THE replacement of optional Religious Education classes in Victorian school by classes in ‘relationships’ to all students has barely rated a mention in the press. In fact, a certain silence followed this announcement. Apart from the providers of religious education, almost no one commented. Church schools have barely raised a comment. Others criticised the decision to teach relationships on the grounds that such teaching was not the business of schools anyway and should be left to families.
This silence can be partly understood in terms of two long-standing and well-rehearsed differences of educational philosophy between religious schools and secular society. The religious, particularly Catholic schools, have put a strong weight on tradition, both as offering authoritative content and as a process by which faith and ethical way of life are transmitted. They are handed down from generations through a network of relationships, symbols and processes that make up a school. The beliefs and values embodied in the whole of the school are described and explored in religious education classes.
Historically, this understanding can be traced back to medieval monastic schools where the curriculum was part of the daily life of the monastery.
State schools in Australia were distinctive because they did not presuppose a shared faith tradition. However, at least initially, an informal religious and ethical tradition was embodied in the practices and relationships of these government schools. This was reflected in a general form of Theism and ethical standards.
Despite the arguments that they were religiously neutral, they were not God-less, in any strong sense, save that they offered no formal space for the discussion of religion. Thus, the recent decision to abolish the optional religion classes and replace them with relationship classes for all, can be seen as a settlement in response to mounting cultural changes in our society. In our present culture, authority is no longer seen as a source of values and beliefs; these are the responsibility of autonomous individuals to decide. From this latter perspective discussion of ethics and faith are private matters best left to families.
Understood in this way, public or government schools gain a certain clarity, namely, to equip students for an economic and participative role in society. Little space, if any, is left for the broader tradition seemingly left behind in the 19th century. But this new emphasis on the strictly ‘secular’ also puts religious schools under pressure. These schools must work within the prevailing culture at a time when fewer families, students and teachers have any firm church allegiance or religious familiarity. It thus becomes more difficult for the religious school to embody a tradition in its relationships and symbols. This idea of tradition, less familiar to the players involved, becomes increasingly more difficult to mine for its potentially rich resources.
Where this erosion of the place of tradition is not resisted, the operating goals of religious schools, will be diminished. Its operative principles may soon be reduced to the academic and economic advancement of individuals. And its religious education classes may further erode with the loss of rituals, symbols and heritage.
As a faith community with a still strong educational system we would have been wiser to declare our opposition to the recent decision to abolish optional religious education in state schools.