Under the guise of Special Religious Instruction (SRI), Access Ministries have a backdoor into our primary schools to spread their evangelical, Old Testament-style Christianity. This is a terrible, terrifying idea and one that makes me question the integrity of the education system in Victoria.

Most of my arguments against SRI to date have been big picture stuff – thinking about the moral and philosophical problems of giving a religious group access to students within a secular system. There’s nothing tangible or material from Access Ministries that has raised my blood pressure, made me see red, wanna hurl papers about the room. Until now.

I’ve just seen one of the resources published by Access Ministries, which attacks the hardworking teachers who have to supervise SRI classes and tells students that the solution to bullying is to stay away from teachers and just pray their problems away.

The panel above come from the comic, You’re Asking For It, published by Access Ministries. It is sold to students in Victorian state primary schools. You can read the whole thing on my website but the salient points are here:

Throughout the comic, teachers are portrayed as angry clock-watchers, bereft of any consideration for their charges – a far cry from nearly every single educational professional I’ve met. You don’t go into teaching if you can’t abide children – you just won’t survive the gig. This is just utter nonsense.

The comic repeatedly depicts teachers as being insensitive to bullied kids. Not only is this a complete repudiation of the dedication and compassion shown by every single teacher I’ve ever worked with, it ignores the fact that we are legally obligated to ensure our students are safe – which means investigating every case of bullying.

It’s only when the spiky-haired protagonist prays that the teacher is driven to act – not out of a sense of duty. No, he’s scared out of his wits by writing appearing on a blackboard and loud, booming phonecalls - the Lord Almighty himself had come down to tell the teacher to pull his finger out.

It’s offensive stuff, this cartoon. Offensive to teachers, offensive to those who’ve worked long and hard to make Victorian schools safe and supportive environments for all students and offensive to students. It tells children that the adults around them are not to be trusted, and that prayer is only way to save themselves from persecution. It’s anti-educational, simplistic pap and it’s dangerous.

Students need to know there are trustworthy adults who will act on their behalf if they are being bullied. This cartoon would have them think that’s not an option.

This rubbish demonstrates that Access Ministries need to have their funding revoked. The legislation that compels schools to offer their classes must be changed. Our students should have the option to learn about religion, but in a way that shows the diversity of faiths, employs some critical reasoning and does not suggest supernatural solutions to all too common occurrences.

Update: Just prior to going to print Access Ministries had removed the cartoon from their website and apologised (sort of).

Mike has also interviewed a teacher who was bullied out of the SRI program by Access. Check our website or Mike’s blog for more details.

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