Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

The clip provides an insight into the philosophy and learning activities of a Quaker school in Tasmania. Peter Jones, who teaches a course on comparative religions, is shown in interview and with his students. Film of Jones’s classroom and the playground – where students douse each other with water in celebration of a Hindu spring festival – accompany his voice-over explaining how he provides students with knowledge of a range of religions. A narrator explains Quaker values and beliefs over footage of a woman meditating.

Educational value points

• Quakers believe that they should exemplify, in their day-to-day activities, the way communities can live together in harmony if actions are based on a belief that there is something good, or ‘of God’, in every person. As Jones puts it the world is made a better place by the little cumulative acts of ‘little people’. Jones is trying to teach his students these Quaker values as they learn about other religions and other ways of life.

• The clip explains the beliefs that are fundamental to being and living as a Quaker. George Fox (1625–91), the founder of the Religious Society of Friends – whose members are known as Quakers – taught that the responsibility for ministry lies with each individual rather than being mediated by a minister of religion. Every person must bear testimony to the values of peace, truth, integrity, equality and simplicity in the way they live their lives.

• The Friends’ School in Hobart, Tasmania, is the only Quaker school in the southern hemisphere. This coeducational prekindergarten to year 12 school has an enrolment of more than 1,200, making it the largest Quaker school in the world. Although few of the teachers or students are Quakers themselves, the School claims to uphold Quaker values. Founded in 1887, it was named by The Australian newspaper in 2004 as one of Australia’s best schools.

• ‘Fundamentalism’, a term used in the clip, refers in its broad sense to a strongly held set of religious beliefs that are adhered to rigidly and that openly reject any other beliefs. The term was coined in the late 19th century, referring to a religious movement within US Protestantism that espoused adherence to religious principles based on a literal reading of the Bible and seen as ‘fundamental’ to their faith.

• The school featured in the clip had its origins as part of the Quaker community that brought Quakerism to Australia. Two English missionaries came to Tasmania in 1832 and held the first Friends Meeting for Worship that year. In 1902 the first Australian general meeting was held. The School was originally financed by London Quakers and ongoing benefactors included the Cadburys, a notable Quaker family who later established a Cadbury factory in Tasmania.