Should post original

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/saskatchewan-schools-wrong-on-faith/article2289085/

Good letter but it makes far too much common sense. It certainly makes Ontario look like the odd province out when it comes to supporting choice doesn’t it?

Continue to debunk the myths spun by the usual suspects…..(enter Doug’s predictable mantra here).

No need for choice, the more “one size fits all” the better for everyone.

What we need is common curriculum, common standards, common goals, at one level.

Well put.

I wouldn’t have chosen those three for top marks in the public service categories; and public service is not limited to politics—take for instance yourself, Doretta and the whole SQE crew, and the silent millions who toil on behalf of neighbour, whether friend or foe. 

Where I live there are ten (more or less) churches.  On any given Sunday let’s say 20% of my community is attending a house of worship.  These are doctors, teachers, paramedics, swim instructors, councillors, MPP’s and MP’s, carpenters and electricians, primary, junior and senior students from all sorts of schools.  The list could of course be indefinitely protracted.

It is nothing less than ineffable and inexcusable ignorance on the part of those who mock the positive good the residual Christian heritage of Canada produces hourly, daily, all year round.

Some of these folk even pay taxes!

Call it the Golden Rule.  Call it love your neighbour.  Call it ‘giving back’ as the grammatically erroneous trend has it these days.  It’s out there, and it’s out there in a very big way.

Look under the rocks and whatnot, it is astonishing if one really investigates hard, how many people of devout religious faith are on the front lines of public service, of all and every variety, at all hours, longsuffering and patient and quiet, because they cannot NOT do so.

Not to diminish in any way the contributions of those of no faith other than relentless, perhaps atheistic humanitarianism.  But that is not at issue here.  What is at issue, is whether religious faith can and does provide a real public good, and is by no means the least of all factors relevant to education.

As for the theological differences among the ten churches…. when it needs doing or is worth doing, Presbyterian and Salvationist and Pentecostal are shoulder to shoulder, having a common denominator that is not abrogated by their sectarian commitments.  (not that theology is not important… but that’s not on the table here either…)

I agree that private schools may be more successful at promoting tolerance but most students cannot afford that option.  In Northern Ireland where I was schooled the preferred option for a growing number of parents is “integrated schools” where Protestants and Catholics can socialize together.  I’m fully supportive of this as opposed to the status quo: state schools and separate state Catholic schools (plus private schools), i.e. similar to Ontario.  Every society has its own challenges and I dont think there is a simple solution that fits all.

Multi-culturalism is bread when we all go to the same schools. Sepatate schools for separate people is the motivation of the Parti/Bloc Quebecois. Ireland is an excellent example of people keeping to their own religions as is the middle east and the Indian sub-continent.

No there is not a simple solution, and I believe the direction of Ontario, and other provinces in promoting diversity, is causing more divisions, discrimination and intolerance.

In the Globe article, “A diverse population needs strong core institutions. It needs rallying points and meeting places, especially for its young people.”

and the last line of the article: “Diverse public schools are a multicultural society’s best way to promote unity, while still preserving difference.”

The diversity policies of the education system are teaching the students, that differences are bad, and is more important to look and act more like your other classmates. What the current diversity policies do, is teach the individual students the differences and their values have no value, and what is taught the collective values of the diversity policies are highly value. Students walk through the school doors, automatically suppressing their own culture and values, and become an actor, pretending to get along, and perhaps even eventually adapting some of the values of the diversity policies, to their personal values. The more different the student is, the more likely the student is in conflict with his internal values waging war with the external values of the school. In schools where the population are more like each other, there is far less suppression of the values of the individual students, and are open to receiving other student’s values, and in many cases adapt the different values to their internal values, voluntarily, rather than the current diversity policies that forces all to adapt to the diversity policies.

I have read much about the the diversity policies, and do they really work?  The origins of the diversity policies was a solution for the increase immigrants who are much different from the typical Canadian, coming from all parts of the world. What the diversity policies are doing, is suppressing the majority of Canadians values, and are force to become an actor in the public, pretending and is in conflict with their internal values and the external values pressing down upon the internal values. Most people solve it, by dropping their personal values such as their faith, food preferences, dress, and other values, just to be able to get on with their day.

