Johann Hari: "Dear God, stop brainwashing children"

[ciphergoth]

Johann Hari, The Independent, 2009-05-08

Dear God, stop brainwashing children

Why is worship forced on 99 per cent of children without their own consent or even asking what they think?

Let us now put our hands together and pray. O God, we gather here today to ask you to free our schoolchildren from being forced to go through this charade every day. As you know, O Lord, because You see all, British law requires every schoolchild to participate in "an act of collective worship" every 24 hours. Irrespective of what the child thinks or believes, they are shepherded into a hall, silenced, and forced to pray – or pretend to.

If they refuse to bow their heads to You, they are punished. This happened to me, because I protested that there is no evidence whatsoever that You exist, and plenty of proof that shows the texts describing You are filled with falsehoods. When I pointed this out, I was told to stop being "blasphemous" and threatened with detention. "Shut up and pray," a teacher told me on one occasion. Are you proud, O Lord?

[...] I am genuinely surprised that no moderate religious people have, to my knowledge, joined the campaign to stop this compelled prayer. What pleasure or pride can you possibly feel in knowing that children are compelled to worship your God? Why are you silent?

[...]

Are there prominent religious campaigners on this issue in particular or State secularism in general that he's not taking into account? Are they getting articles in the national press, or trying to? Pointers welcome!

Comments

[andrewducker]

The train of thought presumably goes like this:
1) Children should be trained to do the morally correct thing until they are old enough to make their own decisions.
2) Praying to God is the morally right thing to do.
3) Therefore children should be trained to pray.

I can't see that lasting much longer, when the majority don't believe (2).

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

While I agree with him, Johann Hari is 30, and for a lot of schools the emphasis has changed. I would be mildly surprised if "shut up and pray" was a normal attitude outside of relious schools these days

[barakta]

I am 29 and remember "shut up and pray" and being impressed with my mate's form tutor who refused to bow his head or shut his eyes during school prayers because he felt it was offensive.

I have no idea what modern schools are like. I know my mum gets a bollocking when her deaf kids don't understand/behave during prayers because they're Muslim, deaf, don't speak English and the school assembly is completely inaccessible to them. Basically mum's been told "keep em quiet, eyes closed, looking like they're praying" "don't let them look around, make noise or fidgit" or else.

[xugglybug.livejournal.com]

I'm just over two thirds his age, which is possibly quite a lot depending on your viewpoint, but I distinctly remember being told the very same at school, and currently have an 11y/o sister treated in much the same way. The only difference is the teachers aren't allowed to say "shut up" anymore.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

That's very sad. I guess I need to remember that the teachers we see through work are the liberal ones :-(

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

I'm 24 and don't recall being given much option in regards to class prayer.

I've had partners with younger siblings who come back with all kinds of religious nonsense implanted in their heads as fact.

[djm4]

Well, I'm not sure if it falls quite into your defintion, but we (the Lib Dems) passed policy on this at out last conference. 4 (d) (iv) of this paper says (in respect to faith schools):

"Requiring schools who choose to hold assemblies to ensure that any act of collective worship is optional for pupils who are old enough to decide for themselves and otherwise for parents."

For the record, both lizw and I voted for this, and were very happy it got passed. It got broad support within the party, although there was some controversy over it and a couple of amendments were defeated (I really must blog on that on Dreamwidth at some point - my arm wasn't up to it at conference itself). Obviously as Lib Dem policy it's never going to get widespread media attention, but it's there as part of our schools policy anyway, for what it's worth.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a step forward. AFAICT all the religious people I know well are secularists, so I don't understand the lack of more prominent exemplars in the media.

as Lib Dem policy it's never going to get widespread media attention See, I really would have thought that anyone with religious bona fides would have no trouble getting an opinion piece arguing for such a change into one of the broadsheets, but perhaps I'm wrong? 

[lizw.livejournal.com]

The media seemed to want the story to be OMG LIBERALS WANT TO BAN ALL FAITH SCHOOLS!!!! AND PROBABLY EAT BABIES!!!! (Not that we don't have a small minority who'd like to ban fee-paying faith schools, but the substance of the debate was all about state-funded schools.) Or failing that, OMG LIBERALS WILL FORCE KIDS TO BE INDOCTRINATED BY ISLAMIST TERRORISTS!!! AND PROBABLY EAT BABIES!!!! There really wasn't much interest in subtlety, as far as I could tell.

