Religious education should include secular humanism

The New Zealand discussion around the issue of religious eduction in school curricula suffers from the usual problem – exclusion of the non-religious life stances. The situation appears better in the UK where secular beliefs appear to be included by some schools. In fact the government recommends the study of humanism as an example of a secular philosophy.

The Humanism in Schools web site is an interesting resource provided by the British Humanist Association. It provides teaching toolkits which include teaching notes, lesson guides, worksheets and class presentations. It also provides a collection of humanist perspective documents for classes at different levels and a library of videos and class worksheets.

Now wouldn’t it be great to see a similar resource specifically for the New Zealand situation!

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Putting the Bible in its place
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Thank God or Thank Goodness?
Society’s ” Christian values”
Discrimination at school
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What do we teach our children?
“Let us pray . . . “
Special rights for religion?
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Should we teach creationism?