Not Sure About This One

An article in the Telegraph relates to two boys disciplined for not kneeling down to Allah:

It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

As a child I had to attend Christian worship during the school assembly and largely stood mute during the whole tedious exercise. Had I been asked or instructed to kneel and pray to Allah in an Islamic prayer ceremony, I’d have dug my heels in and refused (I did a fair bit of refusing while at school – and sometimes it got me into hot water. Plus ça change). Nothing would have persuaded me to take part. So, if this story is true as reported, then I firmly support the two boys and despair of a school that sees religious education as taking part in religious activities.

There’s nothing wrong with the idea of religious education – that is, teaching students about religion in the same way that they would be taught about geography and history. Nothing wrong with that at all. There is much wrong with expecting them to take part in religious activities; that smacks of indoctrination, of teaching them that religious activities are valid. That decision is one for the individual conscience, not the school.

One of the boys’ parents comments further:

Making them pray to Allah, who isn’t who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.

Ah, yes, the expectation that peoples’ religious beliefs are worthy of respect. They are not. I do not respect Islam. I despise it with every fibre of my being and am prepared to say so. Respect is earned, not granted as a right. If these boys disrespect Islam, then that is their opinion and they are entitled to hold that opinion and they are entitled to voice it. Forcing them to take part in a religious activity of an alien (not to mention brutal, medieval and misogynistic) belief system is disrespectful to their right to religious freedom; a rather important civil liberty. More important than sucking up to the latest progressive liberal fad.

Sources at the school said the incident could have been down to Miss Phillips instigating a role play and not properly briefing the pupils, all aged around 12, what she was doing.

I suspect that this is a reasonable explanation. However, there is role play and there is role play – forcing students to take part in alien religious ceremonies is, perhaps, stretching the envelope. And it is not necessary for learning.

Educating children in the beliefs of different faiths is part of Cheshire’s diversity curriculum on the basis that knowledge is, of course, is essential to understanding.

Indeed so. Nothing wrong with that at all.

We accept that such teaching has to be conducted with commonsense and sensitivity.

Quite. Could do better. Miss Phillips; see me later.