Christian Privilege

As a society we are raising awareness about white privilege, male privilege and the privilege of heteronormative sexuality, and we are challenging these structures. In a structure of power and oppression, it is time to also look at Christian privilege.

Here’s a list of how it works.

• Christians can expect to have holidays on their holy days. They aren’t expected to justify it.
• Their celebrations are accepted at a communal level, from foods available in supermarkets to   carols by candlelight. A mass singing in the Domain about Mohammed and Allah would not be televised.
• People talk about prayers without having to explain what it is or how it might work (or not).
• Most members of parliament identify with the Christian faith.
• Christian faith group organisations don’t pay taxes and members’ donations are  tax deductible.
• People don’t try to convert Christians (generally speaking).
• Christians can wear a crucifix around their necks without confrontation or explanation.
• Christian organisations are exempt from discrimination laws.
• Christians can send their children to faith schools and, often, faith universities.
• The government outsources services to Christian service providers, who then engage with people of all types, including those of other faiths or none, including those who Christians actively disapprove of. Under government policy people have no recourse but to use the Christian service providers.
• Celebrities of faith can thank their deity on international broadcasts and not be questioned about it.
• There is an assumption in our culture that ‘Christian values’, whatever they are, should be everybody’s values.
• Christianity is considered the norm and the default. A person of unknown faith will be given a Christian burial.
• Language from Christianity is used in conversation every day - Oh my God!, thank God, I swear to God, God given right, gospel truth, set in stone, cast the first stone, road to Damascus moment, good Samaritan, a cross to bear, forbidden fruit, references to miracles, heaven and hell, etc
• Popular songs make references to God, Jesus and the church as if these things are part of everybody’s experience.
• People say ‘that’s not Christian’ as if there is a wrong and right way to be Christian, and as if being Christian means being a good person, or morally sound, and to follow an Iron Age Middle Eastern Jewish prophet whose life was recorded in an ancient book is a rational way to live your life. Christians do not own goodness and morality, or even own Jesus.
• A Christian church and its leaders are respected, even though for many people who suffered abuse through the church these references would trigger memories of abuse.
  * Theology is categorised as an academic subject, when, being the study of trying to discern the will of god from a series of old, translated, transcribed writings, and the existence of god being unproven, perhaps we could more accurately categorise it with astrology and tarot card reading. 

In the same way that acknowledging white privilege and male privilege is not persecution, acknowledging Christian privilege is not persecution. It will be confronting for those who have it. But it needs to be seen.

Religion in public schools - what are the policies?

Religion in NSW Public Schools

There are a number of ways religion is present in NSW public schools. Here’s a fact sheet.

In primary schools, a unit on Understanding our Communities, which covers religious diversity, can be taught by the class teacher in Human Society and its Environment (HSIE) in Stage 2 (Year 3-4).

In secondary schools, Studies of Religion is a Board developed course for the HSC.  Aspects of religion may also be included in other Board approved HSC courses and Year 7-10 syllabuses (English, History, Society and Culture).

In all of these cases what children learn about religion is the responsibility of qualified teachers working from Board approved materials.

There are three other avenues through which religious belief may be raised in public schools.

The first is through Special Religious Education (SRE), often referred to as Scripture. Scripture is delivered by volunteers in accordance with Department of Education and Communities' Religious Education Implementation Procedures (REIP) and related policy documents. SRE is offered when parents request it and authorised volunteers are available to deliver it at times when the school can timetable it. It is usually timetabled in weekly classes of 30-60 minutes and is limited to forty hours per year.

Volunteer SRE teachers must be the representatives of a religious organisation that is an approved provider. Approved providers use their own materials which don’t need to be approved or vetted by the DEC. SRE boards, associations and incorporations are not approved providers. The list of authorised providers is here: http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/religion/assets/approvedproviders19112014.pdf.

Students are placed in SRE classes by the school when there is a class available in the religion nominated by their parents/caregivers on their enrolment forms. Parents can make written requests to schools to change a child’s placement.

Students not approved by their parents to attend SRE attend non-scripture, supervised by qualified teachers during Scripture times, but students are not allowed to be taught anything by them.

Some primary schools offer Ethics Classes as an alternative to non-scripture. As with Scripture, Primary Ethics is taught by volunteer visitors to the school. Unlike Scripture, its curriculum is approved by the DEC and its teachers must complete a specified training program.

The Controversial Issues in Schools Policy, which states that visitors to schools are not to recruit students into partisan groups, is suspended during the Scripture timeslot. However, all volunteers must comply with the DEC’s Code of Conduct.

The second avenue is voluntary student gatherings such as lunchtime clubs. REIP (updated 25 March 2015) states: "Voluntary religious activities and prayer groups are not part of special religious education, but may operate under the auspices and supervision of the principal. Scripture Union (NSW) coordinates Interschool Christian Fellowship (ISCF) groups in secondary schools and Scripture Union Primary Age (SUPA) groups in primary schools. Principals in their supervision of voluntary religious activities and prayer groups must ensure that:                   

- parental permission is obtained                   

- appropriate child protection checks and practices in relation to any volunteers coming from outside the school               

- the content of the activities undertaken are monitored                       

- students or members of religious persuasions do not engage in attempts to proselytise or convert non-adherents of their religion to their faith in the course of school authorised activities."

