Conversation

@ForBritain This is an interesting one.
I've taught R.E. and as part of a lesson have encouraged the children to take part in activities associated with celebrations to demonstrate what the observance would look like. As an example, we once sat at tables in groups and enacted Shabbat while understanding what the symbolism was. It did not mean that any of the children were forced to become Jewish. We once made samosas for Divali and nobody was forced to become Hindu.

Reading the log of the incident, it could be interpreted as a child being rude while refusing to take part. The rudeness and disruption would have been my concern and I might well have had a chat with the parent later about it. Logging it as a racist incident seems more than a little harsh and a very uncharitable interpretation. I can also understand why some parents might be unhappy about the teaching of Islam or teachers about presenting a lesson on Islam, given its sacred status right now (see Batley Grammar School etc).

I can also understand why the school may have done so. Over twenty years ago I worked at a school which reported data to the local authority, including racist incidents. I was pulled up for not having submitted enough of these, and stood my ground that I wasn't going to fabricate data just to make a council worker happy. If a school is under some form of obligation to have a quota of incidents, then quotas have to be met (see OFSTED requirements for *diversity* etc).

R.E remains a misunderstood subject and either gets ignored or wilfully misinterpreted. Until it is treated dispassionately and in the same way as other humanity subjects, there will be further incidents like this. And politics needs to stay out of education because decades of political meddling have made us all more stupid.

Public

Notices

Feeds