but the counter argument is that the acquisition of 2 GCSE's shows some form of personal investment/comittment on the behalf of the individual?



The whole education system is screwed, I know people with degrees and no common sense, and I know people without degrees that are way more intelligent than their peers.



The question is, what can be done to realign things?

Nice one, I got the LOL.

First time I've seen "CofE" and "Organised" in the same sentence.





My view is simple.

Education is education, not indoctrination.

Attempts at indoctrination, regardless of their efficacy or lack of it, should not happen in the same curriculum as education.

Both my boys attend a RC primary school, my husband is Athiest & I'm CofE on paper. As I said earlier the boys attend the best available school in my area.



A few weeks ago my oldest Son, 6 asked, "Where did all the people come from?"

Bearing in mind his age and his school I told him how some people like Father Dominic believe that God created the Earth & everything in it, but other people like Scientists believe that we evolved from Monkeys. He thought about it for a while and asked which theory I believed, (Evolution, of course). Then declared that my belief was silly and how of course God made everyone & everything!

Given his age I'm not overly worried, but I do get your point.

Given his age, that's exactly the time to worry.

What was it the Jesuits said "Give me a boy until he's seven and he'll be mine for the rest of his life"

Something like that.

And that, in two sentences describes how f**ked up the English school system is.

To be honest I'm not surprised and I was going to make the point after I read Mintballs post but before I read yours - as a society conversing with pre-school children what is the most common story that we feed them ?



Its christmas and easter, two of the three biggest dates in a young childs calendar, and we tell them even in very brief terms about the birth and death of a person who we might not even believe in ourselves, we do it to "educate" them and probably partly because we don't want them starting school believing that christmas is just about santa and easter is about a bunny.



Its hardly surprising then that the idea of a god making a world and everything in it is a passable reason for being here when a six year old hears it, after all it ties in with what its parents told it about xmas and easter.

Your right.

I had a similar conversation with a Muslim friend of mine, just before Christmas. He asked why if I don't believe in God, do I celebrate Christmas? I didn't really have a reasonable answer other than, for the Children.

I ended up telling him I celebrate the winter solstice rather than the birth of Christ and some other rubbish, but it did make me think.

Actually this "quote" has appeared in several guises; usually the version used has been selected to support whatever point the user wishes to make. The generally accepted version is "Give me the boy until he is seven, and I will show you the man."



I guess any parent or dedicated teacher could say the same thing.

We could start by ditching the requirement for "collective worship of a broadly Christian nature" and legislating that any publicly-funded school does not require any form of religious adherence for entry and does not promote or encourage any form of religious following/assembly. It seems to have worked pretty well in France & the US.



Many schools have had little difficulty in ditching domestic science, sports etc, it shouldn't be too difficult to ditch religion, apart from all-embracing humanity lessons, if they felt there was a requirement.

Why didn't you tell the truth?

I'm not sure TBH, a bit embarrassed I suppose. Other than for the kids, I don't know why I, (as a none believer) celebrate Christmas. I celebrated it before I had children & I'll go on celebrating it when they've grown up. As for why? I just will!

Well if he's talking about Christmas as in the birth of Jesus then to celebrate it you'd have to do things like go to church.



If all you do to celebrate is enjoy to much food and wine with family and friends while a bigger version, designed by coca cola, of the tooth fairy drops a few presents off in return of children been well behaved (what a bribe!) at some random date then your hardly running to be the new pope.