Other programs, such as JOLT (Jesus Over Lunch Time), STIVE (Students Alive), RICE (Renewal & Inter-Church Evangelism), and ones run by Generate Ministries and local churches, may operate. Extra curricular religious groups and clubs may not be run by school staff. Neither may they offer food or other inducements to students to attend nor may they try to persuade other students to adopt their religious beliefs. Principals are to monitor the content and delivery of information for these groups.

The third avenue is the School Chaplaincy Program. The chaplain’s role is to offer pastoral support to students without proselytizing.

There is no other avenue through which religious organisations can access students in public schools. No religious group is authorised to deliver religious instruction during regular class time.

Schools must inform parents and caregivers about all religious activities at school via enrolment forms and by providing information in newsletters and on their school website. No student may be allocated to an SRE class or admitted to a religious club unless informed prior parental/caregiver approval has been given. 

Public schools have policies about inclusion, embracing diversity, and rejecting racism, homophobia and bullying. The core values are integrity, excellence, respect, responsibility, cooperation, participation, care, fairness and democracy. It is unclear whether these policies apply during SRE timeslot.

The Australian curriculum’s general capabilities, which include critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, intercultural understanding and ethical understanding, do not apply to SRE because SRE is not part of the Australian Curriculum.

NSW DEC is currently undertaking a review about Scripture and Ethics in schools. Consultation closes 31 July 2015. Parents are invited to contribute.

http://artd.com.au/sre-see-review

You can call the Department of Education and Communities about the SRE policy on 9244 5607.

Access the policy here: https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/curriculum/schools/spec_religious/implementation_1_PD20020074.shtml?query=special+religious+education

Under these policies parents have a right to information and have the right to complain to the principal.

If your child’s school is not compliant with DEC policies, speak to your school principal, or raise the matter at your P&C meeting. Principals can terminate agreements with visiting groups if they breach policies. According to the Controversial Issues in Schools Policy  Implementation Procedures: If visiting speakers will not guarantee to respect this policy, access to the students must be declined. [3.32]

How to end faith in a generation

I’ve been wondering for some time how it would be possible to end faith in a generation, and I’ve found some direction and hope.

I’ve just read Peter Boghossian’s ‘A Manual for Creating Atheists’. He is a teacher of philosophy and critical thinking at Portland State University. His approach is one I can learn a lot from.

He defines faith as pretending to know something you don’t know. Faith is a failed epistemology (study of knowledge). An atheist is a person who does not think there is sufficient evidence to warrant a belief in God(s) who would believe if shown sufficient evidence, so does not pretend to know things he doesn’t know with regard to the creation of the universe, the purpose of life and so on. Being atheist is not an identity because if it is, then not believing in flying unicorns, or a teapot orbiting space would also be an identity. He uses Socratic questioning to talk to people of faith. He asks questions such as: what would it take for you to review what you think you know about your faith?+ He is not antagonistic - he is simply helping people to become better thinkers. His aim is not to win debates, but to lead people to question what they believe and why. He is respectful of people, but not of sloppy thinking. Like a parent, you can be respectful of the child, but criticise the child’s behaviour. He says we need to model openness and that it is important to maintain good relationships.

There are lots of issues he raises. For example, the idea of identity politics. Faith is not to be regarded as a point of identity like other factors such as gender and race. He talks about relativism - epistemological (the idea that any way to come to knowledge is as good as any other) and cultural. He takes the academy to task, covering classical and social liberalism, multiculturalism, feminism, tolerance and Islam.

His direction forward is multi pronged. It includes challenging people about their faith wherever possible. We need to call out claims that don’t deserve respect. We need to call out faulty thinking. He wants our culture to include resources for children and adults that send the message that good thinking is a good basis upon which to make decisions and that it is OK to say you don’t know something. We should be comfortable with not knowing rather than believing things we have no evidence for. We need to value reason and rationality. We need to divorce morality from faith. We need to stop pretending people of faith are more moral. We need to stop treating religious groups as special. We need to treat faith claims with the same condemnation we treat racism. People who want to participate in making policy decisions who claim to know things they cannot know don’t deserve a seat at the table. Religious groups need to pay tax like every other group. We need to stop allowing religious groups into schools and running their own ‘educational’ institutions. In Australia we need to stop outsourcing government agencies to church groups - this is my addition. We need to adjust our use of language so that the word ‘faith’ is only used in religious contexts, and not as a synonym for ‘trust’ or ‘hope’. We need to stop using language that elevates faith, such as referring to gospel truth, God bless you, acts of God, thank God, in good faith etc. And we need to  change the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental Disorders (DSM), which is published by the American Psychiatric Association, to include religious delusion as a mental illness. At the moment there is an exception for religious faith*. These steps are all possible.

And, of course, many parents are raising their children to use reason rather than pretending to know things they don't know.

Surely this will be a big step towards world peace, gender equality, and basic human rights (so long as we also revise Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights regarding the right to freedom of religion and belief, and the right to manifest that religion and belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance - I’ll ask Peter about this when I meet him).

