We don't need no education
I'm a bit hmm and a bit haw about this story.
I don't really understand why a gay or lesbian couple would want to send their child to a Roman Catholic school in the first place. Perhaps it's the best one in the area. Still, with the leader of the church saying that homosexuality is self-destruction, I can't say that it seems the most logical choice, to want to send your child to school in a system that actively disapproves of you... But then again, hold the phone, not all Catholics toe this particular papal line and it's no doubt possible to consider yourself Catholic and gay, so maybe they are believers. I was assuming they weren't but could well be wrong*.
The priest is reported as saying: "If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad," Breslin said on his blog. "We don't want to put any child in that tough position."
Which seems not unreasonable. It would be a very bad thing to make a child scared for their parents and feel their homelife is Wrong.
But it does encourage me in my feeling that faith schools are not fit for purpose. If a school is incapable of being a safe environment for a child to be taught in, through its very ethos, then it's not a school worth having.
* I often am.
3 comments:
I agree to some extent that faith schools are not fit for purpose. I've seen in my children's old faith school that the headteacher is a lesbian and she tries to subtly erode the Christian ethos of the school, by celebrating every religious festival except for Christmas, and she did various other things that show she had a very cynical attitude about organised religion. However, some Christian friends were very kneejerk hostile towards her, which made me think Hmmmm, this is bad, because after all she's probably a really good headteacher and I think it's unfair that her sexuality is a bar to people and stops people judging her just on the basis "Is she a good teacher or not?" I think if she's a good headteacher her religion/sexuality ought to have nothing at all to do with it. But then, I did choose to send my children to a faith school because it's a faith school and another local state school were very out in the open sneery about religion. For us it was about the religion and not about the "good school results" or whatever. So I'm really in both camps at once about this. Clear as mud as ever. Abster.
I think our education system is a bit screwy. The remnants of the grammar school system mixed up with comprehensive and then faith schools mixed into it all - it's just a mess. I've been told that to get daughter through the 11plus I'll have to pay for tutoring cos what they learn in junior school doesn't fit them, however bright, for passing the exam. Eurgh.
Yeah, fair education for all, as long as you can afford it. :/
That is galling. I know. I have a friend in london who is coaching her son for exams just to get into a local state school that's hugely oversubscribed and has an entrance exam. The problem is that the middle classes will always find a way to make the system work for them and they have a sentimental attachment to what they consider "good schools" ie things that ought to be outmoded by now, grammar schools and the like. I wish ALL local schools were *good* so we didn't get all this panicking and scrabbling for the one or two "good" schools. Husband went to a "good" school and it was just an exam passing factory so their idea of "good" was not husband's idea. Abster
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