I've never tried to get a religious opinion piece into the broadsheets, but I do have experience of trying to place business pieces, and that's quite tough - especially if you're perceived to have a commercial or, I imagine, a partisan interest.

I'm finding it difficult to Google articles on this by Christians without bringing up a lot of mostly-irrelevant stuff like individual schools' collective worship policies. Fwiw, this piece quotes the convener of the Church of Scotland's education committee as being against compulsory worship (as well as another C of S minister and also Richard Holloway, but I think the latter had stopped identifying as Christian by then.) C of E bishops do tend to be pretty hopeless on this, though, unfortunately.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

It got broad support within the party

Yes, and I think it's worth mentioning that this includes the support of the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum, who have been working very closely with the Humanist and Secular Liberal Democrats on educational issues.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In which case I hope the LDCF will write a letter to the Indie saying "excuse me, we're over here!"

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I will e-mail them and suggest it.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people think kids being made to practce being quiet regularly is a good thing and don't care if religion is the trigger for that. Certainly I was always told that when asking why I had to go to school chapel, and it was my dad's reasoning for refusing to exempt me from it.

Have to admit that I always liked Assembly apart from the pointless Arf Arthur mumbling - losing cultural knowledge of classic hymns with rousing tunes would be a shame. I suppose the inspiring stories segment would get cvovered in PSME nowadays.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I really wish someone else was teaching my son this, because we continue to struggle with it.

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

I care. As a child, I was an atheist and deeply resented being made to learn the text of prayers on the grounds that the other kids were, or to do anything on the basis that God wanted it. As I kept pointing out, God does not exist, so why should I? I had no problem being quiet when asked, it just doesn't have to involve the forcing of a load of bollocks about some bloke who lived 2000 years ago that as far as I am concerned is complete and utter twaddle.

I'm not very forgiving on the subject of forcing christianity on small children, sorry.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Sure, but there's other ways of doing that without bringing God into it. Asking children to 'think quietly about something that makes them happy' or 'how much they love their Mummy or Daddy', for example.

[barakta]

Quaker meetings was how I learned it... This was my number one trick for avoiding church as a child. Cos in Meeting nothing was forced, it was mostly silence and people who really gave off a peaceful aura.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Not that this is the point, but it's worth noting that nobody actually does it [grin] Well, alright, somebody somewhere must, but at all the schools I have been to, been involved with or asked friends about there is certainly not an assembly for every pupil every day (usually about one a week, as they have no more than one or two years in one assembly), there's almost never anything involving prayer in it, and when there *is* nobody ever restricts it; it's very much 'pray to any god you happen to believe in, or just shut your eyes and have a think about this quietly to yourself, or whatever you like doing'.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

(and I have never heard or seen a hymn being sung in assembly. Wait, that's a lie, the only time I've ever heard a hymn being sung in assembly it was my favourite, being sung solo by me - the school sometimes asked the music department to do a bit in assemblies, and I was often chosen to do a solo!)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

From xugglybug's comment above, it sounds like there's quite a bit of variety on this front - someone should do a survey.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

My kids do get to do hymns. But gracious, I'd far rather they were singing We Three Kings than When Santa Got Stuck In the Chimney.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I had daily prayers, hymns and preaching at primary school (including reciting the Lord's Prayer, as well as prayers spoken by a teacher, so wasn't a generic moment of silent).

At secondary school it wasn't daily, but was still about three times a week (and it not being daily was more a practical point). We had hymns less often, but the prayers and worship were still present everytime.

Both were state schools.

It does seem to be one of those things that varies. And even if it's very rare, then there should be no objection to getting rid of a law that no one follows anyway :) It probably depends on the individual teachers at the school - I remember at my school there be a certain few religious teachers who loved to give these assemblies. The problem with the law is that any teacher who wants to do this has the law on their side.

[blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com]

My experience was broadly similar to yours by the sounds of it, except that there was at least one hymn per assembly at secondary school (about three a week), a Bible reading and two prayers. Again a state school. Oh, and we'd have the Gideons in at least once a year.

Intrinsically, there are other laws that are more wrong that need changing, but a) this one is still wrong and should be changed, and b) the insidious nature of the indoctrination of children makes this one aspect of a much larger issue that needs addressing so I can understand Hari's intent, even if his prose is somewhat OTT.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

I went to a non-religious secondary school, and I can't remember ever having to pray there.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I've just posted a lengthy comment in andrewducker's post on the same subject. I note that someone in this thread says they know an actual child who is being forced to pray in (presumably) a non-faith state school; I suggest that this is pretty unusual. The DfEE's guidance suggests that schools should interpret the law broadly. The approach taken by my kids' schools, of having regular reflective presentations about how different religions celebrate festivals, what we should do about the environment, and other generally improving topics, is much more common. I'm about as dogmatically heathen as it is possible to be, and I still can't get wound up about this.