+For example, what if the bones of Jesus were found? Would that change people’s knowledge that Jesus rose from the dead? (No resurrection = no Christianity) If that is a possibility, how strong can that knowledge be?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0418_030418_jesusrelic.html

And if the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damscus turns out to be caused by a falling meteorite, would that be cause to review belief in Jesus as saviour? 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630183.700-falling-meteor-may-have-changed-the-course-of-christianity.html#.VUHzq_DSmio

*DSM definition of delusion:

A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (eg, it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgement, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. (2000, p. 765)  

On Volunteering

I have been a stay at home mum for fifteen years. I have been on P&Cs (my tenth year at primary school), been on the management committee for the local community centre, been on the committee for the preschool and the child care centre, written newsletters, made cookbooks, worked at uniform shop, mended costumes, approached business for donations for a Trivia Night, read with students, taught ethics, helped with school sport and fetes and made crafts, baked, started a local babysitting club, visited a local nursing home, been active in causes I support including being involved in a political party, in contributing to feminist and atheist causes, run bookgroups, and helped organise Mamapalooza festivals (supporting and promoting mothers in the creative arts). Other volunteers run sporting clubs, band committees, charities and campaign for change.

Stay at home mothers volunteer at school and in the community. (Of course, other parents do too - bear with me.) Some do this to boost their resumes. Some do it to take a break from their families. Some do it to socialise. Some do it to be taken seriously amongst adults.

Volunteering can be beneficial to women at home with kids, but it can also turn into a double edged sword. Being away from the family in the evenings may cause resentment amongst the fathers (or co-parent) who don’t want the responsibility of cleaning up after dinner and putting children to bed. Voluntary work can put a strain on family relationships in the same way that paid work does. It means the parent is thinking of other things besides being with children and running the household. I’m not suggesting women should always be thinking about their care work in the home - I’m not. I’m just saying volunteer work is work that takes time and thought. I certainly spent a lot of time on the phone at home when I was president of the local community centre (even though I, and other members of the executive, didn't live in that community).

Part of the problem is that women’s work is not valued. A woman’s voluntary work may be building social capital, but it doesn’t bring in money. When women are doing voluntary work they are giving it away for free. Their skills aren’t acknowledged. They are working in a parallel, alternate economy. Just as child-care workers are underpaid because mothers do similar work for free, so it is in fundraising and organising for social groups.

What does this mean for feminist mothering? It means that women are contributing to the bigger community when they may not otherwise have a voice. But it also means that women, by doing voluntary work, and fulfilling their needs that might otherwise be fulfilled by paid work but without being paid, creates a problem. It has longterm implications for a woman’s lifetime income. It may mean paying rent out of her pension when she is older since she doesn’t earn an income to buy property and hasn’t worked long enough to accumulate superannuation. It means depending on a partner for economic security and, perhaps, compromising personal happiness in her relationship due to economic factors.

What does it mean in terms of feminism and social change? Volunteering has always been the way to make change happen. None of the great change movements would have happened without people volunteering their time and skills to make change happen. But there is a personal cost. It would probably be more effective to make change happen whilst employed and climbing the career ladder to hold positions of authority.

For me, volunteering has meant connection with people in my community. This is something that is important to me for its own sake, but has had unexpected consequences. When I started the babysitting club in 2004 I could not have foreseen how the members of that club would rally around by creating a dinner roster for my family when I was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2012.

Enforced volunteering is still used by government for people who are long term unemployed. What were once government services are now privatised and run by church groups. These church groups enforce the rule that people who have been unemployed for a year need to volunteer for fifteen hours a week in order to stay on Centrelink benefits. Guess where they ask people to volunteer? At their church run charities. Obviously, this is a rort and unethical. Does my fifteen years of volunteering count? No it doesn’t.

When the UK introduced austerity measures a few years ago and shut down community programs for people in need, David Cameron announced that more people would have to do more volunteering the fill the gaps. No.That's too much to ask of people who already carers.

What I’m seeing now is volunteer burnout. Schools and community groups are set up to run on the availability of volunteers. Those volunteers are often no longer available, or, if available, concentrating on one group and not others. You can’t do everything. Just as school canteens were once run by volunteers but are now outsourced to businesses, other services are being outsourced, and maybe they should be. Schools can now employ people to run the uniform shop, or to apply for grants. These are jobs that suit people who would otherwise invest their time and skills without reward. What I’m seeing is the constant call for volunteers in all sorts of community groups. I really can’t do everything, and I don’t want to. I feel like I’ve done plenty of work for free and now I need to be paid.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone was expected to have a separate volunteering resume? Could this be recognised by government and contribute towards superannuation in some way? Wouldn’t it be good if people asked the question ‘where do you volunteer?’ as a matter of course rather than the usual status defining questions. Is there more of a culture of volunteering in countries where

work/life/family balance is more of a given. Wouldn’t it be healthy for everyone to contribute to community efforts. I see an impossible expectation placed on parents of school aged children. Wouldn’t it be good if people without care responsibilities could help out? Wouldn't it be good if volunteering gained credit that counted towards superannuation, or some other system of economics that counts in a capitalist society. Otherwise, we need to just wind everything down.

I’m turning the focus of my voluntary work to bigger issues. If we had proper funding and resourcing of services that matter, we would not need so much volunteering. You might remember the t shirt that went something like  ‘If only the government funded schools properly and had a cake stall to buy fighter jets’.* Well I’m now concentrating on policy and politics. That’s where it’s at. 

I'm certainly not helping raise funds for bands to go on overseas trips.

*tea towel here http://www.annoyus.com/content/cake-stall-tea-towel

Half Baked Ideas after Reading Helen Razor and Bernard Keanes’ 'A Short History of Stupid'

Identity Politics

At a conference I attended last year a guest speaker introduced herself by stating her identifying factors - she was cisgender, temporarily able bodied, mother to a gay son and so on.

