10 Reasons the Ethics Classes are a Great Idea

Last Friday, 5th November, was the deadline for the Minister to receive comments from the public regarding the recommendations of the trial ethics course evaluation. So, now we sit and wait. This seems like a good time to reflect back on why so many people, parents and non-parents, with any or no religious belief, have been spending so much of their time and energy on the support of ethics classes.

Following the example of Archbishop Peter Jensen’s “ten reasons the ethics trial is not a good idea”, I have listed reasons that ethics classes are a great idea. I have arbitrarily stopped at ten, just because I have to get to sleep at some point, but I could go on, and no doubt you can think of a few reasons of your own to add to these. Please do so by commenting on this blog with your own reasons. Here we go then:

1. The current situation is discriminatory. It is simply not fair to allow some children to take lessons while others are prevented from doing so. This is clearly unreasonable and (as has been said many times) discriminatory, and the fact that it has been going on for so long is a disgrace to our current and previous state governments. There have been many stories in the media, including this website, describing the details of this particular discrimination.
2. Taxpayers fund the system but the children of some of those taxpayers are denied access to part of that system. It is not acceptable to devote a period of time in a public school to education on a specific religion without a secular option. A wide range of views and beliefs are represented in the general population, including a significant proportion with no religion. Those people pay taxes that allow public schools to exist, and to have their view excluded during a regular time period in the school curriculum is completely unreasonable.
3. Classes allowing a focus on ethical issues should be offered to all children. Children in scripture classes have the opportunity to consider ethical issues in the framework of a specific religion. This is ok for those for whom that religion is meaningful, but for children whose families are not religious, a class offering the same opportunity without the religious context is obviously needed. It should have been provided a long time ago, and the fact that it has taken this long and a great deal of agitation from a large number of people is outrageous.
4. Parents should not have to risk exposing their children to catechism. Scripture classes provide a situation in which church organizations can, if they wish, sell their religion to children. I have never attended a scripture class, and to allow the benefit of doubt, let’s say that most do not do this, but given the situation in which a believer delivers a lesson to the same group of children for at least 10 weeks, it is clearly possible that proselytizing could take place. It should not be necessary, in a publicly funded school system, for parents to have to choose a religion so that their children spend a regular time slot with a believer of that religion. There has to be a viable non-religious option.
5. Ethics classes have raised the bar. The proposed introduction of ethics classes has triggered an interest in the quality of teaching and the content of classes that occur during the scripture time slot. This has to be a good thing. Scripture classes have been taking place for years with no external evaluation. It is surely negligent of successive state governments to have allowed this situation to continue. With the arrival of trial ethics classes came a requirement for them to be properly evaluated, and quite rightly so. Evaluated they were, with very positive outcomes, but now the obvious question is, what about scripture? How and when will they be evaluated? Will this be done externally, and what methods will be used? These calls for scripture class teaching and content to be examined properly are an extremely positive outcome of the proposed ethics classes.
6. They allow teachers to do their job. It seems unlikely that teachers are happy with a situation in which they sit a group of children in front of a television, or direct them to do colouring-in or other such mindless tasks, during the weekly scripture period. The principal at my children’s school tells me that the teachers ask her how they are expected to occupy children, particularly those in the younger years, without teaching. The school’s hands are tied by state government policy, and the principal has to tell them that they can only work within that policy, and offer the children supervision but no lesson. Have you ever tried supervising young children while not interacting with them? The television would go on after the first few minutes, and of course that is what many young children who opt out of scripture are subjected to, including my own. I pay taxes, and I expect that money to pay for my children’s education.
7. The subject area aligns well with scripture so neither group is disadvantaged. When offering a class for children who opt out of scripture, ethics seems an ideal subject matter. It does not advantage one group of children over another, because ethics would be addressed in both scripture and ethics classes. So, the subject area is perfect.
8. Ethics classes are an option for children of any or no religion. Ethics classes offer an option for children of non-religious families as well as those whose religion is not represented by scripture classes at their school. Surely it seems sensible to have a class not focused on a particular religion to cater for children from families with any or no faith. For example, at my children’s school the range of ethics classes includes Anglican, Catholic, Buddhist, and Greek Orthodox. Families of other faiths including Islam and Seventh Day Adventist are at the school, but there is no scripture class for them. They welcome ethics classes just as much as families of no faith.
9. Ethics classes are of excellent quality. The trial ethics classes were developed with a great deal of thought and careful planning by an international expert in philosophy for children, Associate Professor Philip Cam. Parents and other members of the community who volunteered to facilitate the classes were trained by Prof Cam, and the course was evaluated independently by an appropriately qualified academic of the University of South Australia. Recommendations made in the evaluation will be taken very seriously in any development of ethics classes to be offered more widely. The classes are in excellent hands, and there is every reason to expect that if ethics classes are introduced they will be of very high quality.
10. The ethics course curriculum can benefit faith groups. Ethics classes are inclusive, since they are suitable for children of any or no faith. In addition, the approach and attitude of the course coordinator and developer is equally inclusive, as evidenced by the fact that the ethics course curriculum will be made available to faith groups for adaptation to their own needs if the ethics classes are introduced. What a fantastic display of comradeship and collaboration.