I can, however, get wound up about Johann Hari, who uses the pages of a national newspaper to spew unsourced garbage on a regular basis. The sentence you quoted above is obvious nonsense; most schools do not force worship on children. And those that do, predominantly state faith schools and private schools, are ones where the parents have made a choice about what their children should be exposed to. You might as well say

Why are green vegetables forced upon 99% of children without their own consent or even asking what they think?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It's a shame that opinion pieces in newspapers don't meet the referencing standards of Wikipedia articles, but really, it wasn't that hard to Google it.

I'm glad to hear that so many schools are in breach of this law with DfEE encouragement, but it doesn't mean the law shouldn't be fixed.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

It's a very long way from even the letter of the law to statements like

"If they refuse to bow their heads to You, they are punished."
"They are... forced to pray - or pretend to" -- they refering to 'every schoolchild'.

And the quote I included earlier. It's nonsense -- hyperbole setting up a straw man. And in practice, as surely even the hapless Hari must have known, DfEE guidance makes clear that 51% of assemblies should have a broadly Christian character, but that can include general topics that reflect Christian ethics, like being kind to people or picking up litter. And even that diluted requirement is largely not being met. Hari might as well have argued against the requirement for London cab drivers to keep a bale of hay for the horse.

I'm sure that Hari also knew that the vast majority of the 1% who are taken out of assemblies are taken out not by irreligious parents, but by hardline religious parents who want to ensure that their kids are only indoctrinated in one approved way. If he would stop to think he might also realise that this low-level exposure to the various religions of the world actually encourages the sceptical thinking he purports to espouse.

And one final advantage of 'broadly Christian nature' is that schools are still free to sing England's splendid religious music -- you don't realise what a benefit this is until you've been to a Christmas concert in an American primary school and been subjected to 90 minutes of Frosty the Snowman and his ilk.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Are you just critising Hari, or are you saying that you don't think the law about a daily act of worship should be changed? It's not entirely clear - you seem to go from critising Hari to saying that religious music is really good.

aside

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

saying that religious music is really good

Which it is. I mean, fuck belief and all that shit, it just is!

Re: aside

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Well, some is. Some really isn't...

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I think that on the whole, the law is relatively harmless, and even more harmless as it's applied. If you were looking to repeal some bad laws, there are a whole load of others that you might start with before you got to this one.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Hari might as well have argued against the requirement for London cab drivers to keep a bale of hay for the horse.

Paging Alanis Morrisette: there has never been such a law.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Excellent way to intentionally miss the point and be incredibly infuriating all at once, darling :-p

In all seriousness, I'm pretty much with Alison on this one. The law is ridiculous, but hyperbole and furore aren't going to do anything more than piss people off.

[djm4]

And one final advantage of 'broadly Christian nature' is that schools are still free to sing England's splendid religious music -- you don't realise what a benefit this is until you've been to a Christmas concert in an American primary school and been subjected to 90 minutes of Frosty the Snowman and his ilk.

Of course, for those of us who can't sing, this is its own special level of torture. I was probably never going to be religious, but my spiritual side was never in any danger of being engaged by being in a group of people uniting together in collective singing around me and giving me disapproving sideways glances if I tried to join in.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

but that can include general topics that reflect Christian ethics, like being kind to people or picking up litter.

Just because some schools get away with not doing it doesn't mean they all do (see my first comment above about my experiences). For a school that has secularist teachers in it, it's at least good that they can avoid or get round the law, but if any Christian teacher wants to take an assembly and then preach in it, he has the law on his side.

As for being forced - well, I don't know what would have happened if I'd refused, but generally as a young child, I assumed if a teacher told me to do something, we had to do it. There is always a reasonable fear of punishment for disobeying. I wasn't even aware of the possibility of being exempted from assemblies, so didn't know to try challenging it on those grounds.

[henry_the_cow]

My son's primary school (in Scotland) seems to partake of the less traditional brand of morally improving songs. I think they're attempting to replace songs about "God is Great" with songs about respecting each other and the environment. Which on balance is probably a good thing, even if the songs themselves aren't things of beauty.