This is the thing now, that we must declare ourselves so that we are clear we are only speaking for ourselves and not for anyone else. As a white women I can’t speak on behalf of a black woman. As a Catholic raised atheist I can’t speak on behalf of Muslim women. But our identifying factors can go on forever. Some of my identifying factors might overlap with other people’s. Others won’t.

Is this in any way helpful? Are we doing it to prevent the accusation that as a white feminist, educated, temporarily able-bodied but with a cancer experience, blah blah, I can’t speak for any other type of woman. I can’t speak for transgender women. It also means we need some new words to identify who transgender, intersex, gender fluid people have sex with because homo/hetero/bi isn’t very specific unless you are cigender. And what about asexuals? Do they need to declare themselves? I’m thinking it is all getting so silly we should drop identifying ourselves and just accept people as people and move along. What we want to talk about shouldn’t be defined by our identifying factors, or are our stories about ourselves the core thing about us, rather than what ideas we might have and how we might think?

Which leads into the problem I have with the idea that the personal is political in feminism and women’s studies. Yes, we need to hear women’s stories, but we also want women to think, to contribute, beyond their own experiences. It also ties into my problem with creative non-fiction - that the writer is core to the story. Frankly, I don’t care about Helen Garner’s dreams and what she ate for lunch when she is telling someone else’s story.

Then how do we define our common spaces and common experiences? If I start a Feminist Book Group should it be open to anyone who identifies as feminist, even though we might have different definitions? Are people who trans from female to male rejecting the feminine? Are people who trans from male to female autoeroticising? Are we all just performing our identifying factors because we’ve been socialised to anyway?

I can see it was useful some years ago - identifying which groups were not gaining access to power. Is there any value in this, identity politics, or is it all now wankery?

Postmodernism

A little recap on Derrida. He’s the French philosopher and linguist who said ‘There is nothing outside the text’. From this, all meaning is relative so there is no dependable truth, morality or ethics. He invented deconstruction, which enables a reader/viewer to focus on an arbitrary thing, because there is no core meaning to a text and no foundation of meaning. And since language consists of binary opposites, one privileged over the other, to name something is to state what it is not. Something is absent. This provides an opportunity to challenge the assumptions of a text, which, I’ve been trained to think, is worthwhile.

After these ideas school students can study texts which some people, such as Christopher Pyne and Kevin Donnelly, would deem unworthy of serious study. All this has fallen out of favour in recent years, but some basic ideas of Derrida’s survive. I think we now agree that some texts are more meaningful and worthy than others, generally speaking. But, Razor argues, we still try to find meaning where there is none, for example, in pastries created by contestants in cooking shows. And we now have many more texts and fewer shared meanings and ways of knowing what is important and what isn’t.

So what? Well, this brings to mind conversations about studying the bible, a text Christians would say is meaningful and important. They study it as a closed text - there is nothing outside the text. I’ve done this in my studies of literature, which is fine, but it isn’t OK if you don’t talk about the purpose of the text, or if you treat it as an historical document or as an exclusive instruction for how to live. To use it to prove events in history would require corroboration from other sources. What is it? Because, following Derrida, if there is nothing outside the text (the bible) then there is no core meaning (in the bible). The same could be said of any sacred text treated the same way. In my experience it is religious followers, moral absolutists,  who complain about moral relativism. If you read a sacred text as a closed system, you are a relativist.

My other issue is, as a teacher of literature, the syllabus focuses on studying texts within a concept, looking at purpose, context, tone, and literary techniques and how they shape meaning. We still assume there is meaning. I’m trying to encourage students to not just cruise along with the perceived meanings of texts, handed down over time, but to read them for themselves to find their own meanings. For example, on a recent reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream I noticed Puck ends the play with a list of birth defects he hopes the lovers’ children won’t have. In terms of Bottoms’ ass-head being central to the play, what could you argue in a reading based on disability? This is how I’ve been trained to read. Such a reading from an HSC student would garner a decent mark, I suspect. But does it really change the meaning of a text, which could also be about the randomness of love, and that we aren’t in control of our own lives? We teach students that they can argue any thesis, the more original the better, so long as the thesis is supported by the text. And the text can be a closed system. Doesn’t mean the text is an instruction on how to live, or it could be, but it doesn’t purport to be an exclusive instruction. Different readings create different meanings. And how does this fit with intertextuality?

And, I’ll add, it irks me that ‘deconstruct’ is now used as a verb synonymous with ‘analyse’ in the English classroom. Confuses me. And will confuse students when they get to university and study critical theory.

Anyone with more time, fewer interruptions or a bigger brain than mine - please help me make sense of all this. Or feel free to advise me to give up on sense and just have fun.

Adventures in War

I’m interested in how the adventure of war will be given meaning for the commemoration of the landing of Gallipoli at a time when were are trying to stop young men from travelling to find adventures in war.

How do we reframe our story of Gallipoli?

In 1824  Lord Byran fought for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire and died. Should Byran have had his passport cancelled before he could fight overseas?

What of the Spanish Civil War, in which, it is estimated, 35,000 foreign volunteers fought? This was a cause supported by many mainstream writers between 1936 and 1939.

