He heard some chatter going on outside the door. It sounded like Ms Cann had stopped to talk to someone and he could make out the muffled voice as belonging to Mr Sanders, his next appointment. For nearly two minutes, he sat there, unable to make out what they were saying, but he became agitated. He walked over to the door and swung it open. It was indeed the two teachers he thought them to be. ‘Mr Sanders. I believe we have an appointment.’
‘Oh yes, sorry, Mr Luxton. Ms Cann, I’ll talk to you later. We may indeed be able to be of service to each other.’
Soon Mr Sanders say in the office opposite him. He looked grim. ‘I wish to raise a further complaint against Rex Cassidy.’
Luxton sighed. ‘What’s he done this time?’
‘Yesterday, in class he made a fool out of me in front of my students.’
‘In what way?’
‘He tried to twist the words that I said. He tried to manipulate the word of God to portray his owned warped view of it.’
‘So how is that making a fool out of you?’
‘I... well he said things I couldn’t come up with good answers to.’
‘Yes, he’s good at that. Still, I don’t see what the problem is. If you were unable to answer his questions, then how is that an offence on his part? If he made your views look foolish, how is that wrong?’
‘He didn’t make my views look foolish! He doesn’t understand faith and he expects to look at the things of God rationally. You just can’t do that.’
‘This is a school, Mr Sanders and because it is a school, we expect our students to look at things rationally. We encourage them to be critical in their thinking and to be able to judge something based on its logical merits.’
‘But you can’t expect to understand God by using logic.’
‘Well I would say you can’t understand any abstract idea by using logic, but hold on a minute here, Mr Luxton. These children are not at school to learn about God. This is not the time and the place.’
‘But if they don’t hear it here, they may never hear it.’
‘That’s none of our concern as a school. We have a curriculum to adhere to here. It is not your place to preach about your religious beliefs.’
‘But it’s truth. We should be learning about it.’
‘It’s truth in your mind, however not in the mind of the board of education. I’ve got no problems with you starting a religious group outside of class hours or even during lunch time, but I want to make one thing very clear… preaching will not be permitted in classes. You have material to teach them. I ask that you teach them that material.’
‘But I do, Mr Luxton. It’s just that sometimes topics go a bit off track and everything I say always ties in some way with the lesson. Is it wrong to use examples?’
‘If it’s unsupported, yes. We deal in facts here, Mr Sanders, not opinion, conjecture and wishful thinking.’
Mr Sander’s eyes became piercing. ‘None of what I say is unsupported, opinion, conjecture or wishful thinking! What I say is from God’s word itself!’
‘Which can be taken many different ways depending on your perspective. Sorry, Mr Sanders, but the bible is not considered educational literature here. You have no evidence to support that your religious book is the word of any God. Would you expect us to start teaching from the Quran or the Baghavad Gita perhaps? No, you wouldn’t, in fact I’m sure you’d be horrified and up in arms about it, so please don’t try to push your religious beliefs onto me or our students. I will not have that.’
Mr Sanders steamed and continued to eye him coldly. ‘So you’re not going to do anything about the humiliation that boy has put me through?’
‘Frankly, Mr Sanders, if you start preaching in class, then you get what’s coming to you. I have no sympathy. If your beliefs are so feeble that they cannot stand up to logical scrutiny, then don’t try to force them down your student’s throats.’
‘My beliefs are not feeble!’
‘Keep them out of the classroom, otherwise you may find it’s not just one student giving you grief but a lot of parents, unhappy with you trying to convert their children. Not only that, but you’ll have me to deal with. Do I make myself clear?’
Mr Sanders snorted and nodded his head.
‘If Rex does anything else, anything that is disrespectful or out of line, come and see me and we’ll talk.’
Mr Sanders grumbled something inaudible, rose to his feet and left the room without another word.
Luxton sighed once again. ‘Why did I ever agree to take up this job?’