Religion in junior infants

realdanbreen

eviltwin wrote: »

I'm not blaming the whole Catholic church. I'm pointing out how religion can be harmful and why people may have very personal reasons for wanting to keep it away from their children. And then you wonder why people get so angry on threads like this ?

Oh please don't get angry. You post on here that your mother was/is more or less a nutcase and you then try to suggest that its the fault of the catholic church?.

eviltwin

realdanbreen wrote: »

Oh please don't get angry. You post on here that your mother was/is more or less a nutcase and you then try to suggest that its the fault of the catholic church?.

I'm not angry and I'm not blaming the church. Just pointing out how my personal experience with religion has been harmful and that's why I choose not to be involved in it.

purplecow1977

realdanbreen wrote:

Oh please don't get angry. You post on here that your mother was/is more or less a nutcase and you then try to suggest that its the fault of the catholic church?.

I don't think that's fair to say.
You can't deny some people are extremely influenced by the Church

MissFlitworth

realdanbreen wrote: »

Did you witness this incident? If so I'll take your word for it but do you think the catholic church has a monopoly on basket cases like this woman clearly is?

I'd say eviltwin was referring to this.

Rofling on the ground at the idea that a heavily pregnant woman should have physically fought her way past her Mother & 3 other people. Or pushed them through a window. And that there's something off about her story because she didn't. Hysterical!

eviltwin

realdanbreen wrote: »

How does that show it was 'with full support of her church'
The fault lies squarely with your mother and the other 3 who obviously had a warped view of life. As for ' over the course of two hours they wouldn't let me leave the house', unless they were carrying guns I would have driven Mother + her 3 buddies clean out through the nearest window,door, or whatever opening in the house.

The church backed her up. My mother is very active in her parish and we come from a small area where everyone knew she'd kicked her pregnant daughter out. No one condemned her. My mother is a woman I know now is probably mentally ill and I think that religion is harmful to people like that.

I was a very vulnerable, young teenager at the time, I had no self esteem to stand up for myself. I wouldn't stand for it now but at the time I felt I had no voice.

realdanbreen

MissFlitworth wrote: »

I'd say eviltwin was referring to this.

Rofling on the ground at the idea that a heavily pregnant woman should have physically foughtt her way past her Mother & 3 other people. Or pushed them through a window. And that there's something off about her story because she didn't. Hysterical!

When you calm down from your hysterics can you tell me how you know she was 'heavily pregnant' ? So you agree with these posters who seem to have relations,mothers ,cousins, friends of friends , who are clearly half mad to begin with, and hold clearly wrong and misguided religious beliefs, that because of a minority of nutcases like these religion should be banned from schools?

MissFlitworth

realdanbreen wrote: »

When you calm down from your hysterics can you tell me how you know she was 'heavily pregnant' ?

In the late 90's I had a baby outside wedlock. I came home one day a few months before she was born to find three people from a Catholic group with my mother, over the course of two hours they wouldn't let me leave the house and put huge pressure on me to have my baby adopted. When I refused I was kicked out and my mother hasn't spoken to me since. This with full support of her church. Religion is harmful.

Sounds pretty heavily preggers to me

realdanbreen wrote: »

So you agree with these posters who seem to have relations,mothers ,cousins, friends of friends , who are clearly half mad to begin with, and hold clearly wrong and misguided religious beliefs, that because of a minority of nutcases like these religion should be banned from schools?

I don't think religion should be banned from schools but I think the default should be secular and religious education kept to faith schools and churches. I don't think teaching a kid how to be Catholic has any place at all in the State educating them

frostyjacks

I don't remember the Church giving it's full support to this, I must have missed it.

Neyite

purplecow1977 wrote: »

Someone else mentioned sex education. We had a pair of women in to give such a talk to my students this year and I was impressed. The point they stressed was to wait for sex until they are in a loving and respectful relationship like marriage. I think this is pretty sensible. They didn't mention religion thankfully. .

