Telling kids that Santa Claus doesn't exist can get a teacher fired, but telling kids that God doesn't exist is an essential part of the curiculum.
A primary school has been accused of spoiling Christmas for pupils after a lesson telling them that Santa Claus does not exist.Children as young as nine were told that only 'small children believe in Father Christmas'.
And yesterday their parents criticised teachers for taking the 'magic' out of the festive period. ...
Last week a primary school teacher was sacked for telling her young class that Santa does not exist.
Such stories illustrate the absurdities of our culture, in which fantasy is protected and legitimate beliefs are relegated to the shadows.
"... fantasy is protected and legitimate beliefs are relegated to the shadows".
Who is to decide which is which?
And you should know better than to say "telling kids that God doesn't exist is an essential part of the curiculum". The Constitution prevents government institutions from favoring a religion, and this means teachers should not support one religion over another (and some of us realize it also means that, in general, religion should not be favored over non-religion, not by the government). Surely you can imagine that, without that protection, stuff like this happens. Or, you might be referring to how science teachers (and other people who care about this) resist having to teach creationism. You see, science does have to be agnostic, since it aims to model things in the natural world. Creationism may be right, but it's not science.
So because of the Constitution, the idea of God should not be supported (or repressed, for that matter) by teachers or others who work in public schools. And because of what science is, God does not belong in the science classroom, any more than ghosts, magic, or the deities once thought to cause rain and lightning and the seasons.
As for the Santa thing... One always has to be careful around little kids with stuff like that. You'd think a teacher would know better. Ideally, I suppose the teacher should take a position analogous to the position they must take on religion: Some people believe, others do not, and it is not the teacher's role to determine that one side is right.
Are you suggesting that legitimate beliefs such as a god-belief should be presented in schools as fact? It seems uncontroversial to me that god-belief should be recognised to be a faith-based non-rational (not irrational) belief held by some people and not by others. I can't think of any other reasonable stance for a school (or person) to take.
Something like father christmas is different, a thing parents and adults in general tend to enjoy playing up for children, but which no rational adult genuinely believes in. The comparison does not work very far. This story is just about spoiling fun, not religious indoctrination.
"This story is just about spoiling fun, not religious indoctrination".
You're right. But Michael concluded with "Telling kids that Santa Claus doesn't exist can get a teacher fired, but telling kids that God doesn't exist is an essential part of the curiculum", in a way that sounded negative. So I thought I'd point out why this conclusion is exaggerated, but why something along those lines might actually be the desireable state of things.
Bernardo: As far as I'm aware, you never attended public school in America, right?
jez: I wouldn't say that belief in God is non-rational... I'd say it's supra-rational, to coin a potentially new term.