“Writing for the court, Madam Justice Marie Deschamps strongly disagreed Friday with the parents who had challenged the program. Far from shoving religious views down the throats of children, she said, the program opens young minds to a wide variety of viewpoints and beliefs.

Judge Deschamps said that it is fact of life in modern society that children will be exposed to religions, creeds and beliefs that are different than those of their immediate family.”

Religion and its values are under attack, and more so for Christianity and the values. This ruling follows the same pathway as the European countries, and I dare say, one only has to see the intolerance in the European news stories. Christianity is under attack as the reasons why the world is such a mess, and add the Jewish faith, people who hold values under the two faiths, should be made to pay over and over again for the wars, famines, weather disasters, economic disasters, and the reason why the governments must impose rules/regulations that regulates the values that people have, especially Western-Christian/Judaic values, that is being perceived as always being top-dog, oppressing other values that differs from Western-Christian-Judaic values.

“The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education,” she said.”

Multicultural reality?  I don’t buy it, because faith values are personal and should always be respected, without demanding the individual to accept and incorporate other faith values that are not in keeping with their faith values.

The mandatory religion program in Quebec, does not respect the students nor the parents faith values, by asking them to accept other faith values, without having the opportunity to question the faith values that differ. Toss in the lack of the historical context and events that led to the world’s major faiths, as well as pretending to see faiths being composed of the same values, is asking a 8 year old to accept without questioning. The only option left is to accept all other values, and reject the Christian values they hold, and parents who value them.

” “There is a time and place for everything, and this exposure should come later. Unless, of course, the entire point of the exercise is to sow doubt,” said the woman, who can be identified only as S.L. under a court order. “I want to assure you, I’m for openness, but I refuse to treat my faith as something freakish. Just how far do we have to go to call ourselves welcoming and tolerant?”

And the parent is right, and if I was in her place, every time religion is on, my child would have the morning or afternoon off. Which I do believe will be the course of action that parents will take. After all, religion studies is not part of the core subjects, nor will religion ever be part of the core subjects. No kid has ever failed a grade for failing religion or health studies, and if a child does fail a grade, the decision is made on the core subjects.

Beside the above, mandatory religion only leads the horse to the water, but mandatory cannot make the horse drink the water. Values such as faith should always be left up to the individuals, and the State should never imposed faith values unto their citizens. Nor should they imposed mandatory religion unto the young students, who do not processed the skills and abilities to defend their values or opposed other faith values that differs from them.

Now here is a conversation I’m looking forward to having?

I would like to begin by posing a question that gets behind Malkin’s post a little bit. What is the difference between raising a child and educating a child? I know that there are points of intersection, but in what way do the two enterprises differ?

Raising a child and educating a child are two levels of the same beast. Anyone can raise a child, but to truly educate a child it goes beyond providing food, shelter and basic needs.

And the State has no business in the lives of families and their faith values, and other soft values that implies that only the State can supply the education needs of children and dictate the values to the families.

I understand your statement on one level, Nancy. But education is always value-laden. It’s impossible to extract values from what we teach in our classrooms, or in our homes.

If children are given over to a public system for most of their waking lives from ages 4-18, then it’s very difficult to scrub the process of values.

Values are a tough one, though. It’s difficult to scrub the curriculum free of values, especially the implicit ones. Sometimes teachers don’t even realize how “dripping” with values things are.

And Then There’s Inculcation

My view is that the state’s interest in overseeing a civil society would be just as well-served if all education was in voluntary private hands.  The public good of public education can be achieved by numerous choices available to parents and students. 

Of course if there was harm or injury the state must step as in a welfare case.  Or if the education provider was preaching or preparing for sedition, which is overthrow of the state.  That is in the School Acts of most countries.

And in this Quebec case, the state is not forcing the religious survey course on the children as the parents have the right to home educate or buy-in to an independent school.

Funding public education through school vouchers would probably yield higher achievements and innovations and cost savings than the present cumbersome centrally organized government schooling system.

What I find objectionable is the current public schools philosophy which purports to know what’s best for the child by way of programs and values.  I do think there should be much more clout behind parental rights to remove their children from values-laden courses designed — not to challenge or inform — but to actually systematically change value orientations.

