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Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

Started by Bouwel, 10 August, 2009, 11:08:13 AM

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Colin YNWA

Quote from: Mike Gloady on 19 September, 2009, 07:04:31 PM
Quote from: Dandontdare on 19 September, 2009, 04:18:14 PM
They say religion is like a big dog - if it's yours, it gives comfort and security; if it's someone else's it can be scary; and in either event it should be kept away from small children.
A friend of mine says religion is a bit like a big winkle - fun to have but you'll get in trouble if you ram it down people's throats.
Or force it on children until they are old enough to make their own minds up.

TordelBack

#211
On the subject of sky-god cults, I'm being made to feel like a bad parent because I absolutely refuse to get my kids baptised.

Now I could understand this if my family and friends were religious types, but with a few exceptions they really aren't (my mother, my chief persecutor, will only enter a church at gunpoint).  Instead the reasoning is that I'm restricting their choice of school, at a time when our education system is one drafty prefab away from implosion.  

A number of our friends and acquaintances with no religious convictions whatsoever have recently had their kids baptised specifically to get into a school.  Their reasoning:  'it's no big deal'.  One rather reasonable friend said:  "it'll give them something to rebel against".  

I just can't see myself standing in church proclaiming a faith I've long since lost, telling porky pies in front of my family and friends, to enter a child into this religion that would put up with such obvious cynicism on my part, all to get said child into the kind of school that would make such a grotesque process  a precondition.   And what are people to make of my marraige vows, if just a short while later I'm prepared to tell a heap of lies in not dissimilar circumstances?

My problem here is this:  am I being stupidly thickheaded about this, and putting my own beliefs (atheism) ahead of my kids' welfare, just like every nutter who won't let their children have transfusions?  I'm happy enough for my kids to find their own crackpot beliefs, but I just don't want to start them out under what I regard as a shadow of willful ignorance and hypocrisy.

By the way, I personally like churches and ceremonies, the art, architecture, music, history and atmosphere, a lot of Christians I know are the finest most generous folk, and I've seen first hand the good parish-based communities can do.  I just don't believe, and don't hold with indoctrination.

Peter Wolf

I think that the indoctrination and politicising of children in schools is Vile.

This is going on a lot in schools in the US particularly but the schools dont teach the kids anything about the US constitution to the extent that only 28 percent even know what it is or anything about it.

This is just as harmful as indoctrination with religion in schools but in some ways is worse because it is without question a form of exploitation and morally reprehensible.

Children dont vote or pay taxes.

My school had prayers and sometimes hymns everyday in morning assembly and RE plus the odd outing to a church service and that type of thing.It didnt do any harm because i mostly ignored it and didnt say the prayers or sing the hymns either and even though it was C of E it wasnt a prerequisite to be baptised to be admitted into it.

As for others beliefs i make a point of not disrespecting their beliefs whatever that might be but i will say that i havent got very much time or patience for certain sections of the Atheist community and anyone knows anything about political history will know that Atheist political systems have led humanity to some very dark places and were/are just as evil as religious extremists.

I detest Satanism and Luciferianism and New Age BS which is perdominantly Luciferian based and i detest Gurus especially all that UN one world religion and all that Maitreya / Nesara/Share International BS.This is endorsed by the UN who promulgate it.

I also believe in religious freedom and i find it unacceptable that in this country and in the US Christians are being persecuted or having their freedom to express their religious beliefs curtailed.Unnacceptable.
Worthing Bazaar - A fete worse than death

SmallBlueThing

Tordelback: I went through similar with both my kids- and likewise had friends who, despite years of professed atheism, ran to church to get theirs signed up into the god club (sadly, no furry jesus badge with moving eyes was given to them afterwards). Both of mine remain unbaptised. Furthermore, I have pulled both of mine out of any kind of religious education- including "comparitive religion", on the grounds that it's all malevolent bollocks and comparing one against the other seems to me roughly the biggest waste of time it's possible for a child to spend. They're children fer fuckssakes! They believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy! They have very little ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality as it is- and these people want to further screw with their minds!

Mine got into the local school because we live two minutes down the road- which I realise is of no help if you don't similarly live near to yours. The school had a "fairly bad" reputation, but have benefitted from a phenomenal headteacher over the past few years, who has turned it around somewhat. I've found that the best way to get the most from the school is to get involved. I speak to the teachers and head on a regular basis and if I see standards slipping, I raise bloody hell until I get something done about it. LIke all schools it has problems, but it's getting there and both of my kids are doing well.

No matter what the school is, if you delve deep enough you'll see the problems that really matter (like late-reading and writing) are more to do with the National Curriculum and teaching methods, than the culture at the school itself. Phonics has a lot to answer for.

Good luck, anyway- and don't compromise!

SBT

.

