The Rite Journey

With Special Guests:

• Andrew Lines and
• James Adams.

Rites of passage and initiation into adulthood through ceremony and the passing on of wisdom from men to boys has always been a fundamental part of indigenous and tribal cultures but is strangely lacking in the West.

Andrew Lines is a high school teacher from South Australia who has devloped a unique boy’s education initiative which has evolved over the last 10 years. The program is called The Rite Journey and is implemented over a year in the school setting for boys around the age of 14 and is now being adopted in a number of private schools. There is also interest from the public sector. In looking at the racist, sexist and homophobic views that some of his students were expressing, and in the grip of reading Stephen Biddulph’s Manhood, he decided to question how this came about and found a lack of male role models, mentors and teachers in the boys lives.

“I believe The Rite Journey goes a long way to helping develop the health of the ‘future-men’ in our country by rediscovering human connection in this technologically saturated world… as well as creating a contemporary school-based rite of passage,” he says. “I have a dream that every boy in our country experiences the time-honoured tradition of a rite of passage… and I believe that providing such a process guided by caring, empowered and en-couraged male teachers in the school system is one way in which we can achieve this.”

The Rite Journey has been developed to provide for the absence of guidance into adulthood for young people in the western world, using the powerful tool of rites of passage and initiation.

“Traditional cultures did not assume children would exchange their connection with parents (and the corresponding norms of behaviour) for other appropriate connections and norms of behaviour without assistance. Rites of passage offered training that passed on core values, beliefs, and skills. The rituals solidified the new identity, helping individuals figure out how to function and fit into the community as adults. They also evoked a sense of awe and created a lasting and powerful image.”

“As a teacher with a keen interest in how best to guide adolescents into adulthood, it became clear to me that it was important to rediscover this essential process of human development and hence the creation of The Rite Journey.”

A rite of passage typically involves training, guidance, preparation, challenge, ceremony and celebration presented by same sex ‘elders’ in an endeavour to instil in a young person the skills and values required for responsible and respectful adult living within their community. As such The Rite Journey incorporates each of these elements to provide a contemporary, relevant experience for the 21st Century adolescent.

The training, guidance, preparation and challenge come by way of curriculum content that is presented throughout the year. The ceremony and celebration are created through the ‘hero’s journey’ framework which uses 7 steps (Calling, Departure, Following, Challenges, Abyss, Return and Home-coming) to provide a symbol rich and powerful process to help acknowledge the students’ journey into beginning adulthood.

The curriculum content of the program is delivered to the 14 year old student in lessons during year 9. Students spend up to three lessons a week working with their same sex Rite Journey teacher-guide to begin gaining an understanding of their relationship with themselves, others, spirit and the world. These four themes are dealt with throughout the 4 terms of the school year. Within each of these themes 5 outcomes are covered: Connection, Communication, Consciousness, Challenge and Celebration.

TRIBUTES

“The Rite Journey brings together the key concerns of initiating boys into fine young men, with its focus on the pressing concerns of safety, dealing with emotions, values, responsibility, and self awareness. It is dense in content and interaction, and uses powerful but simple ritual stages that will be long remembered and treasured. It builds community among fathers, mothers, and teachers which would otherwise have been absent, and from this strength offers boys a real chance to become parts of something larger and long term.

“Real manhood is about connectedness, not individualism, about giving, not self-centredness. There are lots of good programs about, but nothing I have seen that is so comprehensive, sustained over time, and potentially so life changing for the boys involved. That it is accessible for all boys, regardless of income or family circumstance, at what is traditionally a rather uninspiring phase of their schooling is wonderful news. It has potential for wide dissemination, turning a problematic time of life into a force for good.” Steve Biddulph, Author of Manhood and Raising Boys

“After 5 years of searching the world, we finally found a program that meets the developmental needs of adolescence on our own doorstep. Not only are staff and students reporting the tremendous impact of the program but parents are also expressing their gratitude for such a process. The program is creating a cultural shift in our college.” - Kevin Richardson, Principal of Immanuel Lutheran College

“In teaching The Rite Journey I have learnt what it really means to be a teacher of young people, it is so much more than teaching from a book, it is role modelling, it’s being there for the students when they need it. It has had a HUGE impact! One of the highlights was having some of my students not shake my hand at the Home-coming celebration, but giving me a big hug and thanking me in tears.” Teacher, Immanuel College

“The Rite Journey is already one of the best initiation into successful adulthood programs for adolescents in the world. It is therefore an honour and a pleasure to work with Andrew and Graham to make this program even better. My congratulations to both of them for such a fine trail blazing initiative.” Peter Ellyard, Author ‘Designing 2050’

“21st Century students are growing up in a world of risks and threats, one which the adults of today struggle to comprehend and respond to,” says Lines. “With the help of a school based rite of passage (a social process which has stood the test of time), some reconnection at the human level and the willingness to authentically share the skills for adulthood I believe The Rite Journey goes a long way to helping adolescents navigate their way through their transition into adulthood and indeed, life beyond.

