Dee, I am not sure what happens in Victoria and whether you already know what happens in NSW but in case you are interested.... I studied 2 unit HSC Studies of Religion at a Catholic school in 1997. In this course we studied: - Aboriginal Dreaming, belief systems, relationship to the land and sprituality. This also included ways in which contemporary movements have been impacted by systems and spiritualities; understandings of the Wik and Mabo judgements, the stolen generation and the issues involved with these. - Influence of religion on Australian society. This includes sections on settlement and Christian influence, influence and impact of all the other major religions (through initial settlement, conversion and immigration), impact of settlement on Aboriginal spirituality; plurality; commonalities in contemporary religious expression, and the distribution of religions today (involved studying and interpreting figures like those Rod posted). - Two cross depth studies (I studied 'Rites of Passage' and 'Ethics') in two of the five major religions (identified as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity - I studied Hinduism and Christianity (all denominations, not just Catholicism)). - An Interest Studies Project. This is a research assignment - the question is written by the student with the guidelines of investigating the major religions in relation to literature, art, music, poetry, the media, or biographies (there are more options as well). Mine was a study of CS Lewis' use of allogory in the "Chronicles of Narnia". In addition to this, the preliminary course included a study of the nature and basis of religion as well as two depth studies in major religions. All in all, I found the course most interesting, very comprehensive, a lot of work for a subject generally considered 'bludgy', and left more students leaving the school questioning their own faith and respecting others than students ignorantly or blindly believing! While the amount of content obviously meant all could not be down in a great amount of depth, the course left me with an interest and a will to independently learn more. More information on the HSC Studies of Religion syllabus or stuff that I missed (it was two years ago) can be found at the Board of Studies site: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ Edwina. Dee Elliott wrote: > Rod, > > re your brawl with vic ed... are there schools in Victoria which teach > Aboriginal dreaming or other religions apart from the Christian one(s)? My > objection to my children receiving religious education has been not that > Christianity's belief systems shouldn't be shared, but that other religions > deserve equal airplay. > > I am particularly interested in whether and how Aboriginal dreaming is > taught in primary schools, re our work on North Stradbroke/Minjerribah and > policy suggestions for the school. > > Thanks, > > Dee > > Dee Elliott > Elliott Whiteing & Associates > PO Box 818 Cooroy 4563 Q. Australia > (61) 7 54477440 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ---------- > > From: Rod Hagen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [recoznet2] RE: ABC Newslink - Labor Member questions God's > inclusion inpreambl > > Date: Monday, 22 February 1999 17:05 > > > > At 08:33 AM 22/2/99, Trudy and Rod Bray wrote: > > >I don't think he said that 30% were atheists, Peter, in fact, the > > >percentage of those is actually > > >very small. > > > > The last census doesn't indicate that 30% are atheists. > > > > It does, however indicate that 16.6% of people indicated that they > followed > > no religion in 1996 and that a further 9% didn't answer the question. > > > > Moreover the number of people indicating no religion had grown by some > 35% > > since the previous census compared with, for a example, a 2.9% fall in > the > > number of people identifying as Anglican. > > > > If the same growth/fall rates have been sustained since 1996 there are > now > > far more atheists / agnostics in Australia than there are Anglicans. > > > > The number of people indicating that they pursue no religion vastly > exceeds > > the number of people who identify as Muslim , Hindu etc (three times the > > number in fact). There are more people indicating "no religion" than > all > > of the other christian groups combined apart from Anglican and Catholic. > > After Anglicans and Catholics, people without a religion made up the > third > > largest group in the Australian community in 1996. I suspect that by now > > only the Catholics outnumber them (us). > > > > (source ABS Web data on religious affiliation.) > > > > My own view is that the preamble should state that we are a secular > state, > > which recognises the freedom of people to either believe, or not believe, > > as their personal conscience dictates. > > > > Cheers > > > > Rod > > (who is in the middle of a bit of a brawl about whether religious > education > > should be given the prominence which it is at the local Victorian state > > school!) > > > > Rod Hagen > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia > > WWW http://www.netspace.net.au/~rodhagen > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > > > This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without > permission from the > > copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and > research under the "fair > > use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be > distributed further without > > permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." > ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
