Good questions Clare, and quite appropriate for the teachers to grapple with (and I'm sure they do, but your comments will help).
The subject is a comparative religions subject from memory, but not abstract because of that, since they look at several living faiths and engage with current believers, not just (ancient) beliefs. So there is a spread of stuff built in, in a range of ways. I'd guess there are girls from most of those living faiths in the school, and perhaps in the class. I expect part of the desire is for a forum (or fora, plural) in which - the girls can ask "dumb" questions without feeling silly, - they can hear views other than their teachers or parents or friends, - they can see a range of perspectives, reinforcing Clare's "diversity even within a defined group" comment, - and also probably where they're reasonably safe; despite our misgivings about the complete safety of the list (based on our shared experience of some online discussions, but also because we let anyone subscribe and lurk), I know we'd still be fairly caring of the girls, and not set up real-world dates to take them a long road trips to Perth or anything (not picking on Perth, just flagging the dangers of some online forums for the naive, and their parents). I love the top post on Gush: "Some changes are happening! dont be worried, it's all ok..." Perhaps that could be the theme for the next Assembly? Regards, Rohan Rohan Pryor Manager, Information Technology Services Synod of Victoria and Tasmania Uniting Church in Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph: (03) 9251 5243 Fax: (03) 9654 4110 Website: http://vic.uca.org.au -----Original Message----- From: Clare Pascoe Henderson [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 11:50 AM To: insights Subject: Re: Year 10 girls A few questions/thoughts: Rohan Pryor wrote: > A couple of friends teach at Melbourne's Methodist Ladies College > (http://www.mlc.vic.edu.au/), in particular a Year 10 class on Christianity > (part of the wider World Religions subject, I think). > > They're looking for online discussion forums where the girls would be able > to ask questions about Christianity, and I mentioned the existence of this > list. What sort of thing are they looking for? If they want "official church teachings", then I doubt *any* discussion board is the right forum to seek out. If they want a range of responses, then Darren's suggestion of gush.com.au certainly isn't the answer - it's ultra conservative. I wouldn't encourage ANY young seeker to go there, because they'll learn that god's black and white, and knowing what's right is simple so long as they're saved, AND they'll get evangelised as soon as they say they're not christian! Then there's Darren's question about age - what age range do they want to talk to? And what about denomination - shouldn't they discuss christianity with people from a range of denominations, if they're going to learn anything much? And what do they want to know - the history, the beliefs, the philosophies, personal experiences...? Bottom line is, they're at MLC - they'll be getting daily christian input anyway (not that that tells them much about the basics) - what's the purpose of the unit of study and what part of that purpose do they propose to fill by "talking to christians"? > But I'm not sure if we're the right sort of forum for a group of Year 10 > girls. Then again, we might be, or decide to become so. > > What do others think? Could we handle some naive or robust questions? Could > we behave appropriately? Perhaps they'd learn the most crucial point - that there's a lot of breadth of opinion between christians even within a denomination :-) But one possibility that occurs to me is that we could set up a spin-off group with just a few people with a spread of beliefs and let them join that. Clare *************************************************** Clare Pascoe Henderson http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org Clergy Sexual Abuse in Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] *************************************************** ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
