Advice for child with RE exemption

happywithlife

MrPudding wrote: »

This is utter bollox. If the kids are capable of doing the homework then they should be able to. If the quality of the work that they are doing without parental supervision is not good enough, then the teachers can have a word.

I would guess that the only reasons for this are:

1 - Sour grapes. The teacher realises they are basically wasting their life, and know they are wasting there students time. They feel insecure because some of the parents have clearly copped on to how worthless their life's work is, so they are trying to make sure the kids continue to waste their time.
2- Some other parents, who have not copped onto the monumental waste of time that RE is, are having conniptions because some other kids has a perceived advantage over their little darling, or simply more sour grapes, because if they have to waste their precious watching Eastenders and drinking cheap prosecco time doing kids homework, then goddamn it so should everyone else.
3- The teachers (the one that have realised their lives are basically wasted) are concerned that allowing one kid to do something useful during what would be an otherwise completely useless, worthless, waste of even a child's time, could lead to the flood gates opening, and before they know it, there won't be any children left to infect with their nonsense.

I am sure there are more possible reasons, but reckon these are probably the most likely.

MrP

A who are you to state anyone is wasting their life?
But you are talking as if every 'RE teacher ONLY teaches RE - Which simply is not the case. The vast majority of 'RE teachers also teach other subjects - in some cases multiple other subjects

MrPudding

shopper2011 wrote: »

If you feel so strongly, why not home school?

Luckily I don't need to. When my kids were in Dublin they went to the French school, which didn't teach nonsense. In the uk we picked non-religious school, and now we are in France, so again no nonsense.

happywithlife wrote: »

When taught correctly it IS worthwhile! Nothing worse than ignorance!
You are better off making your point to our esteemed minister of ed than the lackey on the ground

What does it teach that is worthwhile that could not be taught without the wrapper of nonsense and fiction?

MrP

uck51js9zml2yt

PokeHerKing wrote: »

Why did you send your kid to a Catholic school if you/she had an issue with an RE class?

Why shouldn't he?
My son is in an RC school and doesn't do RE. He goes to the principals office and does homework.

MrPudding

happywithlife wrote: »

A who are you to state anyone is wasting their life?
But you are talking as if every 'RE teacher ONLY teaches RE - Which simply is not the case. The vast majority of 'RE teachers also teach other subjects - in some cases multiple other subjects

If you spend your life teaching a nonsense subject, which re is, then by definition, you are wasting your life.

MrP

happywithlife

MrPudding wrote: »

Luckily I don't need to. When my kids were in Dublin they went to the French school, which didn't teach nonsense. In the uk we picked non-religious school, and now we are in France, so again no nonsense.

What does it teach that is worthwhile that could not be taught without the wrapper of nonsense and fiction?
MrP

Empathy and respect for a start
Remember I said i teach 'RE- please don't confuse that for mere catechetics as you seem to be doing.

MrPudding

happywithlife wrote: »

Empathy and respect for a start
Remember I said i teach 'RE- please don't confuse that for mere catechetics as you seem to be doing.

Is that a clever little dig, or do you genuinely believe that empathy and respect can only be taught when wrapped in nonsense?

MrP

shopper2011

happywithlife wrote:

When taught correctly it IS worthwhile! Nothing worse than ignorance!

Couldnt agree more. Ignorance is the problem here.

MrPudding

shopper2011 wrote: »

Couldnt agree more. Ignorance is the problem here.

Please, do enlighten me and rescue me from my ignorance. Please tell me something that is taught in RE that can only be taught in the context of teaching children made up nonsense.

MrP

shopper2011

Mr Pudding

Everybody has the ability to hold strong opinions and beliefs. Your opinions and beliefs are as strong as some religous groups faith. To understand your beliefs is to understand why you behave the way you behave. To understand the Islamic faith and other faiths would give an insight into why they behave the way they behave.
Ignorance or lack of interest or empathy leads to misunderstanding, suspicion and fear. Fear can lead to violence.
RE is the study of Religion, not fiction.

To chose a lack of an understanding of other peoples strong beliefs or faiths. Even dismissing other peoples strong beliefs (you have strong beliefs too) leads to very bad places. History has taught us this.

looksee

shopper2011 - you are posting in the Atheism and Agnosticism forum. The argument from the forum side is that religion IS a fiction. That is basic to the forum and is going to be argued. All the rest of your argument could easily be turned round on you, indeed religions are much more likely to deal with each other violently on the basis of 'dismissing other people's strong beliefs'. History has taught us this.

PokeHerKing

MrPudding wrote:

If you spend your life teaching a nonsense subject, which re is, then by definition, you are wasting your life.

To be fair if you're happy then you're life is not wasted. You guys get fairly bent out of shape over a fairy tale.

Did you tell your kid about Santa or the tooth fairy?

Yous are as bad as religious nuts. Find more important things to get worked up about.

Hitman3000

shopper2011 wrote:

RE is the study of Religion, not fiction.

All religion is fiction and not particularly well wrote fiction if the bible /Koran/Torah is anything to go by.