Waiting for sex within marriage is a religious concept, and a rare and outdated one in practice. So while they may not have said "This is Catholic" its very wording is exactly Catholic. And waiting until they are in love or in a relationship like marriage is NOT sex education. It's putting a belief system on sex education.

I'm interested in the fact that it happened this year. They mentioned sex within marriage presumably before the Marriage Equality Referendum then? So presumably applied to only the hetro kids in the class. Was there any information that a gay student find beneficial - such as safe gay sex? Or did they gloss over that and ignore it the way they did back in my day too?

Did these two lovely women discuss condom use, other contraception including the morning after pill, coil etc, or any of those things? Did it cover even other social aspects such as sharing photos online, sexting, or any of the very real sexual trends that our teens encounter with their peers.

realdanbreen

eviltwin wrote: »

I'm not angry and I'm not blaming the church. Just pointing out how my personal experience with religion has been harmful and that's why I choose not to be involved in it.

Thats fair enough, but I still don't quite understand how some obviously disturbed woman standing on a pulpit talking hor$e$h1t was a 'personal experience' for you? Even it was surely you don't think that the other 95% who aren't affected like this should ban religion from schools.

MissFlitworth

realdanbreen wrote: »

Thats fair enough, but I still don't quite understand how some obviously disturbed woman standing on a pulpit talking hor$e$h1t was a 'personal experience' for you?

Obviously this is way off topic but it's not like she just slithered in the side door, shunted the priest out of the way and started raving. She was brought in, on purpose, to talk hor$e$h1t by an organisation that sees her story as one that people should hear, with the permission of the priest.

eviltwin

realdanbreen wrote: »

Thats fair enough, but I still don't quite understand how some obviously disturbed woman standing on a pulpit talking hor$e$h1t was a 'personal experience' for you? Even it was surely you don't think that the other 95% who aren't affected like this should ban religion from schools.

I didn't say that was a personal experience to me. And I'm not calling for religion to be banned from schools either I don't have an issue with religion in schools for those who want it.

purplecow1977

Not really. My mother isn't at all religious, nor is she Catholic, and always encouraged me to wait. Probably because she had me very young. I don't think encouraging young adults to wait until a loving relationship is Catholic based. I think it's pretty decent advice?! And I think no matter what I say you'll twist it to fit your own argument.





It was earlier in the year, back in December before proper referendum talk began.

I don't see how encouraging a child to wait until marriage doesn't apply to gay students also? Back in your day.... See again, clouding your judgement and refusing to believe that things can actually change!! It's more of a sex talk than I got when I was in school anyway!

. We had the guards in to discuss the social media side of things.

Anything else you'd like to pick apart?

Alf Veedersane

I think there is a point where it becomes more about the interpretation of The Church than it is about basic catholic concepts.

But a lot of people consider the school texts in isolation when a lot of the people that become religious zealots have outside influences, e.g. parents, who reinforce what The Church says.

When I think back to primary school, I remember two things about religion:

1) Always ending up as Andrew in any of the scenes we had too reenact.
2) That song that goes 'Love one another as I have loved you, This is what The Lord told his 12 friends to do"

To go back to the OP and what's taught in school at such a young age, you can
always balance what's taught solely about Catholicism in school yourself through explanations/answers to questions and the like.

lazygal

Neyite wrote: »

Waiting for sex within marriage is a religious concept, and a rare and outdated one in practice. So while they may not have said "This is Catholic" its very wording is exactly Catholic. And waiting until they are in love or in a relationship like marriage is NOT sex education. It's putting a belief system on sex education.

I'm interested in the fact that it happened this year. They mentioned sex within marriage presumably before the Marriage Equality Referendum then? So presumably applied to only the hetro kids in the class. Was there any information that a gay student find beneficial - such as safe gay sex? Or did they gloss over that and ignore it the way they did back in my day too?

Did these two lovely women discuss condom use, other contraception including the morning after pill, coil etc, or any of those things? Did it cover even other social aspects such as sharing photos online, sexting, or any of the very real sexual trends that our teens encounter with their peers.

