Yesterday The Philosophers’ Magazine blog carried an article by Stephen Law defending liberalism in schools (below). Today the British Humanist Association and others are responding to an incredible government u-turn which could remove the rights of children to a sensible Sex and Relationships Education – known to promote their future health and happiness – all in the name of increasing the “freedom” of schools to foster their religious ‘ethos’. You can take action now to stop SRE being skewed on safe sex and sexuality. Or you could read this article first and then do it!

Worth reading. In my book, The War for Children’s Minds, I respond to an anti-liberal mythology that has developed over the last couple of decades – a mythology that tends to blame everything that’s wrong with modern society – from rising crime to delinquency to teenage pregnancy – on 60’s liberals, and in particular, on liberal attitudes to religious and moral education. Many social and religious conservatives now argue that, if we’re to cure these problems, we need to move back in the direction of the kind of traditional, authority-based moral and religious education that tended to predominate in religious schools before the 60’s.

I’m not objecting to religious schools (not here, anyway). My concern is with the type of education delivered in them. My fear is that many of the new religious schools now in the pipeline will offer a rather traditional form of religious education in which, rather being taught to think, question and make their own judgements, young people are encouraged to defer more-or-unless uncritically to some religious authority such as their imam or the Pope.

I argue that all schools, religious or not, should be liberal, in the sense that they should encourage young people to think critically and for themselves about moral and religious issues – including their own religious views.

Continues: http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1051

How you can help protect SRE: http://www.humanism.org.uk/campaigns/what-you-can-do-to-help/sre