[Closed] Christian teacher loses job

She was told the mother had complained that both she and her daughter were distressed by her testimony about miracles and her offer of saying a prayer. As a result they no longer wanted her as a tutor in their home.

Imagine you are dying of a non curable disease and a happy clappy tells you about Gods love and that prayer can save you which lets be honest is a fairly dubious claim that does not really stand up to serious investigation. She was a maths teacher WTF did what she was saying have to do with her job of teahing Maths?
She should have left her personal opinion at the front door.

Does seem a tad harsh mind to sack her a warning would surely have sufficed.

It's about time these people were told to keep their fariy stories to themselves. I doubt very much that a non - christian woman would have had the same treatment though.

Oh FFS when's it going to stop. So are they going to sue churches that ring their bells or Mosques that call to prayer from the minorets.
So they'll never attend a funeral or wedding.
Can you say 'bless you' when someone sneezes or will a fat oaf in a stalled Hummer come along and blow my head off.

[i]The teacher's case mirrors that of community nurse Caroline Petrie, who was suspended last December after offering to pray for a patient. She was later reinstated following a national outcry.

The pair are friends and live close to each other in Somerset. [/i]

Hmmmm, more to this than first meets the eye methinks...She has a close friend who was at the centre of exactly the same media circus, and goes ahead and does the same thing, to predictably the same sort of media coverage, which makes me wonder who and how the media were alerted to this?

[i]Since Mrs Jones worked only 12 hours a week and had no formal contract, her job with the North Somerset Tuition Service in Nailsea, near Bristol, ended with immediate effect. [/i]

I hadn't realised that she was a private tutor employed on a casual basis. It's not quite the same as a classroom teaching position in a state school.

Personally, I'd just say "thanks, but I'm not a believer" and leave it at that. If she persisted I may have complained.

Members of my family are involved in the church/clergy. They know that I have no religious faith and don't try to convert me.

I usually go off on a big rant about religion and how nothing good comes from it blah blah blah. But seriously, this is OTT. So she wanted to pray for someone, well thats nice. Let her do what she wants to do, its not hurting anyone.

Is this a case of:

" Is it because I am the only Christian in the village?"

I am not a fan of religion as some of you know however it seems to me that picking on a chrstian is like booting a puppy. I doubt if she had been jewish, muslim or something else she would have been sacked.

It's political correctness etc etc.

Godbotherer they all think because they believe in god and divine intervention that they are doing you a favor, why do they have to pedal their beliefs at any given opportunity, she was told about her preaching before if she is to stupid to adehere to those warnings then she only has herself to blame. She should stick to teaching her chosen subject and not the bible.

Well, she is obviously an idiot for not keeping to her job, and the family are obviously within their rights to not employ anyone they don't want to; but it seems a bit of a daft over-reaction for the agency to sack her because of it - surely it would have been enough to tell her that she should stick to her job in future.

I suppose it depends to a degree on what actually happened in the house but it's hard to imagine her aggressively forcing her beliefs onto the family - so I imagine she just brought it up and it seems a shame that we have to watch what we say so much in case someone's offended. Would this be the same if someone at my office offered to pray for someone else at work who was ill?

Or does it have to be their official role? I mean you couldn't complain about a priest offering prayer could you? Object, perhaps, but not lodge an official complaint. Many priests see it as their business to visit people in their parish and offer assistance to those that might need it.

it's none of these things
it's just the media soiling itself over any old story and then smearing the results on a bit of paper for the public to lap up

Lets face it someone coming into work with garlic breath is more offensive.

I've known of quite a few instances of Christian parents complaining to schools when something's been said in the classroom that they don't like. I'm sure they'd go further if they thought they could get away with it. This is not a sacking 'based on belief', what has praying got to do with GCSE maths? It's someone making an unsolicited and irrational assertion of their superstitions. On the other hand, if it worked we could pack up teaching kids and just get on our knees. Think of the savings! (sic)

BillMC - if she said that the girl would go to hell if she died so she'd better start praying then I'd agree with you.

Can you actually be offended by something you don't believe in? i.e the words of a Christian are just harmless noise. I could understand if they held another religion.

