We don’t teach atheism, we teach about atheism.
Letter to the Editor – The Guardian
30 September 2013
Dear Sir,
Henry McDonald’s article (‘Atheism to be taught to Irish schoolchildren‘, September 26th), requires clarification and correction.
Contrary to the implication in your article (Ireland gets its first curriculum for teaching children atheism, 27 September), Educate Together has not secured, nor has it sought, “the right to teach the republic’s primary schoolchildren that God doesn’t exist”.
In reality, Educate Together is working with Atheism Ireland to develop lesson plans about atheism, agnosticism and humanism. While this initiative is innovative and important, it is one of many such modules and it does not confer any new rights or represent the introduction of an “atheist curriculum”.
Educate Together schools deliver an ethical curriculum that is based on human rights and equality, and fosters appreciation of human diversity. It includes themes of moral and spiritual development, and ethics and the environment. Children are enabled to explore all the main belief systems, both theist and non-theist.
If your reporter is looking for a school that insists there is or is not a God, he will have to look elsewhere.
Paul Rowe
Chief Executive Officer, Educate Together
