Does abstinence-only sex education work?

The TL;DR; answer is no, it does not work. In 2007 the federal government commissioned a study to look into it all, and the results are here in a PDF. The executive summary lays it all out quite well, and basically reveals that the millions they spend promoting an abstinence education policy was completely wasted because … Read more

Catholic Church refuses to divest schools or respect human rights in Ireland

Atheist Ireland reports on the latest developments … It is increasingly clear that the Catholic Church will not divest any schools to other patron bodies unless they are forced to do so. In fact they have reinforced their position of opposing human rights standards in education, by rejecting the Toledo Guiding Principles. Even Prof John Coolahan … Read more

State Funded Islamic Free Schools in the UK are a complete disaster

As reported by the National Secular Society, there have been more revelations regarding the bizarre ethos that pervades the Islamic Free school in the UK city of Derby … As previously reported, concerns have been raised that female staff are being forced to wear head coverings, even if they aren’t Muslim. However, it has now … Read more

Education: – FREE Critical Thinking Lesson Plans from the JREF

Now this is neat and well worth supporting, you can download FREE lesson plans from the JREF to enable you to teach critical thinking and scientific inquiry. There are basically four NEW options as follows: Pareidolia: Do You See What You Think You See? Illusions: Our Visual System Cognition: Are You Rational? Power Balance: Sports … Read more

Philosophy Games for Children

Children can benefit from learning philosophy from a young age. It is not necessary to drill them on Descartes and Kierkegaard; children can learn logic, evaluate ethical dilemmas, learn empathy, and consider the way they experience the world around them by playing philosophical games that are fun and simple. Keeping the age of the children … Read more

Accelerated Christian Education sounds OK, but is complete bullshit

Jonny Scaramanga, an ex-fundamentalist, writes in the Guardian about some of the completely crazy things being promoted by Accelerated Christian Education. This is a Bible belt based group  that promotes religious indoctrination under the banner of “education”, and consists of a biblical literalist agenda. The specific concern here is that they not only have 3,000 Schools in the US … Read more