I'm not claiming this is standard practice across Scotland, btw. I only know about our local school.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Oh fuck. Thanks for linking to that (I find it difficult to research these things due to having dial-up).

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Romain (reform Rabbi) is often very sensible on these things.

[hamsterine.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, I thought that sort of thing had stopped years ago in an effort to respect the differing beliefs about religion which are particularly connected to multiculturalism. At my infant school Christianity was widely assumed and on occasion we were encouraged to pray, but at junior and senior school religion was always presented as "some people believe..." without any bias toward the belief being correct or incorrect. I had always assumed that reflected an emergence of sanity on a country-wide scale.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

My experience at school varied widely (& I went to a Catholic school).

In primary school, religion was very much forced upon us, for example:

Tending to take instructions somewhat literally at age 11, I actually did what was asked and thought about whether or not I wanted to make a lifelong committment to the church via Confirmation. Having done so, I concluded that I did not wish to shared this 'decision' with my teacher & parents. What followed was a series of threats - not about hell - but about getting sent to the non-denominational secondary school where everyone would pick on me because I was a Catholic. Then there was the bribery. Followed by, 'it's not really a choice, it's a formality'. And so, I was Confirmed.

Secondary school was slightly different. Most teachers just asked you to bow your head and pray / reflect as you felt appropriate. Religious assemblies were compulsory until age 16, at which point I stopped attending.

Looking back, the majority was forced upon us and some (such as getting ashes put on our heads & punishment for wiping them off from age 5-15) pretty unpleasant.

Forcing a child into religion can have an enormous negative impact. I realise there's quite a gulf between 'bow your head and mumble' and bible-thumping indoctrination, but nonetheless firmly believe that religious observance has no place in schools.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

Apologies if I've used that example before incidentally, but when I look back on my religious schooling, it's one of the few examples that still riles me (though not as much as it once did) at age 28.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

This is one of my pet hates, and I find it surprising how it seems to be supported - not so much from an argument that it's necessary for children, but that "It doesn't really matter" or "Few schools enforce it anyway". As I commented above, it does happen in some state schools. Being excluded should be offered as a choice for the child and not just the parents - but I agree with the article that this is still problematic. Being excluded from their fellow pupils (who, as young children, may not understand the reasons) marks them out as being different, and it means they miss out on important or useful aspects of assemblies. I have memories from my primary school of other children who didn't go to assembly, but stood around waiting outside, and I had no understanding of why this was.

Imagine if atheism was preached at schools (in the "strong" sense of "There is no God, and Christianity is a bunch of fairy tales")? There'd be an outrage - arguments such as "But your child can be excluded" or "It doesn't happen in practice" or "There are worse laws to worry about" would never fly. Indeed, people would (rightly) be outraged at the fact that it was being taught to other children - as with Christian worship, it's not just about ourselves or our own children, there is the wider issue of trying to coerce children into believing religious beliefs.

In some sense I'd have more respect for someone who at least tried to give a direct argument in favour of why prayers in school was necessary, but it frustrates me that instead we get all these side arguments from people who don't admit to being in favour of it, but still spend effort trying to dismiss those who criticise the law.

I don't know if you read about one head's failed attempt to set up a secular school? The point is that the rule does have an exemption for "faith" schools - it's not even a consistent argument: "It's absolutely important that everyone worships Christianity because we're a Christian country ... except for when they don't have to".

I was surprised to learn that the law was only recently changed in England (in 2007) to even allow 16 year olds to opt out, and this is only now being changed in Wales (thankfully at my sixth form no one cared if we didn't go to assembly anyway, so I didn't have any experience of this myself). Interestingly the Catholic Church in England and Wales "has welcomed the decision" (although I guess there's the difference between welcoming a decision once it's made, and actively joining the campaign to change the law).

[blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com]

In Sixth Form, we were actively made to run assmeblies once a term, and religious material was still required. I seem to remember I even got to play the "Voice of God" in one effort. I can't really recall, but I suspect it was more Monty Python than King James Only.

[ex-pipistre.livejournal.com]

I was punished for refusing to a)pray and b)sing the American national anthem at school.
Re your question- I haven't seen any press on this issue- it just seems to be accepted.

[ex-pipistre.livejournal.com]

And... the (secodnary) schools I was in (last year) were variable on this front. One, more liberal school, actually used assembly time to talk about issues like fairtrade, human rights, voting etc. But the other two wheeled out quasi-Christian waffle which as far as I could see was pretty much ignored by staff and students.