The Guardian has an article about new government guidelines for teaching creationism in religious education (RE) classes. Schools will also be required to teach the creation myths of all the major religions and will be required to compare and contrast natural and supernatural explanations of our origins.

This is nothing new to me, of course, since we were taught creationism in school when I was a lad. As I have often said, there is no better way to inoculate teenagers against some of the zanier myths than to have them debate it with their peers.

[to our second year (7th grade) RE teacher]

Miss! So, was Jesus a bastard?

[teacher]

Er. Well. It’s true that Mary and Joseph weren’t married when Jesus was conceived, but we don’t usually call him a bastard.

Wasn’t me asking the question, by the way.

I heard from several correspondents that they thought my attitude to religion (Christmas vs Holidays) was unusual.

One had been brought up in a religious environment and now rejects the whole shebang - she can’t understand why I am interested in Christian mythology at all. She wouldn’t even let me buy a children’s bible for our daughter because she still has bad memories of the nuns who ran her school. Another reported that their family, having walked away from their childhood beliefs wanted to get as far from them as possible. Still another suggested that I had fabricated my whole attitude just to be controversial.

For me growing up, the Church of England was like the kindly but eccentric old man who lived down the road. He had a whole bunch of fascinating stories and some of them may even have been true. Everyone knew him and liked him but no one took him very seriously. I have nothing but fond memories of him.

Perhaps, for people who were brought up with a more strict form of religion, a part of their identity is tied up in their religious beliefs? Maybe religion is like a strict aunt who tried to control their lives? When they finally break free from her controlling ways in adulthood, they have to let go completely and discard everything that might remind them of her.

I have often thought that these differences in attitude towards religion between Americans and Europeans (Malta doesn’t count as it’s pretty much a theocracy) can be attributed to the lack of religious education in schools in America. My son will never play the innkeeper in the school nativity play. My daughter will never sing Little Donkey in the Christmas pageant. They will never get to tease the RE teacher about some of the more way out stories from the bible.

The only way my kids will get a religious education is if we sign them up for the whole package and that requires actually believing that the stories in the bible are true. That can’t be right.

My best, most vivid memories of school comes from the second and third year of secondary school (that’s 7th & 8th grade to all you mercans). That’s the period when I got into the most trouble, had my biggest triumphs, copped my first feel, made my first teacher cry (and the second a couple of days later), got caned for the first time [could that be related to the previous memory? - ed], was most active in sports, got beaten around the head hardest by a teacher, wrote my first song, wrote the most lines (le silence aides le travail) and a thousand other similar memories.

It was shocking to think, when I dropped my son off for his first day of middle school this morning, to think that those kids were only a year younger than I was in Mr Gooden’s class.

I feel a whole lot of memory-related blogs coming on…

Dylan starts middle school tomorrow.

I remember it like it was just yesterday. Mrs Stevenson in her wizarding robes marching us down to the Junior Assembly Hall sounding exactly like Professor McGonagall - she might even have been scottish.

Such a long time ago and, at the same time, just yesterday.