that the "binding together of people" and the practice of symbolic rituals will happen down at the Pub, over a game of two-up on Anzac day

 

Ethics legislation

Hello again everyone,

Through the magical world of twitter I have just been informed of "The right to teach Ethics in our public schools passes the lower house. Opposed by Libs & Nats." @KKeneally. This essentially means that no matter the election result, ethics classes are to go ahead.. at least for the immediate future.I have a feeling that the Liberals realised there was very little they could do to stop the legislation from passing, labour certainly has the numbers in the lower house. 

I also mentioned that I would keep you all up-to-date with my correspondence with Andrew Constance and with the St James ethics centre. I realise that Andrew is the shadow minister for Ageing and Disability Service, however he is also the representative of my electorate, Bega. I find it most useful to contact my own members when curious about political issues, because they're the ones who take the time to get back to me. I've spoken to Andrew a couple of times in the last couple of days and here's what he has to say in a recent email:

There are mixed views on ethics across the community and there has been robust debate in Parliament on ethic classes.

It is disappointing that the government has seen fit to pit ethics courses against religion courses in an attempt to wedge the opposition. This is to the detriment of the education of the state's school children and politicises education unnecessarily. The Liberals & Nationals continue to support SRE in our schools.

At this time the Keneally Labor Government is refusing to confirm who will be conducting the ethics courses at Far South Coast schools, what funds will be made available to run the courses and whether the introduction of the ethics classes will actually address the issue of some kids with nothing to do. These are serious concerns.

The report on the trial that was conducted did raise a number of concerns regarding course content, including content involving designer babies and terrorism.

For these reasons we are opposing the legislation

On the other hand, the St James Ethics centre, has so far only sent me an automated style 

e-mail stating that they'd get back to me in more detail when they have the time. Obviously they 

are very busy. I can understand how one citizen journalist, with a blogging audience she can 

count on one hand, isn't their first priority.

Despite this rather lame scope of influence, I will keep the up dates coming!

You're a good guy, but ethics classes could be a deal breaker....

Heidi (last name)
(my address and email)

24th November 2010

Andrew Constance
Member for Bega
bega@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Dear Mr Constance,

I am deeply concerned about your Party's recent decision to scrap ethics classes if you are voted in. I have spoken about this with you as a journalism student back in July. At that time your party’s stance was firmly that you did not oppose the trial ethics classes. In fact the Liberals thought they were such a good idea they should be available to all students, not just those who choose not to join in with SRE. Since then the independent analysis of the program has come back positive. It is my understanding that St James Ethics centre has taken on board a number of the recommendations in the report. The program is now ready to be rolled out to more schools, in the new year. What’s more, the program seems to have strong support from the public.

All of this seems positive to me, so, why the strong opposition to the classes now? I simply don’t understand the motives behind it. If the true issue was the, so called, competition for the time slot then why not simply move the classes when/if you get elected? Or make them a compulsory part of the primary curriculum? What is the reason for the turn around, and for treats of abandoning the classes?

Unfortunately, whether moving or ditching the classes, the Liberals have not presented any solution for the original issue. The problem of children sitting idle for ½ hour if parents opt them out of SRE. These children were not allowed to participate in any learning activities during the SRE time slot every week. The news papers were full of anecdotes about children being left alone on the school verandah, or being discriminated against for there different worldviews.

Please can you provide me with some answers, or at the very least some comforting words to ease my deep concern that your Party is disregarding the importance of choice for parents. I sincerely believe that you have nothing but your constituents’ best interests at heart. You are always out and about in the electorate and you have done a fine job representing us in state parliament. For me personally, you made time for a political news interview with a first year journalism student, which is far more than most other MPs committed to. Frankly, I think you are a ‘top bloke’. That being said, this anti-choice choice attitude of the Liberal Leader may be a deal-breaker for me. Be assured, I’ll be contacting every state liberal member with an e-mail address in my quest to understand.

Regards
Heidi

#NSWethics

As you may or may not know, today Verity Firth confirmed that the State of New South Wales has approved the introduction ethics classes into primary schools. Verity Firth is the NSW minister for education and training and this is a link to her blog: http://verityfirth.com/2010/11/ethics-classes-approved

(those of you who already know all about it, jump to "complete findings here", I've added stars to help you find it. You're welcome)
Earlier this year a trial was run in a number of schools across the state. As you can imagine, there was plenty on controversy surrounding the trials. The churches and religious lobby groups didn't like the idea of secular ethics very much, and kicked up a bit of a stink.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/godless-ethics-classes-are-pointless/story-fn562txd-1225860481656
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2871823.htm

The St. James Ethics centre formulated the curriculum. After the trial there was a complete analysis of the classes by the University of South Australia. The investigation was far more invasive than anything the SRE(special religious education) classes have ever had to face. And, credit to St James ethics centre, the findings were very positive.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nsw-gives-high-marks-to-ethics-classes-20101020-16sp3.html

******************************
The complete findings are here:
https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/detresources/NSW_Ethics_course_trial_BYucPDfMew.pdf

What I really wanted to point out was recommendation number 6 on page 83:

"Recommendation 6:
That information about SRE curricula and other such courses at individual schools be made available to parents / carers in the form of fact sheets to mirror that DET fact sheets for parents on Gender or Drug education. The fact sheets should provide no more than a summary of the aims and processes of the different SRE offerings, and each summary should be no more than two paragraphs in length. It might be useful for the DET to design a template for this purpose"

I just thought it was interesting that non-Christians have to jump through hoops and undergo intense scrutiny to teach about ethics. When, on the other hand, parents are not privy to the goings on in SRE. @NathanLee on twitter thinks that it might pay NOT to know what SRE is teaching (twitter hashtag is #NSWethics check it out for more info over the next little while).

What could possibly be so bad that SRE has to hide its curriculum?




P.S. I neglected to mention Penny Sharpe MLC, and her hard work pushing the ethics classes. Penny gave this little blogger her first polictical interview for her journalism subjects and she's a dragonboater.