When I worked in the public service in 1984-5 I was friends with a man who had fought with the freedom fighters in Afghanistan. A lawyer, he was at the time campaigning for election as a Liberal candidate. I’m thinking this part of his background has since been expunged. He is a barrister.

Schools teach critical thinking (which I like to call ‘thinking’). Schools teach for social justice and encourage students to be active for change, by being good global citizens.

How do these fit with young Australians going off to fight in the Middle East? How do we redirect the energies of potential fighters, who may end up on the wrong side of history?

Mamapalooza 2015

Here’s what we’re doing for Mamapalooza 2015.

We are hosting an art show at ANU School of Art, called Intertwined, starting Monday 4 May. There are nine exhibiting artists, most of whom will be speaking to their works on Saturday 9 May.

We have a Mama Comedy Night, hosted by Lou Pollard, at Django Bar, Marrickville on Thursday 28 May, 7.30pm. I think I laugh loudest at our Comedy Nights.

And we are endorsing plays about domestic violence, called RHYMES WITH SILENCE A collection of plays about domestic violence. These are produced by Joy Roberts, who put on the Mothers plays last year. The plays are running 15 May - 23 at Project 107 Redfern.

See you there!

The school seminar

I've just finished my four week prac placement at a local high school. It was great. It made me realise how handy my degree in classics is, especially for teaching Shakespeare. I'm sad to leave.

Here's what happened on the last day.

A religious seminar was scheduled for this day. There are four periods timetabled for each day. A group of Christians were scheduled to deliver a seminar to Years 7, 8, 9, and 10 over the course of the day. Teachers were told that they were to teach no new material if students were absent from their class due to attending  the seminar. This, of course, disrupted teaching and learning, especially preparation for assessment tasks.

I had a free period so I sat in on the seminar. Students were lined up to get their names marked off. The seminars were 'opt out' so those who didn't bring a note were expected to attend.even if they weren't interested and had other work to do. I asked the volunteer what group was running the seminar and she told me she didn't know. Students sat in circles with an adult Christian in each group. A leader (I'm not calling these people teachers) showed a video of people answering the question 'what happens when you die?'

They then presented a little skit about what's behind the screen. One person said there was nothing. One person said something the students would like, for example, movie tickets. Another went behind the screen to look and said it was something else that they would like. The students then guessed. The one who guessed 'lollies' received the lollies.

Then the leaders spoke about the resurrection, and how Paul said if the resurrection didn't really happen then there is no reason to love Jesus. They then presented 'evidence' to refute arguments that Jesus didn't rise from the dead. All this 'evidence' came from one source, the New Testament, with no discussion about the validity of that evidence or any question about presenting proof from any other source. The historical truth of the bible was accepted without question. The idea that there was no resurrection was mocked. It was spoken of as a 'fact'.

A leader then said that this may be convincing, but so what? Why does it mean we should have a relationship with Jesus? Then another leader spoke about how, when he was fifteen he had a few near death experiences - accidents, and appendicitis. When he was waiting for surgery he was scared, but was comforted by the idea that Jesus loves him. That was presented as 'testimony'.

A student then promoted the school's Christian club, the leaders told students about local church youth groups and gathered their email addresses.

I didn't say anything during the seminar. I'm sure you can see how intellectually bereft it was. I felt I'd drifted a long way away from teaching ethics classes, or any critical thinking that is encouraged in the classes I'd been teaching at the school. What I did do I'll save for another day. Or you can ask me.

The Gordon Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster

The Gordon Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has applied to become a provider of Special Religious Education in  public schools in NSW. The application has fulfilled all  the criteria, yet a decision has not been made. Pastor Dan has said he was told by the Department of Education and Communities that they are referring the matter to a board of other providers, that is, Christians, even though they have no authority to make these decisions.

Please sign the petition to Adrian Piccoli asking that he hand down his decision. The policy states that while SRE is delivered in public schools that all religions should have equal access. Public school children should not be discriminated against on the basis of religion.

https://www.change.org/p/adrian-piccoli-mike-baird-time-to-decide-on-the-gcfsm-applicaton-do-your-job

If this is denied I'm betting there will be applications from many more minority religions, such as Jediism, Pantheists, Wiccans, Pagans, Born Again Pagans, the Prince Philip Movement and other cargo cults, Aetherius Society, Raelism, Happy Science, the Nation of Yahweh (I've left out some seriously dangerous ones). If it is approved, the same outcome is likely, but may also include Satanists (as happened in Florida, where Satanic colouring in books were distributed after bibles were given out in schools), Communists, Capitalists, and a discussion is likely to ensure about what is a religion. There is an argument that Buddhism isn't a religion but a philosophy, and it is delivered in SRE time.

Obviously, the whole system needs to be overhauled because the Department of Education and Communities does not oversee nor enforce their own policies. See my contribution to Open Drum here.

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/68xa4zt

This makes me angry

Yesterday I watched this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ubKBaSt0LE

WRONG LINK - WILL REPLACE - this one is like Hi-5!

It's creepy. And sinister.

There are people who put lots of time and money and energy into trying to access other people's children to convert them into Christians.

Today I watched a video about people suffering from food insecurity.

Aside from it being unethical to use public schools to convert children to a religion, something else bothers me. And that's the waste.