Trout


Paul faplad Finch

While I have no kids of my own I'm becoming increasingly involved in my nephews life (my no fixed abode status leads me to spend a lot of time at my sisters home) and I have to say that I worry about his education a lot. Last year we had the problem of the teacher inventing her own way of writing letters so he didn't recognise them when he saw them written properly. Despite this he became an avid and enthusiastic reader. One hurdle overcome.

We are now 2 weeks into a new school year with a new teacher. She, despite being rather attractive in a middle aged milfy sort of way, is not exactly filling us with optimism.
On the first day at school he came home with a book 2 levels below what he had been reading last term. The next day his mum took him to school and asked about it, to be told that the class all had to start at the same level. Apparently she was qute snotty about it and insinuated that there was no way a child of his age would be at the level my sister was claiming. Why she couldn't just ask his old teacher I don't know. Anyway, my sister persevered and got his level raised so he brought home a more difficult book that evening.

He then proceeded to bring the same book every night for a week. Cue this wednesday. I'm picking him up and decide to check his bag. Sure enough, its the same book, so I call over his teacher. She apologises and explains that he hadn't asked for a new book. Now correct me if I'm being dumb but surely its up to teacheres to assign books, not wait for kids to ask for them, especially since the kids are all required to return a signed diary every day to say the've read and my sister has specifically noted in this diary that he needs a new book.

I finally get her to agree that he will definitely need a new one the next day. He still has the same one.

I may be being paranoid or cynical or both but in light of her comments at the start of all this I'm inclined to think that she is purposely holding him back until the others catch up. Which to my mind is all kinds of wrong. I've been to the library and picked up some books myself for him to practise on but I shudder to think how things are gonna progress in this school.
It doesn't mean that round my way
Pessimism is Realism - Optimism is Insanity
The Impossible Quest
Musings Of A Nobody
Stuff I've Read

SmallBlueThing

Quote from: King Trout on 21 September, 2009, 12:03:20 AM
Phonics? How so? I've heard good things about it.

So had I- until my eldest, who knew his alphabet at 2 1/2 and could read fluently by the time he left Nursery, forgot the names of all the letters and could only refer to them as "ah", "ber", "ker", "der", "eh", "fer", "ger", etc, by halfway through Reception Year. He's six now, and in year two, and they still aren't teaching the children to read properly. If I hadn't basically dumped a small comic shop and library into his bedroom a few years ago, I doubt he'd even be past the Usbourne Reading Tree level one by now. I know very few of the others in his class are. He goes to the school's main library to pick his books, while the others get to choose from the selection of Julia Donaldson/ Alex Scheffler knock-offs that the classroom holds.

Amusingly, this sometimes causes trouble, as he often likes to read Goosebumps and other such books "not for his age". Cue earnest teacher telling me sheepishly that he "has chosen a book that you'll probably not want him to read"...

Basically, I could read perfectly well by the time I was five. I learned to read through comics and the Radio Times, and my school supported and expanded my reading. As a result, when I was six and a half (and 2000AD came along) I was more than capable of understanding most of it. So can my eldest- but the other children, who are reliant on Phonics, struggle to read the big words in 'Spidey and friends'.

Sadly, I feel this means that by the time they are fluent enough to read comics, the only titles on the market available to them will be either the ones that have a content several years below them, like 'In The Night Garden', or ones (like the prog) that are now a decade or so ahead. result- they don't read anything, because nothing interests them.

SBT
.

SmallBlueThing

Quote from: faplad on 21 September, 2009, 12:18:57 AM
He then proceeded to bring the same book every night for a week. Cue this wednesday. I'm picking him up and decide to check his bag. Sure enough, its the same book, so I call over his teacher. She apologises and explains that he hadn't asked for a new book. Now correct me if I'm being dumb but surely its up to teacheres to assign books, not wait for kids to ask for them, especially since the kids are all required to return a signed diary every day to say the've read and my sister has specifically noted in this diary that he needs a new book.

And exactly the same happened to us. Exactly. And it resulted in me, after weeks of this, offering to give the school 500 or so books, if the problem was that they didn't have any. This went down well, as you can imagine- and I eventually had it out with the head. The situation was resolved, for a while, and he came home with a different book when he needed one.

However, now we have started a new year- and the problem has returned. I'm giving it another week, then making an appointment to see the head again. The thing is, to just... keep... pushing. Make them totally aware you are completely involved in the child's education and keep an active eye on his development. Whether because they are genuinely thrilled that someone is doing so, or because they are scared at being caught out, teachers seem to react to this quite positively.

SBT
.

Paul faplad Finch

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 21 September, 2009, 12:41:23 AM
The thing is, to just... keep... pushing. Make them totally aware you are completely involved in the child's education and keep an active eye on his development. Whether because they are genuinely thrilled that someone is doing so, or because they are scared at being caught out, teachers seem to react to this quite positively.

SBT

This is the plan. However, since my sister is taking the opportunity afforded by my jobless prescence to get a lot of overtime in I am the one encountering the teachers more often than not and as an Uncle I don't carry as much weight. She will of course give up shifts to get this sorted - I'm in no way impplying she's neglectiing his schooling - but it seems a shame that she has to lose earnings to sort something that I would have thought would be a simple thing.