Surely if you don't believe then it doesn't affect you in any way at all? Its just someone saying some nice words on your behalf.

Its just like telling someone you're thinking of them or something, how can that be offensive?

It is potty.
Just look at how many kids the story of Santa coming down the chimney and into your room, backfires on. No one ever got fired for telling Christmas stories that kept kids up all night wetting their beds.

Some kids are scared of Santa?

Yeah, have you not heard of that? Just the bit about coming into the room at night.

Can you actually be offended by something you don't believe in?

Can we send Dawkins round her house to tell her kids about how stupid their parents belief system is and she can let us know if she objects?

No! Though I remember being confused as to how he knew I'd gone to my Gran's....

They sacked her because shes ugly?

Can we send Dawkins round her house to tell her kids about how stupid their parents belief system is and she can let us know if she objects?

That's not exactly the same thing now it it...?!

They are fairly similar as in one we have an atheist talking to a christian and in the other we have a christian talking to an atheist.

Either way the point is you can be offended by views you don’t share as I am sure an atheist could offend the teacher with our views on homosexuality, contraception , sex before marriage , how silly their world view is etc.

She can still pray for re-instatement. If she's a true believer, I'm sure some greater power will step in and she'll get her job back in no time...

Some kids are scared of Santa?

Yup. My 6 year old niece is absolutely terrified at the thought of some bloke going in to her bedroom while she's sleeping. Even when her mum explained that it was to leave pressies, she still asked if mum could tell santa to leave the presents on the landing.

They are fairly similar

I'm not sure what the atheist equivalent of praying is but if Dawkins offered to do that then that's similar to what she did - she didn't comment negatively, and not strongly, on the family's non-believe

yes but I guess they did not start the converstaion about praying and miracles did they? If you are dying and someone talks to you about miracles- which are BS- that may well be offensive as shown by the fact they complained.

Seems like an overreaction to have her booted, but it's a bit rich to claim she's the victim of some sort of religious persecution.

Only she and the family know whether she just mentioned it in passing or maybe was a bit more persistent, but I could see how the family might start wondering whether she'd start offering her Christian views again in future and that's not what they were paying her for.

I'm an atheist (it may come as a surprise to some on here!) and I would not be offended!

that may well be offensive

How can it be offensive? If you don't believe then it won't happen and praying won't do anything, so you're in the same situation as before? How is that offensive? She didn't walk in and piss on her kids or anything..

This seems a trifle intolerant to me. If people want to pray for me they are very welcome to. I cannot reciprocate as I do not believe and do not pray, and I am unclear that their prayer achieves anything in any measurable or remotely objective way, but I can't see that it is offensive in any sense. If they were praying that I be set upon by a plague of newts or whatever then I might be less relaxed I suppose.

In the article she suggests that she 'just offered to pray for them', but then also mentions that she gave 'testimony of miracles' as well, so obviously she did actually say more than just 'I'll pray for you'.

So it is very hard to know how much she said, and obviously someone writing in the Telegraph has an agenda to push the particular version of the story that fits their agenda (i.e. woman is sacked for her beliefs).

Now, there are some evangelicals who will do things like push themselves on people with cancer, saying that if you believe you'd get better (a miracle would happen). Which kind of has an implicit meaning that the cancer is something to do with not believing in god, a punishment or something.

I imagine the truth was somewhere in between the extremes, but she said enough to offend them, otherwise she'd not have got the sack over it.

Joe

I have a feeling if it was just a little praying then I doubt there would have been such a reaction... I think the bit where she said 'testimony about miracles' reveals more about how the conversation was more likely to go.

Besides, the piece is all written from one side as the family haven't commented, so I daresay it's biased in the teachers favour somewhat.

EDIT: Darn it... way too slow typing that one up as Joe has said almost exactly the same thing too!

Keep to the subject and enjoy the work etc but values and ethics need to be kept away-only so the parents don't sue.

I wonder if you didn't say anything at all and just taught math, would they complain she wasn't compasionate?

I don't think she should be sacked and typical parents saying nothing till she has gone, why didn't they just say no straight away?