I refer to an article in the National Post, Saturday January 28, 2012 http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

I fear that professors of education are becoming more adept at methods of brainwashing and indoctrination.  I hear more of how they will help new teachers “embed and integrate” social justice ideas for example. 

Then in the above article look at this quote from Charles Ungerleider, UBC, Sociology, and former Deputy Minister of Education in an NDP government, BC:

“Parents are the primary educators of their kids and the primary communicators of values.  But the reason that we send children to public school is, in fact, to develop and inculcate the values we all share and to overcome any limitations a parent may have in exposing kids to alternative points of view.”

Inculcation:  Teaching or impressing upon the mind by frequent instruction or repetition or admonitions.

Tunya, great comments, but I believe inculcation and indoctrination were part of the original design when public schools were first introduced? Were we not attempting to form the minds of young people to become compliant citizens, disciplined and, in a sense, subservient? (Not a bad thing, I suppose, if your economy requires compliance and subservience!)

I guess what I’m asking is, “Was there ever a time when public education not based on a set of values?”  Perhaps where the tension exists now is that we may have strongly conflicting values in our current society.

More than that, I also think that we have conflicting purposes in mind when we think of what public schools should be doing. Are they primarily designed to better my child; are they designed to better all children? Are they designed for the transmission of knowledge? Are they designed for the creation of new knowledge?

All of these tensions offer us an opportunity to have wonderful discussions about the present and future of public schools (and their alternatives), but sometimes they get swept under the carpet too quickly. They become part of the growing zoo of elephants that no one wants to directly address.

Impossible to do, to eradicate values from a school, let alone society. Values are enduring, and some will say eternal. But I leave that with the philosophers, and stay with the faith values and believe values of individuals and education structures. Whether it is one school, a school district or the entire provincial education system, the education structure is heavily laced with values that implies the rights of the state supersedes the rights of the student, parents, and anyone else that dares to opposed or question their authority on the education of children.

In the article link from Tunya, Ann Kidder sides with parents, ” I worry about confusing the idea of teaching children about a just society with teaching a political viewpoint,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of People.”  And it continues in the same vein individuals versus the school structure, The education system claiming the right to supersede in values of individuals, and replace it with new values, regardless of harm is done to the individual students, and parents.

I say harm for good reason, because it injures the personal self, in the same way as a fist hitting the jaw of another person. But what differs, is the face will heal, but the personal self will forever be change. What an education system calls introducing other faiths and values to children on diversity and its a global world, is really an assault on the personal faith values of individuals versus the political global viewpoint that faith values don’t matter. What matters is to indoctrinate and inoculation to merge all faiths and their values into one and if that means making Christianity into the bad boy, in order for the merge to be realized, so be it.

The values of individuals, especially the faith values should be respected by the State, and should only intercede if the values are doing harm to others. Can’t have someone preaching hate unto others, but the State should never imposed and attempt to change faith values by force. Or the underhanded tactics of imposing mandatory religion classes under the subtexts of it is fact of life in modern society scenarios.  that children will be exposed to religions, creeds and beliefs that are different than those of their immediate family.” 

The old Russia, the USSR, and some will say the old USSR and the imposing values unto their citizens is still alive and well, is an example. Nazi Germany is another example. Both countries are examples of why the State should never supersede over the faith values and other soft values of individuals hold.

Or the National Post story in Tunya’s link. As a parent, I too would be just as peeved as the Jewish mother, http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/27/alternative-classrooms-may-not-be-as-inclusive-as-they-claim-to-be/

It is the underhanded tactics that I opposed, because it is the same underhanded tactics used by the Nazis and Communist regimes to control the values of individuals, and to change the values that are more in keeping with the State.  I am afraid, the public education systems in Canada, have now become chief bottle washer in instilling ideologies and dogma in our children, rather than instilling virtues in our children. Mandatory religion class becomes a reality, when faith values gets into the way of instilling ideologies and dogmas in the hearts and minds of children,

Faith values are enduring, and often do stopped individuals from adopting the State’s goals and aspirations. One of the first order of business for Nazi Germany and the old USSR, was to eliminate faith values, and the very religious faiths.