From the political world, political correctness and other such measures bears down further, to weaken the intended target. Remember, saying Merry Christmas out loud in public, can get a person into trouble, as the Christian child saying grace before she has lunch at school. Differences are only value in the diversity policy, if the person or group holds values reflective of the diversity policy. Unfortunately, most of the diversity policies are intended for the minorities, and the majority and their individual values are suppressed, and I call that discrimination. But that is another story, because the bottom line is that the diversity policies are attempting to destroy the internal values of individuals, and replace the values with other values that are in direct conflict with each other. It results in increase bullying, violence, and groups of students, holding similar internal values, in the so-call inclusive schools.

What Charles state, ” What is at issue, is whether religious faith can and does provide a real public good, and is by no means the least of all factors relevant to education.”

The diversity policies do not value faith and the values that go with the various faiths. What the diversity policies are doing, is waging war with the internal values of individuals, and in the process causing disunity, rather than unity and celebrating the differences as well as the universal common human values we all share.

In some of the schools, it is a mine field for students, because of the diversity policies, where differences are preserved, as stated in the Globe article. As if differences can be preserved in the same way a bottle of preserved peaches. Differences are dynamic, organic, and always changing. The last thing human beings’ differences from one another are static, nor can they be preserved.

I’ll condense where Nancy doesn’t. Religion and education should not be mentioned in the same breath and do not belong together in the bedrooms of our nation!

It is not religion that is under attack, but the values of religion under attack. The values that the individual elects to incorporate within their own value system, which consists of many different values from the environment and experiences of the person. The law protects religion freedom, the right to practice, but does not protect the faith values.

The diversity policies do not practice inclusion of faith values, but rather the art of exclusion at the school level.

In an Ontario education document on religion in the schools, “Education about religion can, for example, enhance students’ awareness of the range of ways in which people acquire knowledge and beliefs about the world – that is, through inner feelings, intuitive insights, reason, and experience.

History shows that religion is one of the cornerstones of human identity. Education about religion can, therefore, help students to understand themselves and others better, by giving them opportunities to consider human spirituality.

Religion is also an important means by which human beings seek to understand some of the fundamental questions of human existence – such as questions about the meaning of being human, the importance of the individual, the meaning and purpose of life, the role of spirituality in human life, and the individual’s relationship to the world.

By increasing students’ awareness and appreciation of the central role of religion and spirituality in human life, the study of other faiths can also help students to acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation of their own spirituality and religious heritage.”
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/curricul/religion/religioe.html

What is not being taught, is to have students learn to appreciate their own faith values, and how the faith values shapes society. And yes, even in the bedrooms of the country, as Steven has stated.

Behind the times as usual eh Doug?

http://reviewcanada.ca/essays/2011/09/01/is-public-service-delivery-obsolete/

Welcome to THIS century!

“Multi-culturalism is bread when we all go to the same schools. Sepatate schools for separate people is the motivation of the Parti/Bloc Quebecois. Ireland is an excellent example of people keeping to their own religions as is the middle east and the Indian sub-continent. “

This from the man who’s the dean of an elite private school for Chinese children. (VIP Academy isn’t it?)

Kind of pokes a huge hole in your cheerleading doesn’t it Doug?

1) We are not asking for public money Chuck, we don’t believe in it.

2) It is not for Chinese, that is just who has come so far but others from India and Viet Nam re on the way.

We believe public money is for publi schools and private money is for private schools, neat and tidy.

Kinda pokes a hole in your complaints eh Chuck.

Religion is the opposite of education. Education involves an open mind to all possibilities and tolerance.

Religion involves indoctrination, the closing of minds, a “we are correct” others are not attitude. Often it is anti-science and we can even see the intolerence of the catholic schools re gay students. They need to be told that glbt is just as legit as hetrosexuality or lose their funding.

But Doug, you are living off the avails of public education funding as well as the advantages of having the official stamp of approval by the public education system. Teachers with certificates, and having the advantage to point out the many fault lines of the education system, that are aligned with perceptions and values of the well-to-do Chinese parents.And even the little policy of the provincial provinces in providing funding for their international students, has help paved the way for your private school, to prepare the foreign students for entry into post-secondary institutes.

You can’t have it both ways, defending the public education system, and than using the weaknesses of the public education as the means to profit, lining your own pockets stuffed with foreigners’ cash.

As for this comment Doug, “. Education involves an open mind to all possibilities and tolerance.”

