Illustration: Frank Maiorana
Do you remember how you found out the truth about the jolly fat man in the red suit or the fluffy bunny who delivers chocolate once a year? How did you react at the time? Was it a painful process at all?
For me I was about five or six. I was rolling around on my parents' bedroom floor when I suddenly spied a number of toys under their bed including one fluoro green hula-hoop (note to parents: hiding gifts under the bed is both predictable and silly as vertically challenged individuals can easily access this space.)
Weeks later, an identical fluoro green hoop was bestowed upon me with a greeting card signed by one "Santa". A basic handwriting comparison of the various other cards in my stocking and a quick check under my parents' bed confirmed my suspicions.
This "truth" I had uncovered did not distress me. On the contrary I felt proud of my detective skills and an urgent need to get the message out to all and sundry.
Other children — I was sure — would greet the explosive news with a mix of surprise and inquisitiveness. Naively, I was convinced that I was sitting on a great "scoop".
Not long after this I was being minded by a classmate's mother. As I excitedly told my classmate of my discoveries he burst into tears, calling me a liar before running to his mother. She in turn contradicted me, reassuring her son, that I was just "playing silly tricks" on him.
As she cajoled and comforted her son, his tears dried and were replaced by a look of smug self-righteousness; the adult adjudicator had spoken and he had been declared the victor. Minutes later, he was gloating over me, parading about with an insufferable air of superiority and condescension.
The whole episode baffled and frustrated me. I was too young to understand why the mother did not immediately fess up. Nor could I understand his hysterical and emotional reaction on being presented with a set of rational facts.
Later I reported this experience to my own parents who diligently explained that while my facts may have been correct, it was cruel of me to shatter the "magic" of Christmas for other children by painting the whole thing as a big sham.
And so I learnt to shut my mouth.
But the experience taught me a number of things. Firstly, people's belief systems are changeable but this process is complicated and is usually triggered by introspective interrogation and critical thinking, not by external correction and imposition of views.
Secondly, some people will always place more importance on faith than on facts. And this is their prerogative to do so.
Thirdly, young children may forever be asking questions about the world, but most of them will blindly believe whatever the authority figures in their lives tell them.
And this is precisely why it is unethical to indoctrinate children through religious direction.
That is not to say that children cannot be introduced to the concept of religion (and the fact that there are many many religions in the world — none of which have universal support and all of which have attracted considerable criticism). Nor does it mean that children cannot be introduced to ethical frameworks for decision making.
But surely it is important that we nurture children's critical thinking and reasoning capacities rather than simply telling them to unquestionably accept what they are told?
NSW is currently set to go ahead with secular ethics classes that have been successfully trialled. These classes will provide those students who do not attend religious education classes with the opportunity to engage in ethics-based lessons.
Unlike moralising sermons, which strictly dictate right from wrong, these classes are designed to teach children how to think through the complex process of working out what is ethical or unethical (or somewhere in between) in any given dilemma.
It's a vast deal different to the hard and fast (but ultimately unhelpful) "rules" that my generation was given in religious classes, such as "no sex before marriage" and "gay sex is a sin". Thank goodness times are a-changing.
Nina Funnell is a researcher in the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of NSW.
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