And yes, phonics are a bloody nightmare. The thing is, ask him to say the alphabet and its A B C. But if you're teaching him the spelling of words and say ABC he doesn't understand. You have to tell him it in ah, ber, ker. If he already knows the alphabet, surely this gibberish is a step backwards.
It doesn't mean that round my way
Pessimism is Realism - Optimism is Insanity
The Impossible Quest
Musings Of A Nobody
Stuff I've Read

House of Usher

#219
I'm finding all of this fascinating. It confirms a lot of what I suspected already. Sorry to hear about the pressure that's being put on non-religious parents to get their kids into religious schools. It shows what a shambles state education is in that that kind of hypocrisy is now apparently considered normal. The fads in teaching children to read make me quite angry. They need both the names and the sounds of letters to do it properly. One of my nephews still didn't know the names of letters of the alphabet after starting secondary school. The theory behind phonics is sound enough - it's better than teaching whole word recognition, which gives kids no clue when they encounter a new word for the first time - but some teachers are incapable of applying theory except in the most basic by-the-numbers way. They're now so used to being told what to do by politicians and education advisors they just don't know how to think for themselves.
STRIKE !!!

Paul faplad Finch

Away from my nephew, I'd be interested what people thought of my brothers situation a couple of years ago.  He was a problem kid, dabbled in drugs and alchohol and with the best will in the world he wasn't the brightest kid in the world to start with. He spent very little time at school and when he was there he was usually in trouble.

Come the time of his GCSE exams none of us held out much hope of him even sitting. He by this time had been sent to a seperate school for "problem children" and the curriculum wasn't exactly academically minded if you know what I mean. He was reading at a the level of a 6/7 year old and could barely count past 10 without taking his shoes off. (This is not a cruel joke on my part, but hard fact. It was a constant worry for me, if not my mother)

He sat the exams, with someone stood next to him to read the questions. I was, quite literaly flabbergasted. How can this kind of thing help anyone involved. How do they think he's gonna be able to do a GCSE exam, in any subject, if he can't even read the questions? The school said that they were oblligated to give him every opportunity any other person of his age would get. The whole thing stank of statistics and quotas to me.

It doesn't mean that round my way
Pessimism is Realism - Optimism is Insanity
The Impossible Quest
Musings Of A Nobody
Stuff I've Read

Mike Gloady

I'd always suspected phonics was a bucket of old drivel, the experience of my nieces has only proved it. 

This crap isn't new though, my mum had taught me to read and my alphabet LONG before school started.  The teachers had a go at her because I was making the other children feel bad (making her life more difficult by forcing her to provide education tailored to kids who weren't just plopped in front of playschool all bloody day more like).  My mum naturally had a go right back and pointed out that the teacher's laziness shouldn't be her child's problem. 

As it turned out, it was.  I was promptly ignored for weeks. 
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Radbacker

on the baptism thing, Im agnostic (ex Catholic, then ex-athiest go figure) and dont have any kidy winks myself but isn;t it better to be safe than sorry i mean i was taught as a child that un baptised people no matter how good they are dont have any chance of getting into that exclusive cluvb they call heaven.  Part of my reason for calling bullshit on the whole thing was when i asked about still births (my eldest sister had just lost her first child I was about 12) I never got an answer it was all breushed away effectivly leaving a very traumatised 12 year old thinking his first nephew was going to hell.  Screw them

CU RAdbacker

TordelBack

#223
Quote
QuotePart of my reason for calling bullshit on the whole thing was when i asked about still births (my eldest sister had just lost her first child I was about 12) I never got an answer it was all breushed away effectivly leaving a very traumatised 12 year old thinking his first nephew was going to hell.

While I know it's not official Catholic theology, and in fact Vatican 2, JP2 and Ratzinger/Benedict have all had a go at knocking (though not dismissing) the idea, it was common enough in Ireland to be taught that all unbaptised children went to Limbo rather than Heaven.  Forever.  This was coupled with the practice of excluding the unbaptised from consecrated burial, meaning generations of infants were buried in boundary ditches, and in old ringforts and barrows (perceived as liminal or sacred places, even if that sacral dimension was pagan in nature).  The most awful part of my job as an archaeologist over the years has been digging up these neonates and babies (not intentionally excavating them, but they are everywhere an archaeologist might care to work).  I can't ever get out of my mind the misery that the religious inflicted on their bereaved parents, the cruel idea that they would never be reunited with their children even in the eternity they anticipated after death, coupled with the idea of digging a lonely shallow grave in a ditch or mound, without comfort of priest or community.  It's a foulness that plays no small part in my dislike of religious teaching.  I'm also fairly sure that the Jesus of the gospels would kick the ass of whoever came up with that one.



Roger Godpleton

He's only trying to be what following how his dreams make you wanna be, man!