English Church Schools - Essay Example

117482 In the pre-welfare of Britain, Church schools usually taught only about Christianity and it suited the then society of Britain. They even readied vicars for the church and in those days, it was impossible to imagine a church school teaching other religions or cultures. But British society did not remain what it was and over the years, it has achieved a pluralistic outlook with many religions and cultures. As more and more immigrants of various faiths came and settled down in Britain, the social fabric of Britain started slowly changing and new identity was emerging. This change had been taking place, not only in Britain, but also in other European countries. As minorities got stronger, they started voicing their demands and insecurities. Government slowly realised that education for the children had been stagnant without taking into consideration the need to alter it. It also decided in the last three decades education had not been modernised. In Britain, as Henry VIII rebelled against the authority of the Pope, monarchs become the Head of the Religious faith. Britain, after Henry VIII incident, had its own Church and other connected institutions. After the Second World War, Britain had evolved into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural society, with many voices, demands, languages, cultures and religions. People from erstwhile colonies have made Britain their home, along with other asylum seekers and quite naturally, they all have become part of Britain now. Government had to protect their needs and requirements too. This led to a more coherent government policy and church schools have been asked to accommodate students of other faiths, and with effective guidance from cultural leaders, they have to reduce their Christian outlook to a large extent and teach children about other cultures. They have realised that they have to modernise their outlooks with the changes brought by the changing times. They are neither vehement about Christianity, nor reluctant to change. Till recently, we can say that nothing much has been done in this direction, even though this is a very important element of a welfare state. "One important target of active states is the school institution and its influence over how children are socialized. Since the Reformation, civic leaders have made grand claims about the magical effects of mass schooling and the secular state's power to expand it. But only in the past decade has research matured on both the causes and economic consequences of school expansion," (Fuller and Rubinson, 1992, p.1). Church schools might not sound and look like the best places to accommodate alien cultures. The stereotype and traditional church schools of olden days would never have taught anything other than Christianity. Fortunately, today, religious institutions are changing according to the time and requirements. Hence, most of these schools are accommodating the multi-cultural and multi-faith demands of British society. Even though they are still being called as 'Church Schools', run by the societies and funds belonging to the Church of England mainly, their function and focus has enormously shifted in recent years. Even Churches have accepted that Christianity is not the only religion in United Kingdom. They are not only providing multi-culture based education today, but also they are welcoming students from other cultures to join the schools without any discrimination in admission. They are also trying to know more about diverse cultures, so that they could be right in their approach. "It is also important to recognize the extent to which changes in education policy are influenced by larger social and economic developments. The analysis draws us back clearly to political questions as lying at the heart of education policy, which is, after all, about the choices that governments made," (Levin, 2001, p.18). Church schools, which were considered to be stuffy at one point of time, have changed so much in their approach, that it is not at all difficult for them to provide multi-cultured education to the children. There are government agencies and personnel to train and help them to implement multi cultural approach. Assessments and inspection reports have proved that these schools are actually capable of imparting such education in a multi-cultured atmosphere. The mission statement of St John The Baptist Primary School declares: "Each individual is unique and has specific needs in relating to culture, society, religion, language and education" http://www.st-john.leicester.sch.uk/multi-cultural.html Most of the schools welcome parents, visitors and cultural leaders to contribute their guidance and information in providing multi-cultural education. "The school upholds the Christian view that there is only one race, the human race and humankind is indivisible in terms of race or colour," (ibid). School reiterates that students of every race are welcome. Most of the schools have similar outlook and they are already practicing multi-cultural approach. They have incorporated multicultural education into the education curriculum, by incorporating folk tales, music or drama, poetry, stories, mythology of diverse cultures. Church schools are teaching the children the differences and similarities between cultures and significance of the cultural celebrations. Schools undertake to respect all religions, allow children to practice any religion they choose, respect celebrations of other religions, their food habits etc. Muslim children get their own kind of food and so do the Jew children. Every school tries hard to adhere to food