True, but it is not what the public education policies are all about. Nor what you have stated in your posts, the art of intolerance or the art of cherry picking to fit the outside values that matches the ideology and dogma within the education system.

Public education systems, and its structure is in itself, intolerant of external ideas, knowledge that lie outside of the public education system. A common phrase of the public education system, and speaks volumes on intolerance, is proclaiming that they are the experts in education, and know what is best for their children.

Doug, you debate on the values along the dogma, ideology and political lines, but never on the facts and knowledge that is known to be true. You scream out intolerance over the issue of Catholic schools and gays, and than implied that it is against the present laws. Therefore funding should be cut. The Catholic schools are not in foul of the legal laws, but chose to be selective of values surrounding the gays, that works well with Catholic doctrine.  In the same way, public education systems are not in foul of the disability laws, but have deliberately chose to be selective of values surrounding disabilities and their policies.

Doug, you are calling the Catholic schools to loose their funding, but yet you are not calling for the end to practices of the public education system, that produces weak outcomes in the maths, science and literacy. Social promotion became the means to avoid the hard work of remediation of student, and proceed to transfer student funding and redirect into other areas to finance the small army needed to education of the many students with various knowledge gaps, as well as the educrats needed to persuade parents and the public that it is all their fault, and not the public education system problem. And than have the gall to asked for more funding please.

Having public funds to finance private religion schools might be a whole lot cheaper for the taxpayers pockets, as well as easing the public education system finances, and than have the ability to fixed the fault lines, that have developed large fissures, where many of a student is falling through,rather than the current defensive approach to debate on the values along the dogma, ideology and political lines. No one has the time or the inclination in the public education system, to worry about the quality of the education, when they are all too busy justifying their value system to the public.

70% of Ontarians would vote to abolish the catholic system given a clear vote. This is the same percent that believes “no religious schools should ger public support” If the catholic boards continue to oppose LGBT issues, birth control, abortions or bring these beliefs inside the school system, they will speed up the inevitable day when they cease to exist. It is in their own hands.

The backbone of opposition to catholic school support in the conservative ridings will rapidly expand.

When will reformers learn to broaden their agenda? Never because they are backed by the forces that benefit from the corporate greed that is killing America.

http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/american-class-system-0112?&wpisrc=nl_wonk

Doug, the link is one of the many angles of those to either keep the status quo on government policies or everything in between cherry picking to suit the angle and the ones calling for change of government policies based on the OECD reports of social mobility and inequality in the developed industrialized countries.

The link that you provided, has nothing to do with faith, unless one thinks faiths plays a role in inequality and social mobility, and you are in good company mostly composed of the extreme political left of the spectrum, you do share that belief.

OECD simply presented the inequality gaps, and in Canada it is also growing.  Would you like to know where the provinces stand, and who is number one in being the most equal province?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/05/canada-income-inequality_n_1129337.html#s516716&title=PEI_The_Most

An increasing influence within education and other parts of society, is the use of critical theory in formulating policies, rather than relying on civil rights as well as human rights and the constitutional rights of their citizens. Critical education, “Critical education which refers to the philosophy of education as well as the process of a critique towards the practices of education with the emphasis on the power relations of different parties involved in it. McLaren (1998 in Wink, 2000) defines critical pedagogy as a way of thinking while Giroux (2001) characterizes critical education as theoretical work as well as a conscious practice of education..”
http://imo.thejakartapost.com/oudateda/2011/07/29/critical-education/

Faith of students within a secular public school setting, under the critical theory premise of power relationships, has shifted the Christian faith as the bad guy, holding the most power and privilege. In so doing, the acts of removing Christian thoughts, symbols and other Christian themes in our schools, is creating an inequality on the lines of faith values, The students who have Christian values are taught their values are based on power and privilege. and they need to cede their values, and replace them with values that are more in keeping with other faiths who have less power and privilege.

In simple words, in a typical school, many of the school policies are based on critical theory, through the lens of power relationships. The criticism of critical theory, “What is most arresting about critical race theory is that…it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories — fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal — designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today. By repudiating reasoned argumentation, the storytellers reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites.[9]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

Policies based on critical theory, creates new lines of inequalities based on the values of the individuals and groups with like minded values. rather than with reason and rational analysis. The values that are under attacked, will go underground, to re-emerged.in various positive and negative forms. Critical theories attacks the values of individuals, and does little for creating more equality among the differences of the individuals and groups, and creating dialogue among them.