No tolerance?

zaskar - let's assume your child is dying and some nutter tells her that she is going to hell for eternity unless she repents and lets Jesus into her heart, and that that upsets the child as she doesn't want to go to hell for all eternity. Are you saying you wouldn't be a little upset by that?

As others have said, there's probably more to this than that report says.

Was she praying for the sick, or preying on the sick?

She isn't being penalised for being a christian, which is important- as long as she kept her beliefs to herself she was fine, but the family weren't happy with having her beliefs become part of the schooling. Now, whether you've got an issue with that is another thing but the suggestion that it's religious persecution is just total gibberis and should be treated as such.

I would suspect there's more to the story. Would they really sack her if she was a valuable asset to the school? She was probally a religous nutcase and this was their oppurtunity to get rid of her. And isn't it convenient that she is mates with the nurse who got sacked for the same thing? They're obviously looking for publicity for their cause.

She was doing the right thing by her beliefs. She believes that praying would help, and decently offered to do some.

I doubt a Muslim would have had the same treatment, but would they make such an offer?

I wouldn't be offended by a kindness.

I suspect that if it had been a Christian family, and she had insensitively offered to perform a satanic ritual for the child, exactly the same would have happened.

She was pushing her religion (whichever it may be) on somebody who didn't want it. She was being paid to teach maths and not fairy tales.

If it had been my child, I would have complained as well.

I've no thoughts on the rights and wrongs of this matter, but I'm curious as to why you'd ask permission to pray for someone. Surely if you cared and felt it would make a difference you'd do it privately anyway?

So no one is bothered by the fact that she, [i]"had no formal contract, her job with the North Somerset Tuition Service in Nailsea, near Bristol, ended with immediate effect."[/i] then ?

Someone can be sacked with no right of appeal, because they have no more employment rights than you would expect from a totalitarian country ........ and everyone's just fine with that ?

Part-time workers in Britain in 2009 have no rights, but no one fancies, or feels the slightest inclination to have a rant about it ?

FFS, no wonder the British people have been shagged by a succession of different governments for the last 30 years.

I've no thoughts on the rights and wrongs of this matter, but I'm curious as to why you'd ask permission to pray for someone. Surely if you cared and felt it would make a difference you'd do it privately anyway?

Well she probably would but Christians like to pray with each other.

Anyway, if it had been made clear that she shouldn't do this, and that her job would be at risk, then I suppose the action would be appropriate. Every Christian I've met is essentially pretty caring and would have thought she was being helpful. Obviously the intolerance that's out there is shared by some here.

Every Christian I've met is essentially pretty caring and would have thought she was being helpful

Like the Pope's view on condoms helps with child mortality and AIDS - that kind of helpful advice?

Good point Enrie

[i]Someone can be sacked with no right of appeal, because they have no more employment rights than you would expect from a totalitarian country ........ and everyone's just fine with that ?[/i]

According to the BBC she's been suspended pending investigation rather than sacked.
[url] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8423265.stm [/url]

Ernie Lynch wrote,
"Part-time workers in Britain in 2009 have no rights, but no one fancies, or feels the slightest inclination to have a rant about it ?"

Do you believe that part time workers in Britain have no rights?

[She was pushing her religion (whichever it may be) on somebody who didn't want it. She was being paid to teach maths and not fairy tales]

Junkyard, Jahwomble et al - not sure what bikes you ride but if, for example, you thought that the Orange 5 (no I don't ride one) was utterly fantastic, you might be forgiven for mentioning it to other people, because you want them to get as much benefit as you have. This is the motivation that Christians have. But yes I agree with the need to be sensitive and respect other people's view. Lot's of people on STW think it's OK to take the p1$$ out of people who believe in God. Well, I can live with that... I just think... "there's something amazing that they haven't got yet... I hope they do someday... there really IS more to life!" Can you live with that?

She was clearly being provocative and was bang out of order - so deservedly out of a job IMO.

Do you believe that part time workers in Britain have no rights?