habits and respect the religious ways of dressing, hair etc. Mainly children are taught to respect all religions and connected teachings. They are using themes from various cultural mythologies, and religious epics to highlight the legendary stories so that the children could understand and remember them. Church schools also have small shows and skits where they show case mythological plays of all religions. Reference books, artefacts, information and posters regarding various cultures are kept in schools. The advisers of Centre for Multicultural Education help the schools to develop new approaches and understand other cultures and guide the schools in implementing them. Church schools today are prepared to celebrate the diversity of world cultures and faiths. "Euan Harper, chief executive of the company, connected with Christian charity, said: "Our city academies will be open to everybody. As a Christian charity we are fundamentally concerned with running good schools. In that sense the unions and ourselves want the same thing." http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/privatisation/story/0,5500,677190,00.html Government and organisations at different levels are trying to create a multi-cultural atmosphere in Church schools as in any other institution. But the recent faith schools are not seen as appropriate, as they once again, belong to the single faith. John Dunford, General Secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said, "To create a stable multi-cultural society we need successful multi-cultural schools and not a proliferation of single faith schools," http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,13882,1234836,00.html Multi-cultural outlook is overtaking all institutions and walks of life in United Kingdom. The number of minorities, asylum seekers, refugees, students, employment seekers are growing in UK for the last five decades and along with that, face of the British society is changing from an almost all white into a stunningly multifaceted fabric. Along with it, the need for equality, non-discrimination, and racial justice has become necessary. "The theory and challenges of multiculturalism are based on the dignity of persons, justice, and the right of all to their own culture. Multiculturalism can be described as a program, which takes into consideration the variety of cultures existing in a society and aims at making sure that all people have equal access to the national resources. It seeks to ensure too that no one be discriminated against on grounds of ethnicity, language or religious affiliation" http://www.ncec.catholic.edu.au/multi.htm When cultures meet they intersect. Any culture cannot be static and it has to develop, change, and evolve. While doing so, it faces continuous conflict and friction and it is not an easy process. British society today is undergoing that process of recognising, accepting, adjusting and modelling. To any society, it is a tough and lengthy process, and considering all the negative aspects, United Kingdom is not doing poorly at all. There are many programmes to support the minorities in the society. Faiths are honoured and people are free to practise any of the faiths. Minorities are treated in the same way, as the rest of the population. Minority discrimination, even though often implied by the media, seems to be a thing of the past. The relevance of other cultures has been acknowledged by British society, Government and the Church. According to the Human Rights of European Convention and also according to Human Rights rules of the country, minorities have been given complete protection, equality, freedom and opportunity. The recent policies in this direction have achieved quite a lot. Keeping this in mind, Church schools too are adapting into a hitherto unknown process of branching out and they are doing it cautiously, with quality help from the Government's agencies. St. Alban's Church of England Primary School declares the following mission statement: "We are concerned to make learning relevant, purposeful and enjoyable. We value and respect the particular characteristics and diversity of each learner's background, culture and experience, whether it be in terms of race, gender, class, or special educational need," http://www.stalbans.camden.sch.uk/3_0.html European Community and the Government of United Kingdom both have laid down regulations for Human Rights and these are connected with the minorities and their rights, and racial non-discrimination by the society and its institutions and hence, the government is committed to these programmes of bringing equality to all organisations starting from school. Also it realises the importance of different cultures and the necessity of children realising that all cultures, diversities, colours, creeds, races and the entire humanity should be respected. Labour Government had different educational policies compared to the earlier governments. It has intervened in the educational system, changed assessment policy and has seen that some privatisation has been done in various aspects of the school. "Since Labour has come to power there have been a whole raft of proposals which have led, or will lead, to the undermining of the power of Local Education Authorities (LEAs), and the concomitant privatisation of educational management and curriculum delivery," (Fielding, 2001, p. 56). Religious assemblies have become part of education and this is hoped to improve the tolerance level for other religions. Knowing more about the other religions and finding how similar they are in their goals, even though the approach road could be diverse is the main goal behind