Nancy, You don’t think Christianity has a lot to account for?

The Inquisition, the persecution of Galileo and the ever present attack on science, Darwin and many others, the Holocaust, pogroms. the Crusades, endless wars of succession, the justification of colonialism even the Jesuits are culpable here, the ongoing persecution of women from the witch craze in Europe to Salem, I would think anyone from NL would hve heard of Mt Cashel, the terrible tratment of First Nations children in boarding schools, the justification of slavery and Apartheit,the persecution of the LGBT community, the attempted criminalization of abortion and the totally absurd opposition to birth control, the list goes on and on.

The point of totally public schools is so that the history of these abominations can be openly taught. I always made sure we didn’t miss a single one in history class. 

Abominations are not the sole fault of Christians. Most other religions played a similar role. The Buddist rap sheet is not too long but “The Enlightened One” did not have too much nice to say about women.

I miss Christopher Hitchens already.

What is never taught is the underlying values beneath the actions of groups or individuals. What is taught, is the justification to make change, based on the past and current events. What is taught, groups and the individuals who perceived to see themselves as being victims, are seen through the lens of victimization, are empowered to justified their actions, and underlying values based on perceived victimization along the historical lines, and current optics of today. Today, one can look cross-eye or a raise eyebrow, without speaking a word, and the person will jumped all over the person screaming discrimination.

I have no use for the philosophies that teaches oppression first, rather than the exploration of the individual’s values, which is composed of many different values along different lines, Empowering the individual or groups of people through the value system, will allow the exploration of all facets and new knowledge, and in the end the individual will decide on what values he will change, and than take actions that are more in his best interests, as well as having a more balanced viewpoint in his life.

I woke up one day, realizing that I saw my situation with my dyslexic child as a victimization process and lens. I only came to the realization when I had obtain enough knowledge. The same knowledge that is being withheld by the education system, because it is much easier to control the pesky demands of parents if they have far less knowledge than the educators.

It is the lack of knowledge that people processed, that keeps them passive, helpless and behaving as victims, but more importantly they will make decisions that are not in their best interests. For example, I knew they was something wrong with my child in grade 1, but I had to accept the words of the educrats. During the time, I kept coming back to them with evidence that said they are incorrect. It was quickly dismissed, and I went willingly back under the rock I climbed out. One bit of evidence that kept popping back up, was the word phonemic awareness and the short reading assessments found on the web. The educrats were particularly harsh in their response, but I never forgot the day of the grade 3 psycho-educational assessment report, my child’s major problem is low phonemic awareness. I was vindicated.

It has been a long journey Doug, because the education system is as complicated and forever shifting in its values and goals, as well as learning new knowledge from a vast number of fields, including the public education system. Done in the name of advocating for my child, in a system that is unwilling to share their knowledge, but always willing to forced their values unto me, in the hope that I would crawl back under the rock.

What I lacked was the knowledge of the other side, how they thought, the values they held, the belief systems underpinning the structures, as well as the knowledge to help my child. Now tell me Doug,  an education system who has a belief structure that phonemic awareness is not at all important, is it not a system that is unwilling to share their knowledge with the outsiders?  And if so, for what purpose to keep the knowledge of phonemic awareness from the parents? Could it be, to control the actions of the parent, according to the perceptions of the educrats based on the SEC factors. Control, to accept the edicts and work for the best interests of the education system, rather than working for the best interests of the child’s education and his future.

I don’t buy critical theory, because what is not taught to the students, is the ‘whys’ , underneath the actions and values, as well as viewing the world through narrowed and defined lens, according to the values that are held by others. It separates people, divides peoples, and not at all conducive for open transparent debate. Worst still, walk into any school and see the intolerance. Religion is talk about in neutral terms, until negative connotations arise in the history class, casting religion in a negative light, with no redeeming features. The organized religions have done terrible things in the world, but it is the faith values that are used to justified their actions. It is the same faith values, like other values, that individual students hold will stay intact, rather than changing the underlying values. Critical pedagogy in action, allows everyone to keep their values intact no matter how bias they are, and forces one and all to accept all values. It becomes a war of who has the stronger power position to force others to incorporate the value within their personal value system. More often than not, the person will act against their own best interests. Empower the individual with knowledge on all facets of an issue, and the likely outcome, the individual will shift their values, as well as looking out for their best interests.