There are real problems in the world that require our attention. It makes me angry that so many people are focused on an issue that is not based on anything real. Their faith may be real, but the existence of their god isn't proven, or even likely. In the history of the world so much brain power, time, effort, money and activism has been wasted on something that, I believe, doesn't exist. It makes me mad that all this power could have been brought to bear on real problems, real issues, ones that are measurable, visible, knowable. When people are trying to work out what their holy book really means, it is just a waste of time. It is a text. The 'true meaning' is constructed. The is no one true meaning. The intention of their god, if gods exit, is unknowable. All this focus on religion is a waste of time, money, energy, resources, skills, understanding, knowledge and good sense.

Do something else. Do something useful. Deal with a real problem.

Shave for a Cause

It's that time of year again, when people raise money to support people with blood cancer by shaving their heads.

I'm feeling quite uncomfortable about it this year.

I understand that it probably started as an act of solidarity, so that people who lose their hair due to chemotherapy don't feel so alone. I'm on prac at a high school at the moment and some students shaved their heads at lunchtime, charging admission to the hall.

I couldn't go. I couldn't bear people laughing and cheering. To lose your hair due to chemotherapy is actually awful. The hair dies on your head. To lose it is confronting. It comes out in dead handfulls. When it happened to me my primary concern was to hide it from the children because I knew how disturbing they would find it. I made an appointment for a hairdresser to shave my head as soon as possible and wore a scarf to try to keep from scaring my children. If I was caught in a breeze without the scarf I reckon my hair would have blown off my head.

When I was bald and getting about wearing a scarf I remember exchanging looks with other bald women and not knowing if they had participated in a fundraiser or if they were cancer patients. They would have looked at me with the same question.

To have your head shaven against your will is an act of violence. It is done to people to strip them of their identity, in jails and the armed forces and in concentration camps. In ancient Greece women would shave their heads when they were in mourning. In some Islander cultures a girl's head is shaved to punish her.

When you lose your hair to chemotherapy it doesn't grow back nicely. It grows back coarse and weird. For people who voluntarily shave their heads, their hair will grow back soft and lovely. They don't lose their eyebrows and eyelashes. It isn't the same.

So, while I'm happy for people to raise money for people with blood cancer, and that they are prepared to do something to raise it, and I appreciate the work of the Leukaemia Foundation (they certainly do good work in driving patients to hospital, providing accommodation for patients, and raising money for research for treatments, which is desperately needed for people with Multiple Myeloma), I'm just not up for the cheering.

Maybe next year I'll feel differently.

POSTSCRIPT

I wrote this before I finished reading A Short History of Stupid, by Bernard Keane and Helen Razer.
In the final chapter on Conspicuous Compassion (the idea that we show publicly that we care, sometimes through consumption, to make ourselves look and feel good, even though it does nothing to help the causes we purport to care about), Razer writes about giving money to a young man collecting for a charity in a shopping centre. He wears a bandana, like a cancer patient. She is concerned he was immuno-compromised so rang the charity and was told he was not a cancer patient but wearing a bandana 'in solidarity'.
She writes:
"In solidarity with whom and by whose explicit permission? I was actually pretty appalled. I imagine if I had cancer to the degree it would require an immune-compromising toxic treatment such as chemo or radiotherapy, I would not want anyone representing me in fucking cancer drag. What is this? Leukaemia cosplay? What makes it okay to do near-death fancy dress and what the fuck is happening to my actual compassion when it is induced so often by imposters?"

Thankyou, Helen Razer. 

The poker game of parenting

Lately I've been feeling like parenting is a poker game.

P1: I'll see your child at the Opera House and raise you a trip to Fiji.
P2: I'll see your trip to Fiji and raise you are trip to the US.
P3: I'll see your trip to the US and raise you a trip to Europe.
Me: I'll fold.

If we don't wind back we'll be expecting children to go to the moon before they leave school.

The whole business (and it is a business, in fact lots of businesses, based on parental Fear of Children Missing Out) spirals upwards, and every turn of the screw (to mix my metaphors) is more pressure on families, whether it be their finances (working extra shifts, taking out loans), their time (driving kids around, not spending time together) and adding to the stress of modern life.

Pace yourselves, parents. Play the long game.

Are bonding activities a male thing?

In thinking about all the activities children are invited to participate in, I've been pondering the place of bonding exercises. The camps and tours and parties that the groups they belong to organise in order for the members to bond.

This seems to me to be a particularly male thing. When I think of bonding activities I think of men playing soccer, or paintball, or men going drinking together and then to lapdancing clubs and brothels. This is supposed to create group cohesion for people who are already in a group working together for the same goal. Women don't seem to need bonding sessions, mostly because they don't have the time for them. If women are working together by meeting monthly to run a committee, or they work together or are on a team together, they just get on with the job. The bonding happens by doing the job together. They don't go off to the pub afterwards.

I understand why kids who enter high school from various primary schools go on camp together. They need to get to know each other. Other than that, I don't see the point of bonding exercises for teams or bands or choirs. Surely meeting weekly to do the activity together is a bonding experience in itself.

What is the value and how do we deliver it more simply?

That's the question I'm asking this year.

I'm asking this question at meetings when someone suggests we need to run an event. I'm trying to point out that the children in our area are privileged, and parents are tired. Their regular activities fill a week. Everything extra adds to the stress of family life.  When do families have time to visit grandparents on the weekend?

