By NZHERALD.CO.NZ - NZHERALD.CO.NZ
Added: Mon, 10 May 2010 12:58:34 UTC

Thanks to Kiwi for the link

Original link

First a teacher was sacked for teaching a Shakespeare text. Now, Joseph Barratt investigates what happened behind the high gates of the Government-subsidised Exclusive Brethren schools.

Imagine a school whose books had words blacked out or pages removed and large parts of the curriculum - particularly anything to do with puberty and sex - was simply not taught.

A school where teachers received unexpected late-night visits at home to check on their moral probity.

And where all aspects of school life are governed in every detail by a sacred text, but a committee has absolute discretion in deciding how to interpret it.

It may sound like the worst excesses of the Taleban in Afghanistan or the Iranian mullahs, but this is the prevailing orthodoxy in 15 Westmount schools across the country run by the Exclusive Brethren.

The Herald on Sunday reported last week that a teacher from one such school in the Northland town of Kerikeri was sacked for using a "morally defiling" modern version of Shakespeare's great tragedy King Lear in a Year 13 class.

Suzette Martin, 40, lost her job because the material had not been approved by the school's governing committee.

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TAGGED: CENSORSHIP, EDUCATION, RELIGION