A high risk of swallowing water
The problem here is not just that state schools shouldn’t be fussing around with particular religions and their rules and fasts, though of course it is that. It’s also, frankly, that state schools (or for that matter any schools) shouldn’t be helping to implement rules and fasts that are fundamentally unhealthy and unsafe. It’s a really bad idea to forbid hydration for extended periods (such as dawn to dusk), so schools should at least abstain. They shouldn’t anxiously help religions to enforce stupid dangerous “rules” of that kind. That’s not their job, and it’s a dereliction of their responsibility for the students’ safety while on the premises.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council has issued an 11-page Ramadan guide for schools to help pupils who may be fasting when the school year starts in September.
It said swimming was acceptable to Muslims but posed a high risk of swallowing water that may break a fast.
Schools and city councils shouldn’t be conveying the idea that swallowing water is “a risk.” It’s bad enough that mosques impose that idea; secular institutions should not be helping them.
But… but… but…
Of course you’re right that schools oughtn’t to be pandering to superstition – much less promoting it. But – to keep with the swimming bit, at least – one of the things the schools are meant to do is to ensure that kids can swim. Given a reasonable likelihood that at least some parents might refuse permission for their kids to have swimming lessons on the basis that it’s Ramadan, the schools seem to have three options. The first is to fail to discharge the responsibility for those kids to have swimming lessons; and that seems to clobber the kids from both sides. The second is to move swimming lessons around the year a bit. The third is to have two blocks of swimming lessons, with the ensuing problems of timetabling, simply for the sake of superstition. The middle option looks to be by far the easiest.
As for exams: well, yes. You’re completely right. And I think that most Muslims would accept that exams are probably the sort of things for which exemptions from fasting probably apply. Those that don’t, it strikes me, probably don’t have all that high a regard for education generally; and schools ought’n’t to be pandering to those with no respect for education.
Though, god knows, in Stoke-on-Trent you don’t have to be a Muslim to have contempt for education. It’s in the tap-water.
Sometimes I get very depressed at the stupidity that surrounds us, why is it that the very people who you would think would be keenest to bring enlightened education to the nation’s youth seem so intent on dragging us back to the Middle Ages ? It will only get worse, the ‘Big Society’ nonsense will further empower all the ‘community leaders’ and pernicious idiots like the MCB and give them even more opportunity to impose their madness on the rest of us, of course if part of the community rose up and said get your religious tanks off our playing fields that would be immediately denounced as strident and Islamophobic. Who will rid us of these turbulent fools ?
Fair enough, Enzyme, if they say they are scheduling swimming lessons in such a way as to maximize participation or some such formula. But this business of agreeing that water is a “risk” – that makes me nervous. Most people don’t seem to realize how important water is, already; schools shouldn’t enforce that non-realization.
How cruel you are to Stoke-on-Trent! Go pick on Macclesfield for a change.
I’m allowed to be cruel to Stoke. I spent 23 of my 33 years living there.
I had to count that on my fingers, by the way. Being from Stoke, though, I didn’t run out.
*badum-tish!*
Let’s be honest here and make that “…should be that children of Muslim parents do not…” (Repeat after me: There are no Muslim children.) The message to the children is that their submission is honoured by the state. The message is conveyed regardless of intent. Because of that, officials need to be very careful in structuring religious accommodation. Rescheduling sex education classes seems a bit much.
If you go to the report itself(pdf, pg.36) you’ll find that it actually says, “[F]or many pupils this activity may prove to be an issue, as the potential for swallowing water is very high“. In other words, the pupils will see it as a risk.
Yes, and in any case swallowing swimming pool water is not the ideal way to keep hydrated. The fact remains, the council is endorsing a stupid religious fantasy that god wants people to go without water for up to 16 hours and that drinking water in that time is naughty.
Oh come on! If you go to the MCB asking for guidance are they really going to say, “No… don’t fret… it’s no biggy… as long as the kids can do their best and make a sincere effort to keep the fast within the standard routine of the school, then that’s just fine.”
Of course not. They lie awake at night cooking up ways to impress upon the rest of society that the ‘muslim community’ is terribly terribly special, and fragile, and particular, and delicate and, well, just special! OK?
Why approach them in the first place? It’s not like they need any bloody encouragement.
A few years back, I was in a undergraduate lab as an observer. The prof in charge was a real stickler for being on time and had all of the students scared so that they were arriving 10+ minutes early. During Ramadan, a student arrived from noon prayers for the lab just as it started. The prof asked why he was late and the student responded that he wasn’t late, but the prof had started early. The argument got a bit heated with both of them shouting at each other across the room. After lab was over, the prof turned to me in private and said, “So, God won’t hear them if they don’t pray at the right time?”
You don’t want to risk a fatwa just to teach a kid swimming, or science, or anything else important for that matter.
Yes why did they ask the MCB? Good point.
I thought the point of the taboo on sex education was that it might cause arousal rather than teach kids something they might need to know. Taboos are all about denying pleasure.
Anyone who thinks sex ed is remotely arousing has never had to fit a condom on a cucumber or squirmed their way through a video about childbirth.
Careful, the kid might breath and swallow a bug. Does such a minute amount of protein count as breaking a fast? If the child runs through a rain shower and licks their lips, will that water be considered sinful? Does nose picking amount to a dietary nono? Oh the complexities abound. Schools should in fact be shut down during this time to prevent the children from developing ulcers due to fretting.
As Enzyme and Ray said I think the priority for schools is avoiding excluding kids from learning, or getting into a negative standoff with parents and local Imams. Kids only get one year’s worth of swimming in UK primary schools, so missing 4 weeks is quite a big deal – especially as kids from Muslim families are least likely to learn to swim outside school.
With sex education parents have the right to remove kids from these sessions, so again schools try hard to make parents feel comfortable about how it is taught, so that kids don’t miss out.
So not sure I would go all Daily Mail about these guidelines. The rest of the document BenSix posted is an eye opener though – especially the bit on Functional Skills – confirms what I thought about RE teaching as being a lesson in how to think mushy.
On the good news side I understand parents’ rights to remove kids from sex education in the uk is being curtailed from next year, in favour of kids’ rights to know and ask questions.