““Was there ever a time when public education not based on a set of values?”

In the beginning it was clear that those communities who built the school and who hired the teacher were the ones whose values were upheld.

It has now come to the point where it’s the values of MOE bureaucrats calling the shots, and it’s the luck of the draw as to how well or poorly individual teachers teach those values….or not.

A better question would be when did parents who make up our school communities turn over the imparting of values to those bureaucrats and educators? In part, I think parents let this happen….without much of a fight and now are wondering why the school has so much authority over the values-teaching of their kids.

This is interesting…. 

I have begun to think that some of the most devastating end-results in history came about initially as a socialist philosophy.  Karl Marx couldn’t have envisioned the sterile end result of his philosophizing, summed up by Orwell as: “All animals are created equal, only some animals are more equal.” 

And later in another nation, the National Socialist party rises to power on a platform that speaks out against capitalism, against big business and against the concept of a bourgeois civilization.

In 1918, the Austrian DNSAP stated the following:

  “...the German National Socialist Workers’ Party is not a party exclusively for labourers; it stands for the interests of every decent and honest enterprise. It is a liberal (freiheitlich) and strictly folkic (volkisch) party fighting against all reactionary efforts, clerical, feudal, and capitalistic privileges; but, before all, against the increasing influence of the Jewish commercial mentality which encroaches on public life.”

Hmmm… a party that is self-proclaimed to be liberal and anti capitalist.. and yet, some animals are just more equal than others…

  Or how about Rousseau’s sword-arm Dewey?  Do you think that all of his efforts to create a new socialist world of equality, where children would develop naturally without the interference of say… books, might result in the land of troubled schooling and disparity that is the U.S. today? 

  Throughout my entire career, instead of socializing students to an agenda, I have tried to teach kids (recently teenagers)  the things that they didn’t know. Here are some examples that stand out from last year:

how to read an analogue clock
how to alphabetize
sound-letter correspondence
single digit by single digit multiplication
division
how to read a ruler
what a DIME is. (honestly, this 17 year old didn’t know what a dime was last year)

and this was supposed to be high school English and Math.

  My hard, direct teaching gets through to them, and they learn the things that I am telling them, but I can’t pass them.  I am talking about every student in my classes.  They may all have some inklings about different things, but the net knowledge is very, very low.  If what I teach them sticks in their minds and they can use it to do other things over an over, this says to me there is nothing wrong with their brains.  It must be that their prior teaching was inadequate.

But, now the trumpets sound out in opposition!!  “NO, THIS IS NOT SO!” they peal in harsh discord.  “Wasn’t their instruction done in a natural way, and for the betterment of society?  Weren’t everyone’s views included, and nothing was emphatically stated so as to not offend.  Didn’t we just celebrate “Heart Day” instead of Valentine’s Day last week, so that non-christians will not feel offence over an activity based on a Roman Catholic Saint.  We did this and more!” 

“Did we not, for the betterment of these same students, reveal to them the Incredible 5-point Scale?  We showed them that they could moderate their behaviours with this system!  And did we not practice on a daily basis to check ‘if our buckets were full’, visualizing Mary Reckmeyer’s wonderful picture book, so as to teach meta cognition and self-regulation?  This was all in effort to encourage kindness and mildness. We did this and more!”  The brassy cries sound, and resound again against me. Methinks that these opposing shouts of the righteous echo through most halls of education every day.

But something didn’t work out.  These students know nothing, they are mean and cruel and racist and self-righteous.  They feel a constant sense of entitlement, and have no ambitions, or they have ludicrous ones such as planning on becoming NHL stars or MMA fighters. 

  I have worked in too many schools where the undirected, self-directed, child-centred, ‘feelings-centric”, group learning and learning by play philosophies result in the same end. 