I'm responding to the claim in the article which stated, quote :

[i]"Since Mrs Jones worked only 12 hours a week and had no formal contract, her job with the North Somerset Tuition Service in Nailsea, near Bristol, ended with immediate effect."[/i]

Which suggests that the employer was not obliged to follow any disciplinary procedure and that an instant dismissal without any right of appeal was lawful.

Now of course the "facts and information" as provided by the article in the Telegraph by well be false, inaccurate, and incorrect, but all the comments on this thread appear to be based on information provided by this article. So why then, does no one appear to be concerned by the suggestion in the article, that she appears to have had no employment protection rights.

As far as I am concerned, whether or not she was dismissed fairly, is of secondary importance to her apparent lack of employment protection.

Establish her basic right of appeal against unfair dismissal, [i]and then[/i] establish whether she was fairly or unfairly dismissed.

She was clearly being provocative and was bang out of order

How do you know ?

Ernie - it looks like she was on some sort of supply / pool contract - the sort of thing I am on. The flexibility that gives you works both ways - effectively its a contract of employment with zero minimum hours.

As for he being provocative - Just my reading of the story Her behaviour in offering to pray for the person and talking about miracles was really really wrong in a teaching context.

...really really wrong in a teaching context.

How can you possibly know the context in which it was said ?

Maybe it went along these lines.......at the end of a gruelling lesson in which the pupil had repeated struggled to get to grips with a particular problem, she might have concluded by saying, "Let's leave it there, and I'll say a little prayer for you later". To which the response might have been, "But I don't believe in all that nonsense". Which might have prompted the teacher to say, "You know, miracles can happen".

Or, she might have said, "You know going to hell, you thick bitch - unless I pray for your wretched soul "

Now I have absolutely no idea in what context the comments were made. But I don't accept someone saying that they will remember someone else in their prayers, is automatically an instant dismissal issue.

works both ways

In what way can having employment rights, be a disadvantage to an employee ?

Its the flexibility works both ways. My contract states zero guaranteed hours - I work as many of the shifts offered as I want. I am under no obligation to work, they are under no obligation to offer me work.

Clearly if I have the right to refuse work then its nonsense that they should have to offer me work.

I am guessing she was employed under such a sort of arrangement. There is a fair amount of this sort of arrangement in the public sector - teaching, nursing, social workers, medical staff.

As for her being over the top - as I said - thats my reading, There was no lesson, the "teacher" prayed for her and discussed miracles. Far more than offering a quick prayer.

I don't see how that "works both ways". According to the article they have [i]sacked[/i] her - they have [i]terminated the arrangement[/i], if you will. That seems very one way to me.

[i]"the "teacher" prayed for her and discussed miracles"[/i]

Well I'm not really bothered about that......they could have discussed the price of rice, the X Factor, and the weather, for all I care. The article said that the teacher had "no formal contract" and was sacked with "immediate effect". That bothers me.

But yes I agree with the need to be sensitive and respect other people's view

Super perhaps your brethren could stop ramming it down people's throats when they are in the house of an atheist and should be doing their job of teaching maths to our children ?

As for bikes it depends if someone asks my opinion I would share it. I dont feel the need to share it with them to save their soul or as some kind of mission or higher purpose.

Ernie - the point being that I bet her arrangements were similar to mine that I describe. Somewhere else its quoted "suspended pending investigation. I would be very suprised if it were otherwise

TJ - gambling is a sin... 😛

"her testimony about miracles and her offer of saying a prayer"

What's a teacher doing soooo wrong that she needs to pray for a miracle to get her pupil through an exam?!

That's what I'd be asking of the teacher.

It suggests either there's something else going on here we're not privvy to or the family are prize twa"s for actually reporting something so trivial.

A simple "No" would be all that is usually required. Mind you, have you ever seen a Born-again take note of "No"? Nope, nor I.

PS There's no mention of the 115 strong gospel choir that visited the families home later that day.

I bet her arrangements were similar to mine

But you've missed the point TJ - we're not talking about you. Nor whether you are happy with [i]your[/i] employment arrangements. For all I know, you might be perfectly content with offering BJs for the price of a can of strong lager.

I don't think anyone should be employed in Britain in 2009 without any sort of protection against unfair dismissal. Despite the fact that millions are.

