31 replies to this topic

[linda.ff]

Taking this in a different direction...... I have often thought I should keep a book of all the funny things my patients say to me. Many of them have dementia so the entertainment value is often quite high. I currently have a generally very pleasant lady who gets lonely in her side room and calls for the nurses all the time. She can be quite imaginative with her attempts to get attention, the other day she started shouting "help, help, I'm pregnant and the baby's coming now!". As she is well past 90, this did cause some amusement.

When my first husbands grandfather was dying, and bedridden in their house, he was on such a potent cocktail of drugs that he would appear quite a bit more demented at times than he had been before. It was, understandably, a trying few months for the family, but they had to acknowledge that it afforded them one or two laughs. One was when he wanted one of us to tune his electric razor for him because we know how to get a channel with much nicer music on it; another time he had the bedclothes pushed back and was asking for a match to light his candle. He didn't have a candle - he was pointing to his p*nis! 

[Tenor Viol]

 

Doesn't sound as if the RE teacher has done a very good job. I don't mean that the teacher should  have tried to brainwash your daughter iinto  accepting Christian beliefs - or those of any other faith - but.I thought the job of an RE teacher was to show pupils what the various religious philosophies stand for and how they have influenced thought and behaviour over the centuries - for good or bad. It wouldn't be a bad idea either to include the ideas of some of the great philosophers who don't have any belief in a god.

 

I was at an RC secondary school, and I remember the French teacher one day telling us that if any of us left school as anything other than a devoted Catholic, then in her opinion the school had failed.  When this was conveyed to the head of RE by a couple of us, he said what utter nonsense!  He said that the school's job was to provide us with the ability to question, think and choose, but he hoped that Catholicism would be our 'first stop' if those of us who weren't religious at 16 or 18 ever felt like exploring religions in future.  We were taught about other Christian denominations and non-Christian religions throughout.

 

I went to a Catholic grammar school run by Jesuits. We were taught about other religions and denominations. Jesuits usually have degrees in two subjects, our headmaster was a double 1st from Oxford. The head had several mantras, one (to parents) was "Your child comes here to be educated,  not to pass exams. There is a difference." The other addressed to us at assemblies was about our duty to give back to society... 

 

Obviously, religion was a part of things, but it was never rammed down our throats. I did hear some tales from people who went to schools run by other orders....