GritBiscuit

PokeHerKing wrote: »

To be fair if you're happy then you're life is not wasted. You guys get fairly bent out of shape over a fairy tale.

Did you tell your kid about Santa or the tooth fairy?

Yous are as bad as religious nuts. Find more important things to get worked up about.

How much genital mutilation, homophobia and institutionalised child abuse have santa or the tooth fairy been responsible for? Not all fiction is equal...

MrPudding

shopper2011 wrote: »

Mr Pudding

Everybody has the ability to hold strong opinions and beliefs. Your opinions and beliefs are as strong as some religous groups faith. To understand your beliefs is to understand why you behave the way you behave. To understand the Islamic faith and other faiths would give an insight into why they behave the way they behave.
Ignorance or lack of interest or empathy leads to misunderstanding, suspicion and fear. Fear can lead to violence.
RE is the study of Religion, not fiction.

To chose a lack of an understanding of other peoples strong beliefs or faiths. Even dismissing other peoples strong beliefs (you have strong beliefs too) leads to very bad places. History has taught us this.

So just to be clear, does this mean you can't tell me something useful that is taught in RE that could not be taught without being wrapped in nonsense, or just that you won't?

MrP

dr.fuzzenstein

When I was a wee lad my School did have several options.
There was catholic and protestand RE and as an alternative there was ethics.
That was Germany in the early 80's. I am hoping that one day educational facilitis in Ireland might be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century (nevermind the 21st).

tedpan

Loved RE at school, it was a chance for everyone to either do their homework or doss.

kylith

shopper2011 wrote: »

If you feel so strongly, why not home school?

Because every atheist can afford to give up work and has the skillset to homeschool :rolleyes:

happywithlife wrote: »

Empathy and respect for a start
Remember I said i teach 'RE- please don't confuse that for mere catechetics as you seem to be doing.

And can empathy and respect (religion, respect :rolleyes:, can't even respect a child's desire to learn) only be taught in a religion class? Would an ethics class not be a better, more inclusive option?

Samaris

Religion as I was taught it was rather a waste of time, but it seems unreasonable to be having such a go at RE teachers, Mr. Pudding.

Firstly, as it was pointed out, many teachers have RE teaching as a side subject (and I have a massive bone to pick with teacher training in Ireland having the amount of focus on religious training that it does, but that's not the fault of individuals.) It's also pretty rude to go on about about wasting their lives, which was a bit all-guns-blazing for a personal opinion about a stranger's life based on very little info about them.

As for what can be taught in a religion class that can't be taught in other subjects, it depends how it is taught. An understanding of religions and culture is valuable compared to indoctrination in one religion and catechism and the rest of it. Morality and how morality is developed - often, but by no means invariably through a cultural lens heavily influenced by a religion - is also a valuable understanding (and might at least ensure people can identify a Sikh from a Muslim, which appears to be amazingly difficult to many people). How culture and religion combine to create elements of national or group identity and why various religions have not gotten on and even how different cultures have gotten different religious histories, mythologies and messages from ultimately very similar source material about the same. And indeed why some people don't believe at all. How certain power structures form, which is not restricted to religion, but it has a fair few examples.

I'm not saying that this is how religion is generally taught here, but they could be positives. Also not saying that it has to be through RE, there are elements of history, geography, liturature and whatever Civics is called now. But there is enough there that it would probably allow for scheduled time rather than shoehorning it into other subjects with their own timetables and topics to get through.

It would certainly be of more use than learning to drone Ar nAthair phonetically.


Edit; also the 'if you don't like religion, just homeschool' argument is tired, impactical and rather childish. Bring back Sunday Schools for dedicated How To Catholic teaching if you want and keep schooling in facts neutral.

smacl

shopper2011 wrote: »

Mr Pudding

Everybody has the ability to hold strong opinions and beliefs. Your opinions and beliefs are as strong as some religous groups faith. To understand your beliefs is to understand why you behave the way you behave. To understand the Islamic faith and other faiths would give an insight into why they behave the way they behave.
Ignorance or lack of interest or empathy leads to misunderstanding, suspicion and fear. Fear can lead to violence.
RE is the study of Religion, not fiction.

To chose a lack of an understanding of other peoples strong beliefs or faiths. Even dismissing other peoples strong beliefs (you have strong beliefs too) leads to very bad places. History has taught us this.

That's all well and good, but RE as taught in a Catholic ethos school makes the rather unfortunate presumption that the beliefs held by those of the Catholic faith are correct and those which are contradictory are incorrect. This leads to just the type of misunderstanding and bad will you're talking about. Worse still, RE taught in many religious ethos schools also includes elements of faith formation which is unreasonable to impose on those who are not members of that faith. As has been discussed and documented ad nauseam on these forums, this is a violation of the pupils and their parents humans rights.

uck51js9zml2yt

smacl wrote: »

That's all well and good, but RE as taught in a Catholic ethos school makes the rather unfortunate presumption that the beliefs held by those of the Catholic faith are correct and those which are contradictory are incorrect. This leads to just the type of misunderstanding and bad will you're talking about. Worse still, RE taught in many religious ethos schools also includes elements of faith formation which is unreasonable to impose on those who are not members of that faith. As has been discussed and documented ad nauseam on these forums, this is a violation of the pupils and their parents humans rights.

