or, don't throw the baby out with the bath-water.
I read a post somewhere about how religion shouldn't be taught in schools, It was written by an atheist, was very well-written and thought-provoking, and provoked these following thoughts - (but now I can't find it, so apologies if it was yours.)
I'm an atheist but during teacher training, found to my surprise that RE is one of my favourite things to teach. It is great on so many levels, in one fell swoop you can engage children with all the big achievements of human culture throughout history - food, story-telling, ritual, art, ethics, philosophy. You can make them understand differences and similarity with other people, and widen their horizons (particularly good in a school like ours, where most of them are Muslim and have no contact with people of other religions), surely a good thing in these crazy troubled times. You can get them to think about right and wrong, good and evil, determinism and autonomy. (You can also dress them up as donkeys or angels, monkey gods or demons, which is always fun.)
I guess the point of this atheist was that faith schools indoctrinate children and that this is wrong, they should find their own way. Fair enough, though I went to a Church of England school, and despite daily prayers, always pictured God on a level with Santa and the Tooth Fairy
- as a fun story that adults liked to tell you, for reasons unknown. Children are independent in their thinking, they are not computers, little machines into which you input information.
And I'm grateful for that education, because Judeo-Christian mythology runs right through our culture, and I wouldn't be without the knowledge of that source - ever turned the other cheek, seen the writing on the wall, enjoyed Lord of the Flies or Highway 61 or the million and one books and plays and songs that reference the Bible?
But most of all, I would miss RE because of the stories. Rama and Sita - abduction, war, supernatural beings, monkeys, romance. Siddharta, a prince who had never witnessed disease and pain and death, chucking away his kingdom to go and find out about them. Jesus fighting Satan in the desert. God telling Abraham to murder his little boy as a test of faith. Villagers scaring away a dragon who preys on them with fireworks and the colour red. You can't tell me this is not good shit. It is strong stuff, and children can cope with it. And it beats the hell out of
Harry Potter.
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18 comments:
I agree.
Religion should be taught in schools with two provisos:
1. Everyone gets a go.
2. The 'story' rather than the 'this is all true, literally true' element gets the emphasis.
I agree. Some of the most memorable lessons I had at school were in R.E. thanks largely to a good teacher who didn't stop at the Judeao-Christian thing, nor even at Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism.
I'm an atheist now, but I had to struggle long and hard with my Baptist Church upbringing before I managed to shift a belief in the Christian God from my heart as well as my head. And that's really the difference, much as Billy put it. At school we were taught what the different religions say. In church we were taught to believe it. I agree that children are independent thinkers, but anyone who's told the same thing often enough, particularly if they're surrounded by other people who believe the same thing, will eventually come to truly believe it themselves.
I'm with billy
If taught in the right way, it can be culture, history and philosophy all in one. And hopefully tolerance.
Yah baby! You go girl - I love the end of that post! Wicked. Yes - Harry Potter is for the feable minded. Yayy for religion.
BS x
I loved RE, and studied it at A-level. I read English at university, but it was my study of religion that was most useful (much more so than my study of literature).
Two thoughts:
1. All children should be taught about religion (and that means all religions). It should be compulsory: parents should not be able to remove their kids because anything discussed in such lessons might contradict their own views (as, I believe, they are still entitled to do under the 1944 Education Act - correct me, Annie, if I'm wrong). This should also apply to 'faith' schools, and if it is discovered that they are failing in this respect (for example, offering misleading information about rival faiths) they should be closed down, and if necessary the responsible adults should be prosecuted for inciting religious hatred.
2. Schools can provide religious ceremonies, such as assemblies, if such practices are relevant to the student body, but these activities must stop at the classroom door. Religious instruction is for separate institutions (Sunday schools, etc).
Here endeth the lesson.
I've often moaned - mostly to myself - that philosophy isn't taught in (most) UK schools, as (I think) it is in French, German and Russian ones, as I think it's such a good tool for getting folk to think. But RE was the closest we came to it, and, apart from quite a lot of bible-bashing, it did also cover a gazillion other topics. I went to a Catholic school, which I loathed and despised, because my father was a fairly major Catholic, and we were certainly not encouraged to have any thoughts about Catholicism whatsoever, except that it was the dog's bollocks. Also, although this is a slightly different matter, I minded being at a Catholic school in England. It meant only meeting a tiny cross-section of people, being in a funny little Catholic ghetto. (Was I surprised when I got to university and realised that the most common surname in England was Smith and not Zbigniewicz.)
