Primary School and Religious Education 3

Gerry T

The idea for this thread is coming from another I have been following. In simple terms the debate had an underlying theme with the participants split over this item.
If you could decide in the morning would you have religious education as part of the primary school curriculum in state funded schools. Not that religious eduction should disappear but if parents wanted their child to have a specific faith taught to them, like Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish... then parents would send their kids to after school classes for this.
My own position for what its worth is RE should be taken out of state funded schools, I would be accepting of a general RE class, which didn't favour one religion over another, and even Atheism should be explained.

littlemac1980

Personally I believe its impossible that children could be thought anything meaningful about human history and our society, without reference to religion.

I think its non-sense to suggest that could be done.

One would have to refer to the beliefs of Egyptians to explain certain things about the Pyramids etc. likewise one would have to refer to the differences in beliefs to explain certain historical events, omitting to mention them is omitting to educate.

Then the question is whether the Teacher could possibly convey knowledge about a certain religious outlook in an objective way despite their religion, and their own beliefs. The question therefore arises if its possible to ensure objective teaching where a teacher has any religion. Should all teachers therefore be athesist or agnostic?

In truth, my own view is that the distinction between Religion and Athiestism is artificial anyway, they are both based on a set of beliefs and a sense of faith, they just believe different things.

I think that people are entitled to have their children educated in accordance with their own beliefs. In a country where the state imposes certain standards of education, and requires attendance to state run institutions for the purpose of education, and imposes serious penalties for the breach of those obligations, then the State has an obligation to provide religious/belief education also which accords with the Parents beliefs.

The main issue that arises is that there is naturally going to be a clash between various belief systems, Religious Vs Non-Religious; Christian Vs. Muslim etc. but the State (as we all know) is not a perfect system.

So long as the State imposes obligations and standards regarding children's education, and effectively imposes itself in the education of children, then I believe that the State must also be involved in the religious education of the Children also.

Some people will no doubt say that the State should only concern itself with teaching scientific and academic topics, like Maths and Science and History etc. and religion can be left out.

I'm not gonna get into an argument about why Religion can't be left out of the overall category of what is "education" it simply can't - unless you have a very archaic understanding of what religion actually is, and well that's an entirely different debate.

Gerry T

I agree with a lot of what you say. But would look at some points from a different perspective. Yes religion is part of education, but is it the states responsibility or the parents ? I would contend that if a parent wishes to introduce their child to a particular faith then that's their responsibility not the state. Each "church" should provide "education" classes for the students to attend and the parents of that faith could fund those schools.
But on the other hand leaving out religion from state education is not practical as religion has been an integral part of many political and historical events. So it can't be white washed away. I would favour a general religious/civic's class which would give a student an appreciation of a religious ethos and history but without the indoctrination that typically happens in RCC primary classes, I'm not familiar with how Muslim primary schools in Ireland deal with this.

littlemac1980

Gerry T wrote: »

I agree with a lot of what you say. But would look at some points from a different perspective. Yes religion is part of education, but is it the states responsibility or the parents ? I would contend that if a parent wishes to introduce their child to a particular faith then that's their responsibility not the state. Each "church" should provide "education" classes for the students to attend and the parents of that faith could fund those schools.
But on the other hand leaving out religion from state education is not practical as religion has been an integral part of many political and historical events. So it can't be white washed away. I would favour a general religious/civic's class which would give a student an appreciation of a religious ethos and history but without the indoctrination that typically happens in RCC primary classes, I'm not familiar with how Muslim primary schools in Ireland deal with this.

I dunno - I didn't realise this was an Islam forum until after I'd responded. I just clicked the link from the homepage for something to do

Gerry T

littlemac1980 wrote: »

I dunno - I didn't realise this was an Islam forum until after I'd responded. I just clicked the link from the homepage for something to do

No problem, I'm not a Muslim either but this poll was posted in A&A and Catholicism to try get a balanced result. But it's only fair to ask the question in the Muslim area.

confusedquark

It boils down to how secular a country is. I'm sure the majority of devout Catholics would prefer Catholicism taught to their kids in school, whereas atheists would consider it a waste of tax payers money. With all of these things, majority opinion/consensus wins out.

Yes individual churches and parents do have responsibility to teach their kids about their religion, but there's a lot to learn in any religion, and most of us could spend years/decades learning and still not know it all, so devout Catholics would probably feel the more teaching their kids get from every possible source, the better. Same goes for Muslims in Muslim-predominant countries.

Ireland traditionally has been a Catholic country and if the majority of parents would prefer it on the curriculum, that's fine, once allowances are made for kids whose parent's don't want them to attend (eg spare study time). I choose not to live in a Muslim-predominant country, and in the same way I would prefer my kids to be taught Islam in a school if I was in a Muslim-predominant country, I don't have a problem with Catholicism being taught in state funded schools here.

I do also think covering the basics of major religions (and atheism) in school is important. It's a good place to foster tolerance and respect for other beliefs, which is essential for people to get along in a multicultural society.

katydid

littlemac1980 wrote: »

Personally I believe its impossible that children could be thought anything meaningful about human history and our society, without reference to religion.

I think its non-sense to suggest that could be done.

.

REFERECE TO religion is different from TEACHING religion.

katydid

confusedquark wrote: »

Ireland traditionally has been a Catholic country and if the majority of parents would prefer it on the curriculum, that's fine, once allowances are made for kids whose parent's don't want them to attend (eg spare study time). I choose not to live in a Muslim-predominant country, and in the same way I would prefer my kids to be taught Islam in a school

There is a difference between Muslim countries and countries like ours. The majority of the people may be Roman Catholic, but we are not a theocracy. The religion of the majority shouldn't dominated state financed institutions like education.

"Making provision" for non-Roman Catholics in schools is not good enough, as it makes those students stand out as different. They have just as much right to full participation in the educational day as everyone else, and nothing that takes place during school time should exclude anyone. Exclusion is the antithesis of education.

Any religious doctrine should be taught by the churches in their own time.