Parents who have their kids in RC schools who are not RC have a choice in most schools. Like me, they can remove their kid from the class.

As for whoever said all religions were fiction. Those of us who hold to a particular faith would disagree. I'd call that which I didn't agree with something other than fiction.

branie2

There were a couple of days in our RE class when the teacher made it a study class.

kylith

Samaris wrote: »

As for what can be taught in a religion class that can't be taught in other subjects, it depends how it is taught. An understanding of religions and culture is valuable compared to indoctrination in one religion and catechism and the rest of it. Morality and how morality is developed - often, but by no means invariably through a cultural lens heavily influenced by a religion - is also a valuable understanding (and might at least ensure people can identify a Sikh from a Muslim, which appears to be amazingly difficult to many people). How culture and religion combine to create elements of national or group identity and why various religions have not gotten on and even how different cultures have gotten different religious histories, mythologies and messages from ultimately very similar source material about the same. And indeed why some people don't believe at all. How certain power structures form, which is not restricted to religion, but it has a fair few examples.

If that was how it was taught I don't think there'd be any issues. Most people, I think, would agree that knowing about religions is a good thing. Unfortunately that's not how it is taught.

Marc Jolly Bullfrog wrote: »

As for whoever said all religions were fiction. Those of us who hold to a particular faith would disagree. I'd call that which I didn't agree with something other than fiction.

Well, what else can you call something with absolutely zero proof for its reality? Religions are real, their gods are fictitious, unless some new proof has come to light that I haven't heard about.

smacl

Samaris wrote: »

As for what can be taught in a religion class that can't be taught in other subjects, it depends how it is taught. An understanding of religions and culture is valuable compared to indoctrination in one religion and catechism and the rest of it. Morality and how morality is developed - often, but by no means invariably through a cultural lens heavily influenced by a religion - is also a valuable understanding (and might at least ensure people can identify a Sikh from a Muslim, which appears to be amazingly difficult to many people). How culture and religion combine to create elements of national or group identity and why various religions have not gotten on and even how different cultures have gotten different religious histories, mythologies and messages from ultimately very similar source material about the same. And indeed why some people don't believe at all. How certain power structures form, which is not restricted to religion, but it has a fair few examples.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that teaching morality in the context of religion is a very bad idea as we enter a post religious age. As a society our morality is no longer informed by religious dogma and as often as not runs contrary to it. Look at peoples attitudes to same sex marriage, abortion, contraception, etc.. versus those posited by the RCC for example.

As for emphasising the differences between religions in school via an RE class, you risk pigeon-holing groups based on their religious background which maintains polarisation. In the ET school my daughter attends there is no RE class, and there are a number of Algerian lads in her class. I suspect if there was an RE class they'd be identified as Muslim lads. In a multi-cultural society, do we really want to continue to label people based on their religious identity first and foremost?

splinter65

robindch wrote: »

Another option - much harder to manage and with an unpredictable outcome - would be to speak with the other parents or kids in the class, and as soon as class starts, all the kids take out an identical copy of Harry Potter or whatever and everybody starts reading peacefully and entirely ignoring the teacher.

Peaceful, polite, mass disobedience can be a powerful tool.

What about the parents who want their child to have RE?

MrPudding

splinter65 wrote: »

What about the parents who want their child to have RE?

Well, they can have it, so long as they stop whining when children with sensible parents, who have withdrawn them from the nonsense subject, are doing homework instead of being taught nonsense.

MrP

heldel00

MrPudding wrote: »

Well, they can have it, so long as they stop whining when children with sensible parents, who have withdrawn them from the nonsense subject, are doing homework instead of being taught nonsense.

MrP

(Ah MrP please stop signing off at the end of every post. It is very irritating. We know it's you!)

How often are RE classes in second level? Hardly every day are they?

GritBiscuit

Are you about to argue why RE is no big deal, having just made a deal about someone signing their posts off in a forum you are volunteering to read?

MrPudding

heldel00 wrote: »

(Ah MrP please stop signing off at the end of every post. It is very irritating. We know it's you!)

Ok boss. Whatever you say.

MrP

kylith

MrPudding wrote: »

Well, they can have it, so long as they stop whining when children with sensible parents, who have withdrawn them from the nonsense subject, are doing homework instead of being taught nonsense.

MrP

Aye. It is rather funny to watch parents and teachers having a hissy fit because some child is using school time to learn something rather than do RE. If you're concerned about the non-Catholic kids having an unfair advantage because they're doing maths then maybe have another maths class rather than religion?

heldel00

GritBiscuit wrote: »

Are you about to argue why RE is no big deal, having just made a deal about someone signing their posts off in a forum you are volunteering to read?

Not argument here. I'm just curious.