A visit to www.theritejourney.com.au will help paint a clearer picture.

So too may a recent article in Teacher magazine - http://teacher.acer.edu.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43:professional-development-the-rite-way&catid=5:feb-08&Itemid=13

You can also listen to another recent interview on ABC Adelaide - http://blogs.abc.net.au/sa/2008/11/when-boys-becom.html?program=adelaide_afternoons.

For those who were expecting climate change sceptic and controversial author of the new book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming The Missing Science on this week as advertised we apologise and hope to have him on next week.

Following our tradition of tracking Australian family law reform closer than any other media outlet, this week we move on to talk to James Adams from Fathers4Equality about the issue of perjury in the Family Court. He argues that the common practice of making up allegations against the father in the Family Court is a form of child abuse.

In a recent press release Fathers4Equality argued that the Chief Justice Diana Bryant’s personal push to take out the perjury elements in the Family Law Act is a case of poor judgement.

He says: “The Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, has recently launched an extraordinary attack on Australia’s internationally regarded 2006 Family Law amendments, by writing to the Attorney-General and asking him to urgently repeal important provisions within the amendments.

“These provisions in the family law act were specifically implemented to reduce the epidemic of false allegations and parental alienation that permeate every corridor of the Family Law Courts, to the clear detriment of the innocent children caught in the cross-fire. But Bryant wants them removed, and fails to explain how the innocent victims of maliciously false allegations would be protected without them.

“What is more astonishing it seems is that unlike the parliamentary committee that recommended these laws in the first place, the Chief Justice has not consulted widely before making such an extraordinary intervention. In fact she has not consulted with any fathers’ groups at all. Rightly or wrongly, Bryant will now be perceived to have compromised views on this issue, denying her the opportunity to have played a unifying force in the process of family law reform in this country, much like the wasted opportunities of her predecessor.

“The two provisions Bryant wants specifically removed include:

- The order of costs, at the Judge’s discretion, against a parent who has been proven to have “knowingly” made false allegation in Court, and

- Unspecified actions, at the Judges’s discretion, against a parent who has purposely alienated or deliberately maligned the children against the other parent

These provisions have been specifically implemented to reduce the disturbingly common practices by some separated parents in making contrived and sinister allegations in Court against the other parent, and to otherwise engage in concerted efforts to destroy the relationship between the child and the other parent. This is done knowing full well the children will be irrevocably harmed in the process, both psychologically and emotionally. Yet it goes on and will continue to go on given human nature, unless we have laws to help it stop.

“So these are ‘good’, modest provisions designed to stop misguided parents from misusing the system and abusing innocent children.”

Adams says the measures to stop the blizzard of lies in the court were introduced only after extensive community consultation. “These provisions were agreed to by a bi-partisan parliamentary committee (both Labor and Libs/Nats) that went around Australia canvassing the views of all Australians for over two years. Finally this committee was so appalled at the extent of institutional abuse in the Family Court that it recommended measures to protect innocent children and parents who were victims of contrived allegations and parental alienation by spiteful ex-partners.”

“But Bryant wants to override the will of the Australian people and the will of Parliament, and to completely remove all disincentives against lying in the Family Court.”

Fathers4Equality also support this week’s release from the Shared Parenting Council of Australia which read in part:

Shared Parenting Council of Australia
PO Box 330, Gosford NSW 2250 Tel: 0411850677
Email: secretariat@spca.org.au

13 May 2009 MEDIA RELEASE

Abolishing the Federal Magistrates Court is ‘foolhardy and stupid’.

The Shared Parenting Council of Australia (SPCA) fully supports the position adopted by the Federal Opposition as outlined by Senator the Hon. George Brandis SC, Shadow Attorney-General in his speech delivered in the Senate today (13-May-2009) in which he calls the Rudd Government”s decision to abolish the Federal Magistrates Court a “grave mistake”.

The SPCA has long recognised the creation of the Federal Magistrates Court as one of the two most beneficial Family Law reforms benefiting all litigants who were previously tied up for unacceptable lengthy periods in court actions in the Family Court, at enormous emotional and financial cost, in a system that measured resolution outcomes in terms of years.

Under the Federal Magistrates Court, those determinations are now reduced to terms of weeks, effectively lowering the emotional and financial costs to parents and providing improved child outcomes on a massive scale.

“The fact that 79% of all family law cases are now dealt with in the FMC demonstrates the phenomenal success this Court has achieved in such a short period. One would be foolhardy and stupid to abolish a Court that has achieved such enormous success, providing swifter dispute resolution at a reduced cost and achieving better outcomes for parents and children”, Geoffrey Greene, spokesman for the Shared Parenting Council said today.

In 2003, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, in its report “”Every Picture Tells A Story” clearly believed that the Family Court had been a failure in delivering swift, low cost justice for parents and their children and therefore recommended the establishment of a Family Tribunal. That report was supported by both Labor and Liberal Committee Members, unanimously.

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