I wonder why the school needed to outsource sex education as well. To whom did it outsource this important subject? How would follow up questions or issues be dealt with if sex ed is outsourced?

eviltwin

realdanbreen wrote: »

When you calm down from your hysterics can you tell me how you know she was 'heavily pregnant' ? So you agree with these posters who seem to have relations,mothers ,cousins, friends of friends , who are clearly half mad to begin with, and hold clearly wrong and misguided religious beliefs, that because of a minority of nutcases like these religion should be banned from schools?

I entered homeless services at exactly 8 months so yeah, pretty heavily pregnant.

Cabaal

purplecow1977 wrote: »

The problem lies in that many schools will give preference to Catholic students and request baptismal certs on enrolment.

Someone mentioned religion makes us 10% of the school day, I'd disagree 100% with that

I mentioned that religion makes up 10% of primary school time,
You can disagree all you want but the OECD says you are wrong

http://www.thejournal.ie/oecd-report-education-ireland-592683-Sep2012/

The OECD’s ‘Education at a Glance’ report says the average 7 or 8 year old in Ireland spends 10 per cent of their time in primary tuition being taught religion, while the average among the countries surveyed is 4 per cent, and the average among EU countries is 5 per cent

The 2014 report still has Ireland at 10% of school time spent on religion, we're not top of the league table though...a quick glance shows Israel is at 11%.

You're forgetting that religion links into art and English subjects very easily, in addition both communion and confirmation prep takes place at primary level. This is very time consuming and more or less whole school days can be based around it (case in point recent communion class went in the day after communion to school all dressed up for the day for pictures and activities)

Just to put religion into context, kids spend 12% of their time on maths!

SpaceTime

realdanbreen wrote: »

Oh please don't get angry. You post on here that your mother was/is more or less a nutcase and you then try to suggest that its the fault of the catholic church?.

It had been church policy for decades (if not centuries) to try to force people to adopt our kids born outside marriage.

The last Magdalene Laundry only closed in 1996.

I encountered a woman who had been in one and had a daughter in her 30s and it was actually blood curdling stuff.

The problem is that while things have changed, they've largely changed by default and by relaxation of dogmatic approaches. There was no "revolution" or dramatic change of policies.

This leaves space for extremism and zealotry in modern institutions and it's often protected by ethos rules.

Miss McNutjob may still end up saying crazy things in class, running her class room like its the 1950s (other than the corporal punishment bit), bringing in various external groups of fundamentalists to do little talks about morals and that can still be completely acceptable as "Aragh she's just a bit old school".

The fact that a lot of teachers don't fit this model anymore isn't system change, it's just a slow creep towards a more modern, open minded and secular approach to teaching by individuals.

You can be unlucky enough to encounter one or several Miss McNutjobs through your school days. If it happens in primary school you've 6+ hours a day for a full year with her!

That can cause a lot of stress, hurt and damage.

lazygal

purplecow1977 wrote: »

Not really. My mother isn't at all religious, nor is she Catholic, and always encouraged me to wait. Probably because she had me very young. I don't think encouraging young adults to wait until a loving relationship is Catholic based. I think it's pretty decent advice?! And I think no matter what I say you'll twist it to fit your own argument.



It was earlier in the year, back in December before proper referendum talk began.

I don't see how encouraging a child to wait until marriage doesn't apply to gay students also? Back in your day.... See again, clouding your judgement and refusing to believe that things can actually change!! It's more of a sex talk than I got when I was in school anyway!



They didn't. It is a single sex school so only focused on relevant to that sex. We had the guards in to discuss the social media side of things.

Anything else you'd like to pick apart?

Why would sex education only focus on one gender? Sounds a bizarre way to teach children about sex if only their gender is addressed.

eviltwin

purplecow1977 wrote: »

They didn't. It is a single sex school so only focused on relevant to that sex. We had the guards in to discuss the social media side of things.

Anything else you'd like to pick apart?

I know it's not exclusively a religion issue but we should be teaching kids about the opposite sex too.