1. A lack of effective order in classrooms and all activities, which begets..

2. A lack of discipline in the student and the teacher which begets…

3. A room of unfocussed minds which begets…

4. Minds that are not used to learning things they are not interested in, which begets….

5. Minds that are near incapable of learning things that they are not interested in, which begets…

6. Ignorance. (Not Critical Thinking)

Chuck, I would disagree on the part that parents turned over the teaching of values to the education system. Parents had lost the option of inserting their individual rights, and it has now become the duty of parents to follow the goals and values of the education system. If parents do decide to insert their rights over the education system, it is met with the full force of the education system. When parents act against the public education system and its interests, it is putting a target on them, in much the same way as citizens in Nazi Germany and the old USSR, usually paid with their lives, to insert their individual rights to practice with values that runs counter to the State.

As Madteacher has pointed out, the dangers of socialist ideology within the public education system is present throughout the education systems in the world. “I have worked in too many schools where the undirected, self-directed, child-centred, ‘feelings-centric”, group learning and learning by play philosophies result in the same end.” And than Madteacher lists just a few of the negative outcomes and harm being done not only to the individual students, their families, but all of society.

Parents have never turned over their rights to the public education system, but the practice of socialistic indoctrination and dogma that is interwoven in the policies and practices of the education system over the years, and more so in the last 20 years, has gradually erode the ability of parents to insert their rights, when it comes to the teaching of values, and for that matter anything to do with education of their children. As I would do just out of principle, have my child take a 1/2 day off school, whenever religion is on the schedule, other parents would choose different methods. But for most parents, they would accept it, because they do not want the hassles that results when parents insert their rights, over the State’s rights.

The outcomes is just what Madteacher has listed, and there is many more unintended outcomes that have negative repercussions for society and students’ futures into adulthood.

Parents surely did allow the takeover Nancy. How else could it have happened. In the last 40 years I’ve not heard a peep of a fight from parents who choose the public system for their kids.

Those parents who choose outside of the system have taken back their responsibilities.

The majority of parents, and even parents know it, want someone else to raise their kids and if that means doing the heavy lifting of a values education, so be it.

Even today I don’t see a groundswell of protest from parents against the teachings of values…whose ever they may be.

Really? Nazi Germany? Quite the stretch.

Madteacher’s post is nice but not new. It may speak to socialist ideology but doesn’t speak to the issue raised in Malkin’s post.

Parents turn over their rights to the public system and all it offers by making that uneducated choice for their kids.

Again. show me the groundswell of parent objection and how it’s moved the value-laden public education system to change its stripes.

Parents, even among other parents have become very lazy, and expect others to do their work - even when it comes to simple research and challenging the system - they want someone else to do it. Usually the parent with the loudest voice.

History of schools in Ontario has shown that once the community held the values lessons, demanded that of the educator they hired and expected the school to follow community values.

It’s flipped around and it happened over time because it was allowed to happen and to say that parents never played a part in that takeover isn’t realistic.

Excerpted from “Challenge, Chalk & Change”  from Hamilton Normal School Year Book 1924-25

“A School Idyll
by “X”

Ram it in, cram it in.
Children’s heads are hollow.
Slam it in, jam it in,
Still there’s more to follow.

Hygiene and history,
Astronomic mystery,
Algebra, histology?
Latin, etymology,
Botany, geometry,
Greek and trigonometry.

Ram it in, cram it in,
Children’s heads are hollow.

Rap it in, tap it in,
What are teachers paid for?
Bang it in, slam it in,
What are children made for?”

Also from teacher Jean Hunt from St. Catharines as she recalled her 1937 teaching interview

“The local farmers who were on the board (of education) made the decisions and the person who interviewed me was working in the field so I had to get out and go over into the field and have the interview there. He hired me on the spot.”

More examples of how communities shaped almost everything that happened within the schools.

Centralization and the quest for mega-everything is also to blame for local school communities losing their grasp of not just values education but even the schools themselves.

