SRE

Religious bullying in Australian schools uncovered

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From “Eternity“

Rebecca Abbott — 7 minutes

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Sad boy at school


Religious bullying in Australian schools uncovered

And how SRE can help prevent it

Students are facing “rampant” bullying in Australian schools because of their religious beliefs, a four-year study into government schools has found.

Authors of the report released yesterday – Sydney university academic Professor Emerita Suzanne Rutland and Professor Zehavit Gross from Bar Ilan University in Israel – found Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu students had all experienced being teased or being made fun of because of their faith.

Cases of vilification were higher in Sydney and Melbourne the researchers discovered, after conducting hundreds of interviews with students, teachers and families in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania.

The report – titled ‘Exploring the Value of Special Religious Education in Australia’ – also showed that school principals and other leaders were often unaware of or reluctant to deal with religious bullying, and students and families often played down the abuse.

“This is a real phenomenon. Now the question we have to face is, are we going to ignore and deny it, or are we going to deal with it openly and professionally?” – Professor Zehavit Gross

“I was shocked,” Gross told Eternity about the extent of religious bullying they found in Australian government schools.

“This is a real phenomenon. Now the question we have to face is, are we going to ignore and deny it, or are we going to deal with it openly and professionally? I think that if we as adults fail to protect our children, we are not fulfilling our duty of care.”

Gross said she was also “shocked and surprised” about the “denial of this phenomenon.”

“We went to the principals. We went to parents. We went to SRE [Special Religious Education] teachers. And they all denied this phenomenon.

Read the rest of the article here

The “Culture War” is Real

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Our society is now so far removed from its christian roots that basic Biblical teaching is deemed offensive. I wouldn’t have given “Revolve” to primary school children, but there s far more explicit stuff in “Dolly” and “Girlfriend”.

Victoria is further down the  slippery slope than New South Wales but we can’t be far behind. When Bibles in a traditional format where distributed to Year 6 students in Narrabri a few years ago, some parents were outraged.

From the ABC:

Access Ministries under scrutiny after ‘inappropriate and offensive’ material given out at Victorian primary school

 

Victoria’s Education Department has launched an investigation into what it calls inappropriate and offensive religious material distributed at a primary school.

The ABC understands religious educators handed out material at Torquay College last year that instructed children to seek counselling if they had homosexual feelings.

The material also claims that girls who wear revealing clothes are inviting sexual assault and that masturbation and sex before marriage are sinful.

The so-called Biblezines were given as graduation gifts as part of a program run by the state’s Christian education provider Access Ministries.

Naja Voorhoeve, whose seven-year-old child received the material from an older student, says special religious instruction (SRI) providers should be banned from public schools.

“If the SRI providers were prepared to breach our trust in this matter, you have absolutely no idea about the other things that they’re doing, about instances in other schools where this material might have been handed out,” she said.

“My personal position is that SRI volunteers should not be allowed in schools because their programs cannot be adequately monitored.

“What they do is not part of the curriculum… so they’re basically let in on their own.”

The department says it has launched an investigation into the material and the actions taken by the provider.

“The materials are totally inappropriate and offensive and have no place in our schools,” it said in a statement.

“The department has scope to review the accreditation status of providers once are investigations are complete.”

Access Ministries has been contacted for comment.