And I missed the bit in the Telegraph article which said that Mrs Jones was sacked with immediate effect, but that she was fine with that, because she didn't feel the need for a right of appeal.

Hotfly.....

"I just think... "there's something amazing that they haven't got yet... I hope they do someday... there really IS more to life!" Can you live with that? "

Yup, I can live with that......I'm an atheist, if she came into my house and started banging on about religion and miracles and imaginary friends, and she was being paid to teach math,she would be turfed out pretty quickly. However if she had been invited in to talk about religion, that is an entirely different matter.

"But yes I agree with the need to be sensitive and respect other people's view." your words..... she wasn't being respectful though or being sensitive to other people's beliefs.

It is your choice to be a christian or not. The same way it is my choice to be an atheist. If I worked in a christian household I would consider it courteous and polite to keep my beliefs to myself and not attempt to foist them upon others, she failed to do that and has been suspended.

It's nothing to do with her being a christian, it's to do with her pushing an opinion that wasn't wanted whilst she was there being paid to provide a tutoring service that had nothing to do with belief.

From the BBC article:

Olive Jones, 54, from Weston-super-Mare, said the girl had been too poorly for a lesson. The teacher then decided to speak about her belief in miracles.

So the girl was ill but the teacher, after being told she wasn't needed decided to hold forth on her religious views instead. Not sure suspending her/sacking her was needed (unless this isn't the first incident) but she was out of order in forcing her views on someone who wasn't well enough to do the lesson that the teacher was there for anyway.

Forcing?

I often speak to people about cycling - I'm perhaps even evangelical about it. I imagine I can be seen as quite rude when talking about people that refuse to walk or ride anywhere and are overweight and unhealthy. I've converted a few to the world of cycling but others think I'm a bit odd.... Luckily no-one thinks I deserve the sack.

“I told the girl and her mother that there were people praying for them, and I asked the child if I could pray for her.

“She looked at her mother, who said:

r

so I did not pray.”

This is clearly a summary from the teacher's pov. It's not unreasonable (based on the family's reaction) to suspect that there was rather more to it than suggested by her. Atlaz's quote suggests that there was rather more to it too.

If it really was as little as she suggests then it's an OTT reaction. If the teacher was pushing her religion (and I'm sorry but this often happens even if it's not intentional - Hotfly's comments about 'not getting it [i]yet[/i]' show how easily this can happen even unintentionally) then the family have every right to be annoyed. We probably all get excited or even evangelical when talking about cycling but what we don't do (usually 🙂 ) is offer false hope of miracles and so on.

Further quotes from [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6861696/Christian-teacher-left-pupil-distressed-with-preaching.html ]here[/url]

"Mrs Jones was employed to teach maths but used every opportunity to discuss religion, despite the fact I made it clear we were a non-religious family and didn't want to talk about these issues in this way.

"On one occasion she asked my daughter to pray with her, my daughter was distressed by this behaviour.

"On another, after the death of my daughter's close friend, Miss Jones told my fourteen year old daughter that when young people die they go to heaven.

and finally

"The sessions with Mrs Jones became increasingly traumatic and we decided it was not appropriate for this woman to come to my home."

The more I read the more reasonable the family sounds...

Put it this way, you're trying to "convert" adults who can either bugger off or tell you to bugger off. She was proselytising to a sick child in their own home which is a different matter entirely.

People may not see it as offensive but it's very easy to cross the line. When I was 18 my best friends little sister was killed and coincidentally we had a religious studies (sadly not optional) meeting with some well meaning christian. He held forth for about 20 minutes using my friends family tragedy to explain how god moves in mysterious ways and we'd find out in the long run that her death would be for the betterment of us all. All in front of my friend I might add.

I'm not saying that this is the same situation but some people have such a blindness to any possibility that their religious views might cause offence that they blunder into situations that could easily be avoided.

FWIW - I think that a key issue in the family's complaint may be one of 'hope'. If you are atheists with a sick child you wouldn't really want somebody raising your child's hopes that a miracle might happen would you? I suspect that's where the distress may come into it!

"It’s not the despair; I can cope with the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand"