SMH Letters to the editor on the Ethics Classes Controversy

Here is one:

So what is the take-home lesson from the decimation of scripture classes by the ethics-course trial that Anglicans had predicted?

It’s not a judgment on the quality of SRE classes, because it was parents who made the choice, without attending SRE classes or the trial classes. It’s not a judgment on the quality of SRE teachers, because the ethics course teachers are simply civic-hearted volunteers like those SRE teachers who do not have theological or teaching qualifications (as many do). And it’s not a judgment on the relative value of religion or ethics.

The take-home lesson is that the implementation of the ethics course created an ethical dilemma, which was the need to choose between ethics and religion when that choice should not have been necessary. The timetable slot is for SRE.

If the ethics course is not SRE, it should not be scheduled then and parents would not be forced to choose between a (heavily promoted) ethics course and religious education.

Claire Smith Roseville

Read them all.