Alf Veedersane

lazygal wrote: »

Why would sex education only focus on one gender? Sounds a bizarre way to teach children about sex if only their gender is addressed.

I think the poster meant giving it from one gender's point of view rather than focussing on one gender, per se, , which seems reasonable.

purplecow1977

lazygal wrote:

I wonder why the school needed to outsource sex education as well. To whom did it outsource this important subject? How would follow up questions or issues be dealt with if sex ed is outsourced?

It's quite a common thing. Our policy has not been updated in a while so it's habit that has continued. I've no issue teaching RSE to my students but at the moment I don't because of the outdated policy.

Also students of other religions regularly opt out of such a talk. Permission must be sought from parents first.

They are encouraged to ask questions at the time but afterwards I can try to answer any questions they have but otherwise they are directed towards their parents. Some questions I am not permitted to answer.

purplecow1977

Cabaal wrote:

Just to put religion into context, kids spend 12% of their time on maths!

Cabaal wrote:

You're forgetting that religion links into art and English subjects very easily, in addition both communion and confirmation prep takes place at primary level.

Cabaal wrote:

The 2014 report still has Ireland at 10% of school time spent on religion.

Nobody spends 30 minutes per day on religion. I spend almost hour and half on maths per day. I spend 30 minutes per Week on religion, if at all.

SpaceTime

eviltwin wrote: »

I know it's not exclusively a religion issue but we should be teaching kids about the opposite sex too.

That largely is a religious issue. Why do you think we still have single sex schools? They are hardly something being campaigned for by secularists and they're mostly a legacy of church teaching in the old days and paranoia about teen pregnancy in an era where condoms were banned for religious reasons.

They're extremely rare (and in some instances illegal) outside of Ireland and Britain.

I know a few people who have very bad attitudes towards the opposite sex because of abnormal notions that men or women are some kind of sex objects or are frightening.

Most people don't get those attitudes but a % definitely do.

Having to work with girls and boys from day one is very normal and healthy!

I've a bit of perspective having lived and gone to school on the continent and quite honestly, I hated moving here because of the school system.

It is still like Harry Potter meets the Nuns.

The uniforms, the religiosity, the disciplinarian rule bound stuff (standing in lines in the yard etc etc) was all totally alien stuff to me.

I spent a year asking if I could just move back and live with the old neighbours as I disliked school here so much.

Not a NSA agent

purplecow1977 wrote: »

Nobody spends 30 minutes per day on religion. I spend almost hour and half on maths per day. I spend 30 minutes per Week on religion, if at all.

That means you are under the average. Other people must be above the average to get the 10%.

lazygal

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I think the poster meant giving it from one gender's point of view rather than focussing on one gender, per se, , which seems reasonable.

But it's completely unnatural to only.focus on sex in terms of one gender. Loads of important things would be missed.

purplecow1977

lazygal wrote:

Why would sex education only focus on one gender? Sounds a bizarre way to teach children about sex if only their gender is addressed.

eviltwin wrote:

I know it's not exclusively a religion issue but we should be teaching kids about the opposite sex too.

They explained about the changes that occur in the female body. And how a baby grows over the 9 months.

They didn't explain the mirena coil etc but that is more suitable for secondary school in my opinion!!

lazygal

purplecow1977 wrote: »

It's quite a common thing. Our policy has not been updated in a while so it's habit that has continued. I've no issue teaching RSE to my students but at the moment I don't because of the outdated policy.

Also students of other religions regularly opt out of such a talk. Permission must be sought from parents first.

They are encouraged to ask questions at the time but afterwards I can try to answer any questions they have but otherwise they are directed towards their parents. Some questions I am not permitted to answer.

Who answers the questions you're not allowed to? What questions are teachers not allowed to answer?

purplecow1977

Not a NSA agent wrote:

That means you are under the average. Other people must be above the average to get the 10%.

So others spend 1hour plus per day in religion? Yeah. Sure!!!

purplecow1977

I am bowing out of this conversation now. It has run its course for me.