Should Christ's Hospital Stop Being a Faith School?
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:53 am
The older I get, the more I perceive so-called Faith schools as being a bad thing. By all means acquaint pupils with what religion is and what the different world religions stand for - and yes, definitely inculcate into the pupils universal ideas about what constitutes decent, humane behaviour. But confine all ideas about morality to common sense morality and leave it at that, eh?
When I was at CH I felt pretty uncomfortable about Catholic kids, Jewish kids and a Sikh kid being required to attend Chapel. It made the school system look so ignorant and insensitive. I realise that partly it was to do with pupil-supervision (herding all the kids together so that the staff knew where they all were) - but it still seemed wrong and lacking in respect. Likewise, seeing today’s multicultural schoolchildren having to sing Anglican or Catholic hymns at assembly in state schools merely because their nearest state school happens to be a Christian foundation strikes me as not only wrong but arrogant to the point of brutally boneheaded.
Don’t get me wrong here: I do think it’s very important to instil some spark of spiritual awareness into young people (not that one achieves that by making kids sing hymns at assembly, mind you). But I don’t see that spiritual awareness is achieved by forcing hours, days, weeks and years of compulsory Anglican Christianity on pupils when most of them are simply bored by it. Maybe have an optional Christmas singsong each December after the Christmas Tea, make all other services optional too, then leave everything else Christian to the Christian Union. One school chaplain is surely enough.
As for Grace at meals.....Difficult to know what to say. Maybe it should simply be reworded so that all it is is an acknowledgement of how fortunate the pupils are plus a nod in the direction of the Founders and Benefactors. Certainly none of that Blessed Lord tosh, though.
I say all this as someone who has fond memories of dining hall Grace. I just think it’s inappropriate these days though, just like compulsory Chapel. If pupils want to attend Chapel, fine. If they want to join the choir, fine. I have no objection to an extant, functioning chapel, any more than I have any objection to the existence of parish churches. Why should I? I just think that the whole idea of a school where kids have a particular religion or denomination forced on them is wrong. Even if it’s their parents’ deliberate choice for them, I still think it’s wrong, like forcibly bringing your kids up as Moonies.
Not that I imagine that compulsory Christianity actually has much effect on schoolkids one way or the other. I simply think that there’s a time and a place for everything. Besides, how does forcibly boring the crap out of schoolkids help to awaken their spiritual side? An afternoon spent walking in the countryside around CH would surely be more likely to achieve that result.
But here’s the thing. Would it actually be legally allowable to drop the whole Anglican foundation thing, should the school governors ever come to their senses and start thinking clearly and incisively instead of simply wallowing in rose-tinted, conservative nostalgia re. their own schooldays? That’s to say, to how great an extent is the Church of England bound up with the school?
I realise that Edward VI was a diehard Anglican and that his own strong religious principles played a big part in everything he did, including founding CH. But so what? It was a different world back then. And heck, it’s not as if CH is run by a religious order like Stoneyhurst and Ampleforth, so what’s to stop the school from being dragged into the 21st Century? I’m not advocating iconoclasm and the total destruction of everything the school is built on. I’d just like to see the governors stand back a little way in order to focus more clearly on the school and how it can best serve its pupils in an era that’s by no means the 16th Century.
I’m guessing that there’s a foundation charter somewhere and that in the charter there’s a load of Anglican Christian stuff about the principles upon which the school is founded. But how well does that stuff serve today’s pupils, really?
(NB: In responding to this post, try not to let your own organised religious beliefs get in the way - or inevitably your response will by definition be invalid. That’s to say, if you’re a committed and practising Christian, you’ll obviously think that practising Christianity is a good thing. That’s not what this thread is about. )
When I was at CH I felt pretty uncomfortable about Catholic kids, Jewish kids and a Sikh kid being required to attend Chapel. It made the school system look so ignorant and insensitive. I realise that partly it was to do with pupil-supervision (herding all the kids together so that the staff knew where they all were) - but it still seemed wrong and lacking in respect. Likewise, seeing today’s multicultural schoolchildren having to sing Anglican or Catholic hymns at assembly in state schools merely because their nearest state school happens to be a Christian foundation strikes me as not only wrong but arrogant to the point of brutally boneheaded.
Don’t get me wrong here: I do think it’s very important to instil some spark of spiritual awareness into young people (not that one achieves that by making kids sing hymns at assembly, mind you). But I don’t see that spiritual awareness is achieved by forcing hours, days, weeks and years of compulsory Anglican Christianity on pupils when most of them are simply bored by it. Maybe have an optional Christmas singsong each December after the Christmas Tea, make all other services optional too, then leave everything else Christian to the Christian Union. One school chaplain is surely enough.
As for Grace at meals.....Difficult to know what to say. Maybe it should simply be reworded so that all it is is an acknowledgement of how fortunate the pupils are plus a nod in the direction of the Founders and Benefactors. Certainly none of that Blessed Lord tosh, though.
I say all this as someone who has fond memories of dining hall Grace. I just think it’s inappropriate these days though, just like compulsory Chapel. If pupils want to attend Chapel, fine. If they want to join the choir, fine. I have no objection to an extant, functioning chapel, any more than I have any objection to the existence of parish churches. Why should I? I just think that the whole idea of a school where kids have a particular religion or denomination forced on them is wrong. Even if it’s their parents’ deliberate choice for them, I still think it’s wrong, like forcibly bringing your kids up as Moonies.
Not that I imagine that compulsory Christianity actually has much effect on schoolkids one way or the other. I simply think that there’s a time and a place for everything. Besides, how does forcibly boring the crap out of schoolkids help to awaken their spiritual side? An afternoon spent walking in the countryside around CH would surely be more likely to achieve that result.
But here’s the thing. Would it actually be legally allowable to drop the whole Anglican foundation thing, should the school governors ever come to their senses and start thinking clearly and incisively instead of simply wallowing in rose-tinted, conservative nostalgia re. their own schooldays? That’s to say, to how great an extent is the Church of England bound up with the school?
I realise that Edward VI was a diehard Anglican and that his own strong religious principles played a big part in everything he did, including founding CH. But so what? It was a different world back then. And heck, it’s not as if CH is run by a religious order like Stoneyhurst and Ampleforth, so what’s to stop the school from being dragged into the 21st Century? I’m not advocating iconoclasm and the total destruction of everything the school is built on. I’d just like to see the governors stand back a little way in order to focus more clearly on the school and how it can best serve its pupils in an era that’s by no means the 16th Century.
I’m guessing that there’s a foundation charter somewhere and that in the charter there’s a load of Anglican Christian stuff about the principles upon which the school is founded. But how well does that stuff serve today’s pupils, really?
(NB: In responding to this post, try not to let your own organised religious beliefs get in the way - or inevitably your response will by definition be invalid. That’s to say, if you’re a committed and practising Christian, you’ll obviously think that practising Christianity is a good thing. That’s not what this thread is about. )