Commenting on yesterday's post ("Don't you dare pray for your sick pupil") Andrew Zimmerman Jones opined that the separation of church and state has historically been good for America. I disagree. But let's not open up that can of worms today.
Rather, let me point out that the reason for the firing of Olive Jones (no relation to Andrew, I presume) had nothing to do with religion being taught or observed in the British state-run school.
Miss Jones was dismissed or suspended or whatever for merely offering to do a very Christian thing, i.e. pray for the sick. And it's not as if this was going to be done in the school or during classes. It was to have been a Christian prayer said to God by a Christian teacher in her own way and on her own time.
Following the council's logic (?) to its ultimate conclusion, no-one who gave any visible sign of being a follower of Christ would be allowed to teach in its schools. That can't be right!
From the council's point of view, they've received a complaint that a teacher has been bullying them and their child. The parents' only request has been that Olive Jones not be sent to their home.
ReplyDeleteThis not being the first time that Mrs Jones has been the subject of a similar complaint, the council decided to suspend her from work and invite her for a meeting to find out her side of the story.
I don't know if there's a cultural difference about suspension here - in the UK it's generally on full pay and without any presumption of guilt. It's usually used to allow an investigation and also recognising that an employee's quality of work is likely to decline when they are under investigation.
Olive Jones seems to have refused to meet with her employers to clear the matter up and instead gone to the media to paint the parents of a sick child as being intolerant. That doesn't seem like it's in her best interests.
At the end of the day, if Olive Jones is sacked it will be because she refused to do her job, exactly the same as she would be fired in the US.
There are some Christians -- evangelical Protestant types, generally -- who push their brand of Christianity altogether too hard. Perhaps Olive Jones is one of them. But I don't read in the original story any report of Jones being "sent" to the pupil's home.
ReplyDeleteAnd "bullying"? I hardly think so. Perhaps a suitable response to the complaint would have been for the council to instruct the teacher to leave off pushing her religion on folks who aren't interested. Going as far as suspension seems over the top to me.
By the way, I worked in the British civil service for a couple of years. My understanding of suspension, even with pay ("garden leave"), is that it carries with it the stigma of having been found guilty of some wrongdoing.