What is the value of band camp, when you are transporting all the people and equipment involved to another place, which takes a lot of planning and money, and is a disruption to family life, and results in children not sleeping. Couldn't the value that comes from playing together for an intensive rehearsal period be addressed by a weekend workshop at school? What is the value of the school fete and how can we achieve good enough outcomes without exhausting a hundred people? What is the value of an overseas trip? Don't we have great teachers, and performance opportunities in Sydney?Are these extra experiences for our kids going to be on their resumes and mean the difference between getting a job and not getting a job? Not likely, when they are mostly heading to university and the opportunities listed on their resumes mostly tell a prospective employer that their parents had money.

I'm asking questions to suggest we stop the spiral of making everything bigger and better, and the unspoken expectation now that children must do everything and go everywhere before they finish school. You don't need to keep up with what other schools offer. Life is not a competition and childhood is not a race.

Jan 2015 - catch up.

I’m blogging because I read it is good for my health. So this post is all about me.

I finished the year feeling better than I had for about two years. More exercise. No more napping. Feeling normal. Then I got the results from my checkup. My doctor told me I have some deficiencies - need to take supplements. That’s fine. The worry is that I’m clinically anaemic. Which could be caused by internal bleeding. Which we need to investigate. Also, it means I’m on a very strange spectrum for tiredness. Now I just feel like I need to nap.

I have finished the coursework for my degree. I’ve packed up my readings to pass on to other students. I’ve learned that online learning is a vastly inferior form of delivery compared to being with people. I literally could have studied a whole degree without saying the words. We are taught that we need to know our students, build relationships, cater to their needs, deliver information in various modes, work collaboratively, and then we are given readings and told to write. The feedback I’ve had on my assignments have been close to worthless. Not good. I’m sitting on a GPA of 5.9, which makes me realise I should have asked for remarks which would have toppled my GPA to 6. Even though I know no-one will care, I do. I have two pracs to undertake to finish my degree. I’m getting back to exercising to make sure I’m ready.

Then I’m ready to work. I know not to expect I’ll get a permanent teaching job right away. I know I’ll have to network to get casual work. I’m looking at making my own work if I don’t get a job. I have a Plan B.

At the new year everyone was saying how crap 2014 was. I didn’t feel that way. Then I took a look at what had happened and agree. It was a crap year. In some ways it has continued to be a crap year. Horrible things have been happening to people. There is a lot of sadness. I know what to do to help the people around me. I’m not sure what to do to help on a wider scale. Like everyone else I’ve been thinking about the role of religion in terrorism, and what we need to teach people so that basic human rights are respected. I understand that people don’t think logically when they feel their beliefs are being attacked. I need to learn more about what to do. I want to read Sam Harris’ book ‘The End of Faith: Religions, Terror and the Future of Reason’ and Andrew Scott’s ‘Northern Lights: The Positive Policy Example of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway’. I’m also thinking about the intersection between being authentic and being kind. I’m not suggesting that kindness isn’t authentic, just that sometimes it takes some thought and control, and that living an authentic life, being true to yourself,  isn’t always responsible and kind.

On the home front I’ve been working out what our new routines will be. The children’s schedules have changed. We’re looking into joining a new dance school (looking at the online photos has been somewhat stomach churning). I know I won’t get everything I want and am prepared to compromise. We’re making a cleaning schedule, based on aspects of Flylady. We’re talking about what we need from being part of this family - how we need the home to be the safe place where we can relax and regroup. Matilda will be going on four camps this year, she has a job, and will be doing the Duke of Edinburgh award. She has been invited to perform in Prague. She won’t be going. Clancy‘s band is proposing going on tour in NSW. I’ll be arguing against that. Banjo is now old enough to walk to and from school herself. It means I’m not so involved in the primary school. This is my tenth year at the primary school. I’m ready to move on.

I kept a record of the children’s expenses for last year. Matilda: $7585, Clancy: $5199, Banjo: $2295. Some expenses were waived for us because we’re unemployed, so the real figures are higher. These aren’t just school expenses but include dance and music.

I’m starting a feminist book group. I will set up a FB page after we work out how to run it. There is lots to talk about.

We’re working on organising Mamapalooza. The plays this year are about domestic violence. We are having an art exhibition at ANU in Canberra, and I’ve proposed we do a presentation at the Symposium at the The Editorial Collective of Lilith: A Feminist History Journal,  Flesh and Blood: A Feminist Symposium on Embodied Histories, ANU on Friday May 8, 2015.

I’m taking Feburary to get organised and build up my energy again. I’m happy to see friends and exercise and have fun. And talk. Talking is good.

Who's afraid of moral relativism? I'm afraid of moral absolutism.

I keep hearing about the dangers of moral relativism, but what about the dangers of moral absolutism?

Accusations of moral relativism were made against the pilot of the Philosophical Ethics program delivered to primary schools by Primary Ethics. It is usually Christians who make this accusation. Even Christopher Pyne recently stated, as reported by The Australian 16/10/14

“When something is wrong it should be called for what it is,” he said. “The danger often in the West is this idea that as all voices need to be heard somehow they might all have some kind of moral equivalence.”

Miranda Devine wrote this about Kevin Donnelly in the Daily Telegraph 05/02/2014 when it was announced he was to review the new Australian Curriculum.

“Clear-thinking Donnelly is the perfect choice. An unabashed critic of moral relativism, he wants education to be about "objectivity and truth". He believes students should understand the foundations of Western civilisation and Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage. He thinks academic rigour and phonics and even - shock, horror - rote learning might be a good thing. He is against the fashion of students "constructing" their own knowledge.”