religious assemblies and conferences. This kind of assemblies imbibing the important aspects of most of the religions existing in United Kingdom today would be one of the main efforts to understand and respect other religions. Another key programme is the regular multi-cultural evening. In Church schools, these evenings are being conducted with important religious spokesmen from many religions attending the evenings and explaining the multi-dimensional richness of their religions and how tolerance and cooperation are preached in every one of them. Parents of students belonging to various faiths are requested to be present, so that parents could appreciate the efforts, as well as understand the religious key points of other religions. This would go a long way, in guiding their children properly too. This is done without rivalry or conflict; but in total understanding and respect for each other. Officers belonging to various faiths come to visit the schools and discuss religious matters with the children and this would make the children understand how important acceptance of various cultures could become in a small, but forceful country like United Kingdom. These officers do a commendable work in this direction. Employing people from different background and different faiths is also recommended and adapted in a few Church schools. It is yet to be seen if this kind of mixed staff could be effective in any special way. No doubt, the students would learn to respect people belonging to various faiths. But we are yet to know how important a path breaker it could be. Definitely the diverse staff system, adapted in most of the Church schools might go a long way in invoking understanding and togetherness. This does not mean that this system is going on very smoothly all over United Kingdom. There are naturally difficulties and unforeseen obstacles. Some people do not want their children to know more about other religions. There are a fanatic rather narrow-minded lot, who usually do not appreciate knowing about other religion. For this bigoted minded, it is necessary to know only their religion and definitely not about other religions. When their children are not going to convert into another religion, or have no connection with that religion, why should they know about them at all, they asked. First of all, a few faith schools were permitted by the Government and eventually, this does not look like a great idea that would win universal approval. Faith schools came under a lot of criticism and the majority number of people is unprepared to accept it as a clever alternative. There were reasons to be afraid of the religious fervour unleashed by many faith schools. And the situation created a lot of opposition to faith-based schools, and they are accused of promoting more segregation eventually. Perhaps this is not a wrong argument as faith schools are like previous church schools, teaching one religion and creating a group against others. The discrimination practised by faith schools also had been pointed out recently. There were media stories that faith schools did not get many applications from children of other faiths. Whatever applications they received, it was accused, that they rejected them by giving various outlandish reasons and excuses. It can be seen that certain tendencies have actually worsened with the opening of faith schools. "All religious schools, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh or any other faith, discriminate in favour of their religious group, in practices such as worship, prayers and promoting the idea that morality and their religion are indivisible, and in admissions policies" http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000002D08E.htm There were extensive political discussions involving all political parties and media, in and out of Parliament, mainly involving the topic of religion being taught in schools, especially in church schools. Liberal Democratic Education Spokesman said: "Mr Willis Liberal Democratic Education Spokesman) called for the education secretary, Estelle Morris, to intervene. "We must not stand by and see our children become the fodder for the extreme views of religious fundamentalists or their wealthy backers," he said. "Ofsted has a duty to root out such practices, not ignore or encourage them." The Guardian, April 1, 2002. http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/privatisation/story/0,5500,677190,00.html There were unending criticisms about the system adopted by a few church schools. Critics said religion is given more importance than even the science or technology, or even ecology. Religion, that should have been a personal choice, which should be practised privately, has become one of the main subjects in schools, where children are getting confused with so many religions and faiths, all contradicting one another and the children are too young to digest the entire implications of it. It is also pointed out that religious discussion in the schools is creating an atmosphere of 'us against them' feeling. There is a fear that children practise groups with religion as main criteria. Quarrels and fights are taking place between one group and another, and there is always the religious rivalry in every matter. When a student performs well, it is taken as a credit to the entire group and as an insult to the opposite group. Children are becoming religiously conscious, the first step of becoming a fanatic. "The Observer revealed last month how dissent was growing among backbench MPs, Ministers and educationalists concerned that an increase in faith schools would create 'educational apartheid' in a Britain