Anyway, yes, I'm all for teaching religion, though don't know where I am on faith schools, really. I lived with a Jewish(ish) family in France for a while and once, when the Nativity came up on TV, one daughter asked me, "Who's that Joseph geezer, then?" Coulda knocked me dairn wiv a fevver. In France, if you want religion in school, you have to seek it out.
Was it LC's Angry Athiest blog?
Oh dear - you seem to have whipped Bad Sarah into some sort of religious ecstasy - the smelling salts matron...
PS - kidding BS - you KNOW I respect your view!
Billy, right - but number 2 is trickier than you might think, when it contradicts what their parents are telling them... you have to tread very, very carefully. Very grateful we're not required to teach sex education at least...
For sure, Corin, but you did it - I guess where the conflict comes is when people start not to believe what they're been brought up to believe, and feel guilty about going against it. This is where faith schools make me nervous.
Anxious, tolerance is the main reason I wouldn't get rid of RE, it's also the best argument for mixed schools over faith schools.
Yay for Bad Sarah! Sar, I'm less hard-line about religion in my old age, I can see it has its place.
Lucky you Tim, I would have loved to study it. And you're right, I had a Jehovah's Witness kid who went home during RE lessons. Also had to be sent out if any of the others were celebrating a birthday, poor little bugger. Birthday cakes and candles are evil and wrong, you know.
Number 2 is plain odd. What is the difference between a religious ceremony in assembly or in a classroom?
Interesting, BiB - did you always disagree with Catholicism, even when you were little? Not sure if the French system is better - (they also lopped off the heads of their aristocracy and go on strike every 5 minutes) - does pretending something doesn't exist give children an accurate idea about the world?
Annie, aha! I think you're right - can't find the link to it though.
Em - don't tease the Bad Sar, she'll be in heaven laughing at us whilst we're being tormented by demons wielding pitchforks.
LC deleted his atheist blog along with his last blog, sadly.
Um, I think I've been anti-church since I realised god was - for me - categorisable with Santa, tooth fairies and other things that you were allowed not to believe in. When I was told god was a fact, I didn't question it. Well, until I did start questioning it, which, hopefully, education provoked. Until that point, church had been a necessary (I thought) evil. Still, I liked the singing. (And still love the Orthodox church. Much better theatre.)
For 2 years in 2ndary we did Christianity and Judaism in RE. The 3rd year was comparative religion and that was far more interesting. 4th and 5th years were "moral discussion" - they stopped trying to drum the god-stuff into us and tried to make us think about morals and ethics on a personal level.
I view modern religions on a par with Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Norse mythology. 1. They are all just stories trying to make sense of the world with the addition of code of conduct to help us live with our neighbours (and sometimes related to hygiene and food safety).
2. They have gods created in our own image and in the images of animals and compounds of the two (apart from one or two that speak in terms of essences and life-forces).
3. In time, they all fall from favour and something else comes along.
I'd rather be a good and tolerant atheist than a nasty relgious fanatic harming those who don't share the same beliefs.
I come from a place where the teaching of relgion is nothing more than having a go at the other side. I am keen that my children know the background, as tim said, be taught ABOUT religion, but there aren't many enlightened and balanced RE teachers here.
Shame. BiB, right, the theatre is one of the reasons for hanging on to the whole thing too. What a dull world without stained glass, candles, silly priest's hats, scrolls, wine quaffing, etc etc etc...
Llewtrah, you're a woman after my own heart. I wonder what will come next though... It's taking a long time for the big three to fall out of fashion. (Who wants to take bets on Gaia?)
Realdoc, hmm, very interesting point. If it comes down to just propaganda in schools, maybe it would be better to get rid of it.
Sorry I'm late.
I agree with everything everyone said.
Excellent post.
This sound flip, mostly because it is, but also because it's late and I need to let you know I appreciated reading this and now I have to go to bed before it gets any worse.
Looks like paganism is on the ascendant and we'll have a return to earth-based beliefs. We're too cynical for (more) prophets and all the environmental issues point at respecting, and then revering, the earth.
Thanks Mangonel - so you have to teach Sunday School, yikes! the Chinese term for 'teacher' can equally well be translated as 'liar-to-children' Ha! will have to remember that.
Llewtrah - Gaia it is then!
One of my friends created a cult (at work at least) with religious potential when he accidentally wrote the Book of Aeth
It strikes me as being as good as any of the others on the market!
verif: ombow
ommmm! ommmmm! bows.
Marvellous! I urge anyone reading this to click on that link. V funny, Llewtrah.
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