It came as no surprise when Donnelly announced that the curriculum should focus more on Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage (whatever that means - That we should teach the Ten Commandments? Is Judeo-Christian code for anti-Islamic, anti-atheist, or does it signal non anti-Semitic? That our Judeo-Christian heritage begins in the Middle East? That Judaism has been superseded by Christianity or that Judaism and Christianity are equally valued? ) Before beginning the review he was reported as attacking the curriculum for “uncritically promoting diversity” and undervaluing western civilisation.

Multiculturalism is connected to liberal values, such as ideas of freedom, tolerance and equal respect. It means we embrace pluralism in a democratic society. Multiculturalism isn’t about cultural relativism (the idea that everyone’s culture is of equal value), but it is about protecting people’s rights to identify as a part of a cultural group, to practice their culture and that the state should not impose a religion or culture on people. People can live as they choose so long as their choice does not impinge on the freedom of others. It is the way to go if we want a peaceful society. The option is colonisation, and assimilation, which is discriminatory, divisive and usually racist.

In the world of education it seems an appreciation of multiculturalism, tolerance, and respect for diversity has collapsed into ideas about student-led learning and constructivism. The constructivist model for learning does value what the student brings, and does appreciate that all students bring a set of tools and skills and knowledges to the classroom, even though they may not be the ones most valued by white western culture. It’s important for teachers to know where students are at before they can be taken somewhere else. The idea is that people’s learning builds upon what they already know, and yes, people can attribute meaning. Everybody does construct their own knowledge. That doesn’t mean they deny facts and evidence.

People who believe that morality is objective, that is, it is factually true (usually because they believe it comes form an ancient text), seem to apply that to knowledge. They fear morality being subjective, even culturally or historically subjective. People who believe morality can be subjective don't necessarily apply this idea to knowledge. Principles of mathematics and science are still true no matter what a person believes about morality. 

The accusation about moral relativism made by some Christians is that ‘anything goes’ because life has no meaning for people who don’t follow their ancient text. For some Christians, this ancient text provides a moral compass (even though this text is compiled, translated, interpreted). The same is true for people of other faiths who look to an ancient text. Lots of people of religious faith believe they know right from wrong because their book tells them so. They are moral absolutists. Never mind the circumstances that aren’t, and couldn’t have been, covered by their ancient texts, or the reasons those texts were written which might not be applicable in modern society. Never mind the very concerning idea that people are good because they are told to be and they fear they are being watched and will endure punishment for transgressions.

There is no evidence that people of one faith or another are any more moral than people of none. There are people who do good and who don’t, and they are pretty evenly spread across belief systems. I’d go so far as to suggest people who engage in moral reasoning are more moral because they aren’t motivated by fear of punishment.

I’m not exactly sure what people mean by moral relativism and why so many people warn against it. It seems to be a way of enforcing a religious divide and protecting their position of moral absolutism (which I’ve never heard discussed sensibly). I’ve heard moral absolutists say things like, ‘what if one culture thought it was OK to eat babies? We know that is wrong because the bible tells us’. Well, we all think it is wrong to eat babies, but for other reasons.

There are other ways of working out a system of moral reasoning, ethics, or moral philosophy. There is a long history of considering what it is to lead a good life, and how to determine the right course of action. Virtue ethics is based on the writings of Aristotle, and focuses on having a virtuous character. Being virtuous will lead to happiness. Kant talked about the universal law - what if everyone else was doing it? What would that look like? He is concerned with motive, not outcome. However, he was concerned with valuing every person’s right to human dignity. His ideas informed the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Deontologists consider the role of duty - duty to family, the social group, to country, to following the rules. Personally happiness is not a factor. Consequentialists judge according to the consequences of an action. Utilitarians consider what is the greatest good, or greatest happiness, for the greater number of people. This idea was developed by Jeremy Bentham and J. S. Mill. They assume that people are moral and of equal value. From this point one can argue for equal rights, separation of church and state, and freedom of expression. Others might consider moral reasoning on the basis of sentience (that people have the capacity for reason, and can feel pain). There is also Buddhist ethics, which focuses on compassion. All follow logical reasoning. All will apply evidence to their arguments. For Absolutists there is absolute right and wrong, usually ascribed to God (which makes them religious fundamentalists) or patriotism.  

Lets look at who tries to impose their will on others. Lets look at who refuses to examine another person’s point of view. Lets look at who cannot consider the possibility of being wrong. Lets look at who threatens violence at those who disagree, whether it be by killing them, or condemnation to burn forever in the fiery pits of hell.

It isn’t people who apply moral reasoning. It isn’t people who value human rights.

Which brings me to this: the Dunning-Kruger effect. Dunning and Kruger, psychologists at Cornell university in 1999, conducted experiments on the disconnect between perceived and actual competence. People of low ability rated themselves highly, because they didn’t know enough to know they were incompetent. People with high competence rated themselves lower than their ability, because they were so competent they thought everybody else must be the same or better. David Dunning said, ‘If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.’ Others have expressed similar sentiments over the years, including (and this is from Wikipedia)  ‘Confucius ("Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance"), Socrates (“I know that I  know nothing”), Bertrand Russell ("One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision"), and Charles Darwin, ("ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge") and Shakespeare, who wrote in As You Like It "The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole" (V.i)).

I’m thinking moral absolutists suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. What other explanation is there?