already shocked by a summer of race riots and scenes of sectarian violence outside schools in Northern Ireland", http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,573780,00.html Teachers are finding it difficult to control such a potentially explosive atmosphere. There were medical reports that some of the teachers became physically ill after facing certain unhappy situations in the schools, with reference to religion and culture. There also had been a major discussion on national identity. With the asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants, all the European countries, especially the non-communist countries, who had accommodated them, had become multi-cultural communities. This has naturally created a problem about national identity with the old identity having been blurred. At the same time, it has also posed an identity crisis to the minority immigrants who had been unable to severe their routes from their country of origin and also had failed to identify themselves wholeheartedly with the European country which they have adopted. There is another very severe problem of Muslims to whom religion is more important than the country and they have failed to assimilate themselves with the alien cultures. "It has been suggested that there is a crisis of national identity in the advanced welfare states of Western Europe following post-war immigrationto look at the kinds of institutions which have evolved to determine the relation of immigrant groups to the established national societies of settlement" http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/2/1.html Today, UK has become conceptualised in many ways. Trying to adapt to diverse circumstances, fighting the terrorism, dealing with the shock that suicide bombers were British, but culturally different, sincerely trying to assimilate all the cultures, also trying to make people from diverse cultures feel at home, government and institutions have found it difficult to deal with a situation that could be termed as overwhelming. Imparting education on the above lines too is proving it difficult: "Thus, there is a fine line between necessary conceptual and political transformations and trendiness. Unfortunately, the latter sometimes appears in the relatively uncritical appropriation of postmodernism by some educational theorists," (apple, p. xii). Many demands were made on teachers of church schools. These teachers are usually trained to teach either Christianity or other subjects that have no connection with religion. For such teachers, freshly learning about alien cultures, names, stories, epics, habits and customs had never been easy. Learning and mastering them enough to teach the students is anyway an uphill task. Here they cannot use their creativity much and it frustrates them when assessment has to be done. They also feel that they are bidden to do what is best for others. "Moves to curtail the professional autonomy of teachers and the influence of their educators and unions were made during the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, teachers were well on their way to becoming a technical workforce to be managed and controlled rather than a profession to be respected," (Tomlinson, 2001, p.36). Usually teachers find the frequent assessment another distraction from their work and had been complaining ever since. It is not difficult to presume that the assessment criteria had not been particularly popular amongst the teachers. "Assessment is viewed as an activity which takes hard pressed time away from teaching. It is either a luxury or a distraction which teachers can ill afford," (Brookes, 2002, p.30). Further complaints can be heard about the way assessment is done, and the frequency with which it is applied on students, teachers, especially after the multi-cultural changes that have taken over in the last few years. "Assessment in the classroom takes many forms ranging from formal assessment events, such as end-of-topic tests, to fleeting informal 'assessment moments' such as when a pupil provides an incorrect response to a question and the teacher uses the answer diagnostically to probe the pupil's misunderstanding," (Brooks, p. 41). Media plays up the inequalities and differences that still presumably existing. They had been complaining that EOC did not really define the equal opportunities properly making it as ambiguous as possible. "In the UK, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) does not generally define equal opportunities in education, but simply uses the term in relation to sex discrimination," (Copps and Murphy, 1994, p.11). This complaint is made mainly by the minority leaders and agitators according to whom the inequality opportunities promised by UK Government had been a sham and did not bring in much of a change. But the fact remains that most of the church schools, which have adapted the multi-cultural approach of education are doing well. There are, no doubt, small problems, but nothing unsolvable. They are not having problems with it, not because they are church schools, but because they are new to this kind of educational system and any education, that has to deal with children has to move forward cautiously and slowly, taking into consideration the reaction of the children and sometimes, even of the parents. Church schools have not shown any inability as such that might make them incapable of handling such a situation. With the help from the multi-cultural council they are managing very well, at least a large number of them. The question still remains: is it necessary and desirable to bring religion into the academic world If the intellectual