Second day of school.

[franceslievens]

I still have my Tuesday mornings off this year, which'll probably end with me sleeping in, writing on LJ, and chatting with lijability whenever I feel the urge to go online.

Yesterday the school year started with not doing what I do when teaching. Miss Islam left because she couldn't wear her scarve during the big teacher meeting. Our Headmistress had some bold judgements to make about that. Because of the nature of the world view courses, I could unfortunately not agree, for her bold pronouncements were in fact out of line.

Two months off have robbed me of my social skills. Or maybe most of my colleagues do really just piss me off.

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Which bold judgements?

I found out something interesting lately. Wearing scarves is banned in public schools in Indonesia which is yet a Muslim country and actually the area in the world with the biggest amount of Muslims!

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

In the case when they wouldn't be able to find another Islam teacher she'd ask the parents to choose a different world view course. She is actualy not allowed to do that, as it is against rules and regulation. The stupid thing is, she hides herself behind the rules when it's about the scarves, but she forgets the rules when it's convenient for her. I was a bit upset about it, because if parents go along with it, I probably end up with big classes, because of the perceived neutrality of the morality course.

We always talk about it, but it's a discussion that we shouldn't have. The clash of principles is on a higher echelon: namely the big boss of the public schools in Brussels and the person(s) responsible for the Islam courses and teachers.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joys of school politics. (At our school the whole issue of promotions and different pays is boiling over again.)

In our school with just under 1000 pupils we only have two girls who wear headscarves. We don't have any Muslim teachers, so it's not an issue, but there's a ban in place for our state. We don't have a world view course for Muslim pupils - some attend the regular R.E. classes which are more or less neutral depending on the teacher (though if taught according to the curriculum they wouldn't be), others just have a free period. For the older pupils we've got a Practical Philosophy course and that's chosen by most pupils, even the religious ones.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Yes, you have told me before. Sometimes I wish we'd just have practical philosphy, instead of all that religious crap.

Gah, I'm very intolerant today, aren't I?