Parent objection is suppressed via by limiting the options of asserting the rights of the individuals, and in this case parents from working for the best interests of their children and the values that are held in high esteem. In the typical democracy, and the social institutions of the democracy, and for that matter governments of other stripes, have a tendency to place limits on individual rights versus the collective group, and having the government being the final say in how individuals, the whole collective and the sub-groups go about organizing their society, their values, culture and rights/duties of their citizens. The vehicles used are the social institutions of the government. One of the social institutions, is the public education system. What was once common virtues taught, in the school acts, and still are, have gradually been replaced with a new value inserted on top of the virtues. .In the National Post article, a good illustration is in the quote, ““This is an important ruling that says there are limits to when religious groups can claim that their rights are infringed in a multicultural and diverse society,” Prof. Mendes said. “It is saying that governments have the right to promote initiatives that recognize the diversity of our society without singling out one or more religion for either benefits or disadvantage.”

Key words “governments have the right” to limit the rights of individuals and their faith values. The court ruling, is another confirmation of many court rulings, that governments have the right to place limits on the individuals.

In the same way, our social institutions have declared Merry Christmas banned from public places, In the same way, the Quebec government is tripping away the words of the Christian god in their daycares and schools. Or the crosses being remove from hospital chapels, and the wearing of religious symbols such as the cross. How about the banned being place in city and town halls, the banning of bottled water?  The latter leads individuals being prevented from making their own decisions without facing the wrath of the decision makers, and their petty edicts and sermons of the evils of bottled water. Or the ruling in BC concerning the rights of LD students, to be educated, which is now resting in the hands of the Supreme Court of Canada.

It leads back to the cited quote, and the words, “that governments have the right to promote initiatives that recognize the diversity of our society without singling out one or more religion for either benefits or disadvantage.”. In the BC Moore court ruling, it leads to same circular argument, that if no one within the group, is receiving remediation services for reading, than no individual LD student can received the reading remediation service. For LD students, it places restrictions not only on their rights to an education, but as well as their rights to a free education. Which is exactly, why the Moore case is being heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The socialist doctrine, speaks loud and clear that individual rights are to be suppressed at all times, for the collective good and the economic well being of its government. Socialist doctrine is very much part of the discussion of mandatory religion class, the court ruling, because the court rulings rests on socialist doctrine and the laws that have developed along the lines of no one person should be able to insert their rights as an individuals, when others cannot.

The solutions have always been the circular arguments of governments retaining the right to limit individuals rights over the collective whole.  And they do so, not only with the laws, but as well as limiting the options of the individuals to insert their rights via through the social/income/education status of individuals.

There is no groundswell, because the majority of parents are already limited to what they can do by law in inserting their rights as individuals, but also limited based on their social/income/education status.

The individual parents have never turned over their rights to the public education system, but had limits placed on the individual parents rights versus the rights of the public education system, and its stakeholders. Nine times out of ten, the education system will impose the values they hold in high esteem, and make the students and parents dance to the favours of the month. And at the same time the education system, defends the right to be final say in all things education, including values, and justifies it in the same way as the sitting government and its representatives justifies because they have the final say. What is left is the individuals and their ability to insert their rights as individuals.

Since parents are not a cohesive group, it will be a mixed bag of actions or non-actions taken by parents, on a tectonic plate of shifting values, dynamic and always changing. versus the well-oiled and organized machine called public education.

Mad Teacher-
We are soulmates.

Any ideas,what could we do to change things and expose the insanity.

Malkin once had the idea of a movie documentary-any other ideas?
Parents need the information-on Educhatter last week,one teacher wrote about a curriculum purchased by her board that made her crazy and she said no matter how frequently she told the Principal and Superintendent,they blamed her instead of their prescribed curriculum.

Stephen Hurley who appears to be a very caring educator stated,if we teach directly-“will we be raising a nation of automatons?”
Of course,this brainwashing all comes from University prep campuses…
Can we make a plan to try to begin to stop the disease…

Stephen Hurley who appears to be a very caring educator stated,if we teach directly-“will we be raising a nation of automatons?”
Of course,this brainwashing all comes from University prep campuses…

Actually, I thunk up that question all by myself!

Actually Stephen, common response from educators who think direct teaching, explicit teaching, and the kind I did at home for my child, homeschoolers, tutors, and many others, leads students nowhere to the higher order of thinking skills and independent learning.