world says no, minorities say yes. According to most of the politicians and intellectuals, it is a potential bombshell to mix religion and education. Their argument is, in a multi-cultural society, the best religion is secularism and there should not be any mixing of religion with politics. In secular countries, religion is left to individuals, to practise within their realm and the State would never interfere with that. United Kingdom is trying the other way around. Only time will tell how far the government and institutions will be successful. If not successful, they will not be blamed for not trying. "Moves to curtail the professional autonomy of teachers and the influence of their educators and unions were made during the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, teachers were well on their way to becoming a technical workforce to be managed and controlled rather than a profession to be respected," (Tomlinson, 2001, p.36). Even in implementing these policies some schools have proved to be better than others, as in any other instances. "There is a considerable amount of evidence, particularly from research done over the last 15 years, that individual schools can make a significant difference to pupil progress and that some schools are more effective than others," (Woods and Orlik, 1994, p.13). This perhaps depends on the school management or on teachers that certain schools achieve much more than the others. The same principle applies to Church Schools too. Some of them are absolutely successful showing that it is definitely possible for a church school to give multi cultural education to its students. Some have proved to be less successful. It is also important to give more attention to other cultures so that minorities do not feel left out of the mainstream. Education and employment have become key areas in the post war Europe, as no other way of life is available now for the present generation. Conservation in education has become unsuitable in today's Europe. Societies have to be flexible to accommodate minorities and other cultures. Culture, language, politics, education are intermingled in the welfare societies. A lot of attention is being paid to the education system in the media. Mass media sometimes becomes the creator of the problem, more than a solver and pointer and in the process, media creates new crises every day. This does not mean that crises do not exist; they do. "The crisis is not a fiction. It can be seen everyday in the jobs, schools, families, governments and health care and welfare agencies all around us," (Apple, 1995, p.2). In some places, it is noticed that conditions are worsening because of uneven development. Making the schools function properly and effectively in an unequal society is not easy. A functional coherence where all things work relatively smoothly is yet to be achieved and naturally, it would time for such perfection to be achieved. But, in the meantime, Church schools are functioning effectively. In this coherence, a school curriculum plays an important role. If, schools have to represent pluralism that should reflect on the ways of teaching subjects being taught and the way pluralism is being emphasized. On the whole, if the whole picture is taken into account, we must accept that church schools have worked sincerely towards multi cultural education and have succeeded to a very large extent. Societies are favourably responding and this shows by the increasing number of students of diverse faiths going to the church schools. Keeping that in mind, it is difficult to say that the new schooling system has failed. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Apple, Michael (1995), Education and Power, Routledge, London. 2. Brooks, Val (2002), Assessment in Secondary Schools, Open University Press, Buckingham. 3. Fielding, Michael (2001), Taking Education Really Seriously, Routledge, London. 4. Fuller, Bruce and Rubinson, Richard (1992), ed., The Political Construction of Education, Praeger, London. 5. Gipps, Caroline and Murphy, Patricia (1994), A Fair Test, Assessment, Achievement and Equity, Open University Press, Buckingham. 6. Levin, Benjamin (2001), ed., Reforming Education, Routledge, London. 7. Maychell, Karen and Keys, Wendy (1993), LEA evaluation and monitoring, National Foundation for Educational Research, Berkshire. 8. Ormston, Michael and Shaw, Marian (1992), Inspection: A Preparation Guide for Schools, 2nd edn., Oxford Brooks University. 9. Ofsted Inspection of Primary Schools, (1996), Collins Education, London. 10. Raths, James and Grambs, Jean Dresden (1965), Society and Education, Prentice-Hall, INC, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 11. Tomlinson, Sally (2001), Education in a Post-Welfare Society, Open University Press, Buckingham. 12. Warburton, Nigel, (1999), ed., Philosophy: Basic Readings, Routledge, London. 13. Woods, David and Orlik, Susan (1994), School Review and Inspection, Kogan Page, London. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.st-john.leicester.sch.uk/multi-cultural.html 2. http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/privatisation/story/0,5500,677190,00.html 3. http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/privatisation/story/0,5500,677190,00.html 4. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,573780,00.html 5. http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,13882,1234836,00.html 6. http://www.ncec.catholic.edu.au/multi.htm 7. http://www.stalbans.camden.sch.uk/3_0.html 8. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/2/1.html 9. http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000002D08E.htm Read More