Had to fight this one, once it was found out that I was more or less re-teaching the lessons of the day, plus the remediation in the 3 Rs, and other skills such as note taking at home. The board staff, as well as a few in the ministry of education, claimed that my child will never become an independent learner, nor be able to do things, if I kept writing her notes. Had many responses, but it ended, when I pointed out the sad stats for LD students, and how the odds are against them from ever receiving a 70 average or higher, in a system that does not provide the correct remediation in the 3 Rs, nor even considered the academic future outcomes.I threw in the last bit, to where I added, especially when the solutions for LD students, is to dumb down the work to two grade levels below.

Than the conversations was back on tracked, discussing the plight of LD students who are at high risk for being the lowest achievers of a school, at the board district and in the province. And yet, one of the criteria to meet to be identified as LD, that the child must have an average IQ or higher. And of course, why I did a lot of direct teaching, drills, and lots of practice at home. It works effectively, and provides the foundation to leap into higher advance learning with some ease.

Nancy “There is no groundswell, because the majority of parents are already limited to what they can do by law in inserting their rights as individuals, but also limited based on their social/income/education status.”

You’ve bought Doug’s argument hook, line and sinker.

Parents have been limited by their own wills and choice, or lack of it. Parents have been fighting back for a long time. The advocacy groups for parents ten years ago were many and encompassed both the left and right of the political spectrum.

I’m well aware of how the system manipulates parents, but am also aware that unless it affects their kids parents don’t care enough to fight back.

There are those who like the parents who make up SQE (and OQE before that) plus at least a dozen other parent advocacy & reform groups over the years, have more than a passing interest in what’s going on in our schools. The system doesn’t count on that, but they are in the minority and that’s something that the system knows very well.

Joanne - “Parents need the information-on Educhatter last week,one teacher wrote about a curriculum purchased by her board that made her crazy and she said no matter how frequently she told the Principal and Superintendent,they blamed her instead of their prescribed curriculum.”

Parents who have been around the block on education reform do know about teachers like the one you refer to from Educhatter. Many of those same teachers confide in education-reform minded parents. 

It’s easy talking to the converted. It’s those uneducated that need reaching.

“Parents have been limited by their own wills and choice, or lack of it.”

That too follows the social-economic-education levels of parents. The higher the ranking. the more ability a parent has to options within the public education system, and to fight the education system. However, when the pubic education contrives to insert their authority on limiting the choices, the values, the cultures of families, by rigging the system along the lines of the social-economic-education factors, it amounts to controlling the behaviour and actions of all parents.

Sure parents have been fighting back, the minority as you have pointed out, but along the political lines and not on the legal lines. 

And the monopoly called a public education system, sits back content the minority is on the political lines. Need to be on both lines, the political and the legal lines to do effective battle with a public education system, that has been set up to be the moral and legal authority on all things education.

The public education has neither the moral and legal authority, since parents and its communities never ceded their individual rights of being the moral and legal authority of their children.

I don’t mean to sit and argued with you Chuck, but I am coming from a different political perspective, that questions the State’s rights to be the final moral and legal authority in all things education.

Where we differ, is how we see the majority of parents and the realities.

Funding public education through school vouchers would probably yield higher achievements and innovations and cost savings than the present cumbersome centrally organized government schooling system.

There is no evidence for this of course.

The thing that makes me laugh is that you guys use the word “parents” as a stand in for “conservative parents”. When the government wants to know what parents think they poll and focus group and then they throw out all the surveys from people who checked the box “conservative” where it says what party did you vote for in the last election.

After that they ask Annie Kidder what she thinks and you have parents opinion or the section of it that matters to the Ontario government.

I think some of you guys ought to actually read “The Communist Manifesto” some day. You will see that when he actually lays out what society needs he says; a public school system, medicare, pensions, etc etc.

One exam question I used to give the kids was “What elements of the Manifesto has Canada already implemented, of the remainder which part ought we implement or not and site your reasons.”

You get very interesting answers.

actually
the drive for public ed has liberal and
conservative sources too
Ryerson, Disreali, Mill, Mann, Jefferson

and to think that you Doug believe that Annie Kidder represents anyone but herself and the choices she made for her kids.

People for Education does not represent parents. Have heard Ms. Kidder say as much.